“I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.” WM Paul Young, The Shack.
I have experienced some deep hurts in life, and most of these came from people that I trusted and loved. These moments of hurt created wounds that hung around for a bit. Wounds that people would rub up against, and that old pain would come rushing to the surface again.
This tends to happen in community. Community can be like squeezing a sponge, whatever is on the inside will come seeping out. If you dip a sponge in muddy water then squeeze, clean water can’t come out.
And honestly, sometimes community just flat out stinks.
It causes you to collide with these past hurts, and forces you to deal with them. Simply putting a band-aid on them will no longer suffice.
Here is what Father has spoken to me so far about this process, and how I would walk through healing in the valleys:
In Ezekial 37, Ezekial writes that “The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them.”
God didn’t take him to the mountaintop, or to the ocean. But the valley. To a place that represented death, and despair. And often that is where He takes us.
A huge part of my journey so far has been letting Him do the same with me. Getting in His presence, and letting Him lead back into the valleys of my past.
I hear Him calling “You have to go back. You have to stand inside of this valley. You have to see I was here, so close. And when you find Me there, it will change everything.”
I want to push away, to run. That would be so much easier than having to relive moments that broke me down farther than what I could handle.
But there is a whisper that is stronger than my will to leave, because the whisper knows what I know: I can leave, flee from the hurt, and run to what is comfortable. But ill still come back to the valley empty-handed and tired.
The whisper calms me.
It sends waves of stillness down deep into the pits of my soul, places that seemed cold and distant. Saying, “Stay. Just stay for a moment. Something is happening in the valley, something is stirring. Things are being repaired and released.”
So, that is what I did. I began to revisit those old friends, those moments of agony and hurt. And in those times, I would just sit. I would ask Holy Spirit to fill the room. I would see Jesus, and begin to ask “Where were you in those moments?” And the answers I got caused old bones, old wounds, to stand up and breathe with new life.
“I was there, in the corner of the room, fighting for you. Surrounding you. Not for one second have I ever left you, or turned my head. And I am sorry you got hurt. I am so sorry. Hand it to me, let me take it. Ill take it.”
Moments that once filled my story with pain and hurt, now spoke to hope and restoration. Moments that brought out anger that could kill now solicited forgiveness and grace. Because He was there, and where He is redemption lives.
Like the dry bones in Ezekial, life began to spring up from dead moments. I felt a new depth in my spirit come alive. A newness propelling me deeper into my identity, deeper into His heart for me. And the greatest part of it all is that He has used community to foster that healing. Community, the cause of so much pain. Now restored, and made right in my eyes.
This is what community does.
Community causes you to come face to face with pain, and learn how to deal with it.
You can only hide for so long around true community, masks don’t last long in the presence of Holy Spirit.
In true community, you cannot outrun your destiny. My destiny is to understand how loved I am, and that I am perfect in His sight. To manifest Jesus in every moment of my life, and testify to the greatness of redemption and grace found in Him. And that happens when you begin to let Jesus speak life into the depths of you soul, those places that have been buried for far too long.
Because one encounter with Jesus is all it takes to make things whole again.
So, don’t run from community. Plant your feet, open your arms wide, and let it all come crashing in. The pain, the hurt, familiar wounds. And let Jesus do what He does best.
