Breath in.
Breath out.
Step forward.
Keep going.
Walk through the pain.
Keep going.
A broken ankle, “Just give it time. It will heal.”
After years, you learn to walk with the limp. It no longer phases you. The pain, is now tolerable. You aren’t nearly as mobile as you used to be, but when you cannot remember a time it didn’t hurt, you stop to care. Turning down invitations no longer brings you to tears. You hardly notice the cane anymore. “I’m used to it.”
Sleep, company, and drugs keep you numb, bringing relief in small enough increments to keep you going. Its all okay. You’re fine. You don’t care anymore that this is your life now.
I have never broken a bone, but I do know, that if I ever did, the first thing I would do is call a doctor. Time would not heal a bone that needed to be reset, cast, and elevated for two weeks. I would not accept that I would live with the pain, “to some capacity for the rest of [my] life,” and I 100% would not walk on it.
The same is true about the heart. The same is true about the mind. We accept readily the help of a doctor for the brokenness of our bones, but for some reason its taboo to accept the help of a Doctor for the resetting of our hearts.
This reality is where I’m at right now in Heart Camp, and I am being lead into healing—I believe complete healing—by our Great Physician. I am learning more and more, that our habits and hurts do not have to stay with us. God said clearly in His word that those who are free are “free indeed” not “free, maybe” or “free sometimes” or “free until” but just free. He is teaching me lately, of his good and gracious nature. That pain does not have to define my heart. That I can live in wholeness.
He is walking me, currently, through two books. One, being God Loves Ugly by Christa Black Gifford, and the other being The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. Both books, speak so much about the goodness of God. How He does not delight in suffering. For much of my Christian walk, I have heard repeated that “God is just teaching you to be more like Him through this pain,” or “God caused this pain so that more people can be saved,” or “God is just testing you.” And not to be blasphemous, because there are tests and trials that come, but that will never speak to my broken heart when it has experienced trauma, and it won’t speak to another broken heart when there has been a loss, a death, a rejection, a disappointment.
God is good. And that cannot be altered to fit my current circumstance or pain. He is always good. I have been learning to sit on the other side of the table, and instead of partnering with the accuser to ask God, “Why,” (as Paul warns us not to do, and I have done anyway, time and again) to sit with Jesus and say, “Walk me through this.” The way I see God is a window into everything, and has been allowing me to see myself in His eyes, rather than under His microscope.
I have been learning, maybe a bit redundantly, and maybe I’m just now getting it, in the silence of my big red chair, that God grieves when we grieve. That He is good. That every good thing comes from Him. Even in the moments when I fail, and I fail often, He is not ruling with an iron rod of shame and guilt and, “You’re such a failure. Why can’t you do better?” He is a pillar of grace—a merciful teacher. And in the moments that I have fallen short, He has been teaching me to just ask and be thankful, just like it says in Philippians, and to allow Him to make amends of my mess, giving Him glory and honor in the process.
“God, I failed. I missed that appointment. I could have done so much to avoid that, but I didn’t. I fell short. I could really use some favor, some grace, walking in that class today.” This actually happened. I did miss an appointment, and rather than walking into a punishment, I walked into grace. I am convinced that it was because Jesus heard me, and has been teaching me this lesson.
He has been teaching me from Acts 3:19 (which I am excited to say I can type from memory at the moment) that says “Therefore, repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” He has been overwhelming me with that refreshing. That symptoms in my life may be present but He is making all things new. He is bringing old hurt and pain up to the surface so that it can be healed, and the coping behavior it came with can now be removed and I can be refreshed in His presence. That I may love better. Live better. Serve better.
It is incredibly humbling to understand the grace you have been given. It teaches you to give grace, and give it abundantly a lesson I am still learning, ’cause lets face it, I am far from perfect and the closest thing I will ever get to perfection is being sanctified by a perfect Father.
I am learning that healing is a daily process, but not an endless one. I am learning everyday to allow Jesus into my heart in that moment. It’s not a blanket statement of “you’re allowed in here.” It is an everyday, conscious decision, just like the love my parents have for one another is an everyday conscious decision to let each other in, and love each other into wholeness. Everyday, I must allow the Father to love me into wholeness.
My heart will not heal with time alone, and the symptoms and ghost pains I have felt over the tiniest of wounds will not be felt into my old age. They will be removed as quickly as I allow God to have them and as redemption has made me whole, daily and finally. I pray that this lesson would be contagious in me. That what He is teaching me in the dark, He will also allow me to proclaim in the light. That the life He is producing in me would birth new life in others. That I would stay madly (more madly) in love with my Maker, and that that love would give root to new life.
