One thing I've discovered about healing. You can't hurry up the process. If your bone is broken, you can't wish it to be whole immediately. You can't baby it and pamper it and cause it to be strong again "right now". You can't ignore it like it never happened and immediately run a 3K. You can't use your will, or your determination, or your control to fix a broken bone this very moment. Healing takes time. It takes patience. It takes endurance. It takes faith.
Brokenness can happen in a myriad of ways -- financially, spiritually, emotionally, physically, relationally, vocationally. And brokenness always … always … always is painful. There's no getting over that fact. The amazing part is that brokenness usually happens with one swift strike. There's an immediate break, an instantaneous crushing, a ripping apart.
Here's what I've learned in my own brokenness. When it happens, my first instinct is to cry out to God to fix it, to make it better, to repair it. I want the pain and sadness to be over and for life to be comfortable. I want to feel happy, to feel good, and I usually have a plan of action that I think God should take for that to happen. God has more going on than just the circumstances around me though. I've learned that oftentimes something within me needs to be conquered before He will work on the obstacles before me. So, the healing seems to veer off track (according to me) and God takes His time working in me, takes His time in dealing with those chains.
He knows me. He knows what I need even when I think I know what's best.
This is the time that I've learned to step back, to look to God's perspective rather than mine, and trust Him in what He's doing -- even though I'm grieving, or hurting, or confused, or not understanding. Either I believe Him … or I don't. It's always a choice.
If I don't embrace His lessons, if I don't allow His slow healing process and my transformation, then that brokenness can be a waste. The chains of wounding continue to hold me captive. Honestly, I can't afford for that to ever happen again with me. Instead, I enter into the furnace of surrender and allow Him to remove all the impurities that have floated to the surface. He transforms my loss, my brokenness, my grief into wholeness, into blessings for others, into new life for me. Slowly. Over time. Sometimes in imperceptible ways. But surely.
The amazing thing? While I'm surrendering to Him, while I'm looking to Him for how to live this life after the brokenness, a miracle is happening. Healing is taking place. It's not all at once. It's bit by bit. It's conquering old feelings of doubt and pain. It's covering up old memories of grief and brokenness. It's allowing my mind to be renewed by His Word and learning to look to Him in the midst of all of it. It's allowing Him to love me and loving Him in return. It's knowing that God is working within me, around me, through me and for me. God knows what He's doing … and there's great comfort in that for me. He's working … and I'm healing.
My amazing Father in heaven breaks the chains of brokenness to set me free. How my heart longs to be free … and how His heart longs to set the captives free!! He's my Jehovah Rapha -- the God Who Heals.
"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36)
Some wounds are death blows. They run deep and it seems there's no way to recover. The wounds become like chains that hold me down. I get frustrated with the progress (or lack of it). I get impatient with myself. God specializes in all kinds of healing, but especially those that are the deepest wounds. The bigger the chains, the more incredible His work. He longs to set me free, to heal me.
Here's what I've learned in my own brokenness. When it happens, my first instinct is to cry out to God to fix it, to make it better, to repair it. I want the pain and sadness to be over and for life to be comfortable. I want to feel happy, to feel good, and I usually have a plan of action that I think God should take for that to happen. God has more going on than just the circumstances around me though. I've learned that oftentimes something within me needs to be conquered before He will work on the obstacles before me. So, the healing seems to veer off track (according to me) and God takes His time working in me, takes His time in dealing with those chains.
He knows me. He knows what I need even when I think I know what's best.
This is the time that I've learned to step back, to look to God's perspective rather than mine, and trust Him in what He's doing -- even though I'm grieving, or hurting, or confused, or not understanding. Either I believe Him … or I don't. It's always a choice.
If I don't embrace His lessons, if I don't allow His slow healing process and my transformation, then that brokenness can be a waste. The chains of wounding continue to hold me captive. Honestly, I can't afford for that to ever happen again with me. Instead, I enter into the furnace of surrender and allow Him to remove all the impurities that have floated to the surface. He transforms my loss, my brokenness, my grief into wholeness, into blessings for others, into new life for me. Slowly. Over time. Sometimes in imperceptible ways. But surely.
The amazing thing? While I'm surrendering to Him, while I'm looking to Him for how to live this life after the brokenness, a miracle is happening. Healing is taking place. It's not all at once. It's bit by bit. It's conquering old feelings of doubt and pain. It's covering up old memories of grief and brokenness. It's allowing my mind to be renewed by His Word and learning to look to Him in the midst of all of it. It's allowing Him to love me and loving Him in return. It's knowing that God is working within me, around me, through me and for me. God knows what He's doing … and there's great comfort in that for me. He's working … and I'm healing.
"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36)
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