Oh how I hate splinters!!! It’s amazing how a little sliver of a piece of wood or metal can cause so much pain and agony. And sometimes, we get one and forget about it until…… a little later, that same little sliver is now infected and presenting potential medical issues when an infection gets really bad.
Forward Friday walks into our world when the wounds in our lives run deep. Sometimes, the pain seems to never leave or there are times when the pain resurfaces, almost surprising us but the pain is just as acute. There may not be a one size fits all answer to every wound or pain but there are some things that can help us walk through the moments.
Let's Get Into This:
Ever put a Band-Aid on a wound that needed stitches instead?
A colleague of mine recently decided to take a leave of absence. We’ve become friends over the past 3 plus years and he is a prince of a guy.
Helpful, resourceful, kind, accommodating and more.
As we chatted about his leave, I asked him how he felt it would go and what he was going to do over the period of time he would be away.
He said that felt comfortable enough to actually tell me the actual reason why he was taking the leave.
He was going to help his brother get back on track and move forward with his life.
He then said that he couldn’t take losing another brother as his younger brother succumbed to drug use and lost his life.
He was feeling guilty that maybe he didn’t do enough to help his brother change his life so he wanted to do everything he could, including leaving his job to help him.
But the guilt of losing his other brother weighed and continues to weigh heavily on him.
We had the privilege of praying with him and encouraging him as he embarks on this adventure to aid his brother but the wounds run deep.
Letting go of the past can be challenging. There are events that we have found difficult can have a significant influence on our daily life, from our beliefs to the decisions made.
I know that some things are hard to let go of things like:
-The pain of Intimate relationships lost or disrupted.
-Perceived successes or failures
-Mistakes or regrets
-Life events that were/are upsetting or disturbing
Bad Movies Seem To Run In The Mind Too Long:
Many times, we find that bad experiences stand out in the memory more than good ones. They invade in our consciousness when we do not want them to.
Unfortunately, research has shown that bad memories seem to be more vivid than good ones, possibly due to the connection between the emotions and the memories. So much more so when the emotions and memories are negative.
It seems as though the stronger the emotions associated with the memory, the more detail we seem to recall.
It reminds me of a horrible experience with a former principal in one of my former schools. The 18 month interaction was so bad that for a few months after leaving, when the phone would ring in the morning on the way to work, I would jump, remembering some of the awful calls I would get from this principal on the way to work. And it happened many times over.
So……. There must at least one thing we could put into our tool box to help us if we are dealing with deep wounds.
One Of Those Things Is……Patience
An important aspect of emotional healing is patience.
We do know that picking at a wound isn’t the best thing to do because if we pick at it, it won’t heal.
If we don’t rest a strained muscle, we risk further damage.
The same is true of those traumatic scars that we have.
Slow down and give ourselves real time to heal.
We cannot put a deadline on our progress.
The choice to take a first step towards healing our emotions can be made at any given moment.
But it really takes time to heal deeply rooted suffering.
Rushing ourselves will only result in more distress.
Instead, as one of my coaches would say, breathe and continue to encourage ourselves.
Every little step taken towards healing our mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds is always a step in the right direction.
"The Wounds Run Deep. The Pain Is Almost: Unbearable. But That We Can’t Just Curl Up And Die. No Matter How Hard, Things Get, Somehow, we’ve got to try To Keep Moving Forward."
And…….There’s Always Good News
We all experience pain in life, whether emotional or physical pain. No pain is alike, we must all walk the journey and path that has been set out for our lives, yet God promises that there is a purpose in all pain.
We can still move forward each day knowing that God loves us and can use the hurt and pain that we’ve experienced somehow for good… Even when it doesn’t quite make sense.
Please don't give up hope, God has so much more for your life!
Sometimes, the wounds come in the form of things like:
Neglect – I am unimportant
Absence – Divorce, separation, death
Abuse – Mental, physical, sexual, spiritual
Control – Oppressive domination
Withholding – Love, blessings and/or affirmation, deficiencies that lead to a profound lack of self-acceptance.
What’s crazy is that these wounds sometimes have us saying some ultra-negative things about ourselves.
I am unworthy
I am incompetent
I am unloved or unlovable
And when we start talking like that or really thinking like that, we can think things like:
I am not good enough
I am guilty/shameful
I must work harder to justify myself
It’s crazy but if we don’t get the help we need to work through those wounds, we can tend to cover up the pain in all sorts of ways.
But the good news is that God loves us and we don’t have to walk the road of life on our own. It’s good to know that:
God’s heart is always turned towards us, especially when we are in pain
Accepting the truth about one’s Self as a child of God
-God is a gentleman and waits patiently for us to turn to Him
-When we turn to him, He accepts us unconditionally
-He loves us first
-We are His beloved creation
-He wants relationship with us
Jesus Heals:
-When invited into our story, He comes
-When He comes into our story, He is gentle, kind, caring, loving, warm, friendly, accepting and healing.
-When you understand His love, we can receive His love and when that happens, we can really believe these things:
-We are accepted
- We are chosen
- We are loved
- We are God’s creation
- We are precious in His sight
- We are forgiven
- We are been redeemed
-We will never be left or forsaken
-We have an eternal inheritance
-Nothing can separate us from the love of God
Wounds that are deep are never easy to work through but knowing that even more than a friend, spouse, family or counselor to support us (which is good and great), God loves us so much that He wants to enter into our story and help us, heal us so we can walk a little better, smile more, and find joy and hope as we walk the road of life......
Walking the road with you……..
Dave
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