because time won't heal

There is no desire to ease into conversation today.  There are occasions when before delving into the depths of a hard topic one will attempt to soften their audience, like the pleasantries exchanged in a phone call or meeting before the desired point is finally mentioned.  Then there are times when you are talking with someone so familiar that the hard and deep is what comes up first so that the way is cleared for the pleasant things to come at the end, if there's time, and if there's not no harm is done because you know conversation will be happening again soon.

You are my familiar friends, and though I love the pleasant that can come up, I am more resolved now to dive straight down.  Every word written and every post shared is in a desire to say things out loud. To give voice to distress, to longings, to hurts, to doubts, to love, to comforts, to peace, and to Hope, in a desire to encourage and let you know that you are not alone.  This remains true even if the audience is one person.  If just one understands God in a truer way, sees the love of Christ in a purer way, feels guidance from the Spirit in a more familiar way then it is a job satisfactorily done.  Just one sheep.  It's what Jesus said the shepherd would leave every other one for, if I can not be satisfied with the same then I am not following after Him.

Hurts have been center stage in many conversations with others recently yes in my life but also and mainly in the lives of many others.  Past ones resurfacing ripping open once thought-to-be-healed wounds leaving doubt and forcing reflection, present ones causing new wounds not delicately made, and the knowledge of future ones that will come because they are just impossible to avoid when certain life situations occur.  As no two lives are the same, no two hearts are the same and therefore no two hurts will be either, but the same Truths can be applied.  While the majority would always say they are rooting on the side of these same Truths, somewhere along the way we each may fall victim to the same lies as well.

For you and for me and for anyone else we come in contact with, lets talk about those lies, get them out in the open, shine the spotlight of grace straight into their ugly faces, and see Truth always instead of them.  Today there is a specific one I want under the heat of the lamp.

Time will not heal your wounds.

Though the saying has been around since the days of Chaucer, as he is the one credited for this somewhat well meaning string of words, it only takes a quick google search to see that while it is flippantly and maybe sometimes lovingly spoken to encourage or written in fancy script to decorate a wall, it--in my opinion and the opinion of many many others--is a lie that not only does not help but causes further hurt.

Time is only a manner in which we track how long a process is taking.  It aids our finite minds in keeping a count of the comings and goings of minutes, hours, days, months, and years.  Time on it's own produces nothing.  If we allow time to heal, what we are truly doing is sitting and waiting for a group of measurements to take away pain.  Believe me I understand what the saying means, but what I want to encourage you to do is look past a set of words strung together for a brief pick me up and instead focus deeper on what truly brings lasting healing.

When our bodies are scratched, bruised, and broken it does take time for them to heal but time is not what is healing them.  I have watched a cut on a finger more than once bleed, scab over, and then disappear as if never there.  Time did not heal that scratch. The amazing properties God gave our skin to replenish itself healed the mark.

If badly injured you wouldn't just wait for time to go by hoping for it to get better.  Waiting can cause your injury to become more severe.  Infections can set in, diseases can spread to others, symptoms can worsen, a small cold can progress into a life threatening illness if left untreated.  Letting time pass without assistance can do much damage.

Our hearts and spirits are the same way.

When we are wounded emotionally and spiritually, time will not heal our pain.  Rose Kennedy said, "It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree.  The wounds remain.  In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens.  But it is never gone."  

I am inclined to completely agree with her.  The mind will work that way, protecting itself, shoving things in boxes in the far corners, hiding hurts away, and if that is what continues the wound will never be gone, it will just stay hiding until something triggers it back to the forefront needing to be shoved once again into its perfectly labeled box.

However there is another way, the only way to have true healing, the only way to have the Hope promised to us; believing in, submitting before, and clinging onto the Gospel of Christ.

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

Please do not take this as a Sunday School answer, instead take it to heart just as if Peter himself was here speaking to you, pleading with you to not stay stuck in emotional hurts, to not doubt in the healing of your body physically, to not lose Hope in your heart spiritually. 

Jesus spent his life healing people's physical ailments so that he could get their attention and heal them spiritually as well.  He took care of bodies so that He could reach inside hearts. The heart is the place He wants more than any other.

We live in a world filled with hard, filled with bodies that are breaking down day by day, filled with hearts that are so lost and hurting that they hurt those around them as well, filled with believers and non believers alike who either don't know Hope or have lost sight of it.

Every life is different, every heart is different, every hurt is different, therefore every path to healing is different.

Rest assured, there is no timeline of healing.

One body or heart might take just a flash of a moment, one body or heart might take months and years of treatment or counsel, one body or heart might have to wait until they are no longer on this earth to fully receive the healing they desire.  There is no timeline of healing, but there is a sure Hope, there is a promise from a Creator who has never not even once broken one, that He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds and we can call out to Him and He will heal us and in our wait, no matter how long it may be, He upholds us with His righteous right hand.

Let time do what it was created to do, let it remind you that you are not where you were and you are not where you will be, that the present is just the present and a thousand of our days are a blink to the Designer of our lives.  Then Trust in the healing that comes from Him.  It is He alone that can do it.

It is quite a challenge to remember.  So...

Pray for me, I'm praying for you.