If You're Healing and You Know It . . .
It is often in the small things that we feel pain. A paper cut. A sticker on a barefoot heel. A stubbed toe. A hangnail.
An empty mailbox.
A silent phone.
A leaf drifting to the lawn in a season of change.
A slow-fading photo.
A sigh.
A looking away.
A turn.
A train in the distance.
A secret.
A reflection in a mirror.
A splinter.
A memory.
This is not to discount the greater pain of a car wreck or a tumble down the stairs . . . or the death of someone you love. Broken bones and broken hearts. In these times, though, emergency crews or skilled physicians or grief counselors come to your aid and pull you through and put you back together, set you upright again and give you a nudge to move you on.
It takes time to heal.
I remember when I was a little boy dressed only in a pair of shorts, running free with abandon, until I tumbled down a hill into a thick growth of wild blackberry bushes. Some of the thorns punched into me and others just left tracks on my skin as I passed through them. A hidden rock made contact with my knee and gashed it open. I was frozen in the pain of the fall and when I stood and looked around, there was no one there to call on . . . and the only way out of the patch was to cross back through it, avoiding as many thorns as possible. Once home, I soaked in the bathtub and the water took on a pinkish tinge from the tiny wounds. For days I was fascinated with the scab on my knee, which stood out like a small island, but slowly shrunk and then vanished beneath the new skin.
I healed.
I remember driving my convertible to Galveston after my freshman year in college. . . around and around Galveston . . . and all the way down the coast to Louisiana and back to Dallas with the top down under the summer sun. I abandoned my shirt and all common sense. My face, my shoulders, my chest, my arms, and the tops of my legs were as red as a ripe tomato. Touch me and we both die. Blisters rose; skin peeled.
I healed.
A couple of years ago I had a fairly significant surgery leaving about an 8-inch gash through the mid-section, all stapled shut neatly. Within hours after the surgery, the nurses were getting me out of bed to walk the halls, wincing with every step. Sneezes would send me into painful spasms; bending in the middle to pull myself out of my recovery recliner in the living room felt like I was re-tearing everything. A few weeks after the surgery, I returned to the doctor's office to face a cheery nurse who pulled out a tool that looked like something I neglect in the garage. "This is going to hurt, so we may as well get after it and get 'er done," she said, about the time she pulled the first staple.
I healed.
As we travel through life, we tumble into thorny bushes when we're not paying attention to where we're headed as we explore. Seeking fun and pleasure, we can shrivel in the sun when we forget to seek the protection of the shade. And sometimes we just get cut wide open and find ourselves immobilized.
You can heal. Whether your brokenness is an addiction to pornography, a lust that has driven you into adultery, or a gnawing temptation that wears you down and pulls you into the sin of homosexuality, masquerading as a balm of acceptance for the gaping wound of rejection. You can heal, but you have to pull yourself up and out of the recliner first. And you may have to expose the scar to the light.
With apologies to the Latvian folk singer who wrote the original happy song:
If you're healing and you know it, clap your hands
If you're healing and you know it, then you really ought to show it.
If you're healing and you know it, clap your hands.
Our post-fall life is not limited to lamentations. God is not like the doctor who pats your leg as he sits beside your bed and solemnly says: "There's nothing more we can do." God is never outdone by the disorder of our lives. When we cry out for healing, we can hear "yes," from God if we are willing to say "no" to the world and the paralysis of brokenness. And then get up and walk.
Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?
But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
So He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on
and went home praising God. -- Luke 5:22-25
Walk without fear. -- First of all, you cannot heal for others' sake, so resist that temptation. This is truly a point in life where "For God's sake" makes sense. I tried healing for my children's sake, for the church's sake, for pity's sake . . . and certainly for my wife's sake. That type of healing leads too easily to hiding; to projecting an image of well-being that makes everyone else feel better, but actually casts a shadow of deceit. Determined as that type of healing may be, it depends on you way too much and on Christ way too little. He was never about pretense; if He said someone was healed, He meant it. They got up; they moved on. Exchange the pain of falling with the pain of rehab, and stop worrying about whether people will believe you or accept you. Some will; others won't. Some may never come back; others may come in. If your healing depends on anyone or anything beyond Christ, you may never get to pull the staples.
Walk with hope. -- The sexually-broken, in the pursuit of wholeness, often spend too much time counting time, marking the hours, then the days, then the months, recording the passage to the inevitable fall and the beginning of another count. How is this helpful? How is it hopeful? I understand the encouragement of a record of sobriety, whether from lust, alcohol or cupcakes. But, just as we should not keep a record of wrongs, we need to be careful how we keep our record of rights. If we are so focused on making it through this day, we lose focus of where we're headed in our freedom and we slow the pace, chopping it into minor victories, while ignoring the goal of the greater battle to live in constant hope, born of redemption. Fear builds in the absence of hope. While we need be constantly on guard, we won't walk far if we fear there's a bear around every corner.
Walk without defense. -- If we can do all things through Christ because He gives us strength, then that clearly means we cannot do all things without Him. That includes defending a past He washes away; explaining the fading stain of a dirt He's washing away. The countless conversations and the endless e-mails, the explanations and justifications, the reasons and the excuses, the repeated apologies and appeals for forgiveness are like nervous little dogs nipping at your heels as you seek to walk free. Not dangerous, but very annoying and never satisfied with the pace. Let Christ be your defense as you live your life to please God. He can reveal it to others in a way you cannot because He does not bear the stain of deceit. Yes, we need to ask for forgiveness from those we have hurt and we need to repair what we have destroyed, but, when the "Why?" becomes overbearing, drop the burden of defense and fall on the sword of grace and hope for mercy.
Pain pursues us, but mercy renews us. Hurt lurks; grace reveals.
As you feel your way to freedom, which may seem like uncharted territory, there is only one dependable guide. Christ alone heals the soul.
I walked into a 7-Eleven the other day and came face-to-face with Randy, a leader from a church I attended when my sexual sin was revealed, a church which removed me through the exercise of church discipline. Randy had signed the letter that let me know. The years have passed and there we stood, only a few feet apart, but distanced greatly by past words and present mistrust. It was an expressionless encounter. No "how are you?" No "have a good day." No smile, in fact, and the brief acknowledgement of presence quickly masked by both of us. Not that long ago, that brief encounter would have left a lasting pain and would have prompted me to want to do something about it. State my case. Demand forgiveness. Not this time. I left with my caffeine fix and my peace.
I am healing.
Heal. Set aside your fear. Show the presence of hope. Drop the defense. Take up your mat. Go home.
Pull the staples.
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