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I have spent my life running hard and fast after healing.  I have felt broken, not quite right, for as long as I can remember.  But I’ve always looked at healing as something that comes after the fact.  You break your leg…you get it set…it stays in a cast…it heals.  Ravi Zacharias in Cries of the Heart says, “I used to think that time was a healer.  I now believe that time is only the revealer of how God does the healing.”

I have come to believe that healing can occur in the middle of the pain.  I believe that because I have seen God do so in my life.  If I would have had to wait until my marriage situation is completely wrapped up to find any healing for my heart and soul, I would be in the fetal position in some dark room somewhere.  So I have determined and seen that God does not wait until you’re all the way through something to begin the deep healing work.

Just in the season of my separation alone, I have healed.  I do not cry in the grocery store anymore.  I do not cry myself to sleep anymore; well, hardly anymore.  I don’t mumble when I take the recycling out or when I update our online budget or when I mow the lawn.  In fact, I revel a bit in these newfound abilities.  I don’t send twenty emails a day to my mentor anymore.  I now just send, like, ten.  I don’t wear pajamas to every function.  I actually get dressed most days.  Well, some days.  Though I am still a bit more tired than I typically am, and perhaps in a bit deeper of a melancholy funk, my energy is returning, as is my creativity and my smile.

In part, I’m sure, it’s because I have chosen every day a hundred times to do the thing that’s in front of me, even when I didn’t want to do it.  There’s a popular saying in recovery that states, “When I got busy, I got better.”  So much of the daily work of healing your soul will come in getting out of bed and putting clothes on and then, you know, running an errand or making sure you eat lunch.

But the main component of my healing as I meander through is God’s grace.  Jeremiah 30:16 says beautifully, “As for you, I’ll come with healing, curing the incurable…”  He comes with healing.  Present-tense, comes.  He comes to us.  He bends down to us.  He wipes our tears away.  He wraps us up in his arms.

Remember that healing is a process, not a one time event.  We cannot possibly be fully healed from the pain we’re experiencing right now because it’s not over yet.  But there will be a full healing someday.  And in that moment when we are completely healed, we’ll find ourselves in the presence of God.

To pray:

Father God, I need your healing touch.  I do not want to continue to simply drag myself through each day.  And yet I realize that healing is an even more difficult work.  So I ask that you would gently restore me back to wholeness.  Amen.

To do:

Healing work will require willingly bringing into your life a slower pace.  The Spirit’s work on your heart cannot be hurried, the mending work of a soul cannot be rushed.  You cannot be excessively busy and heal at the same time…and frankly, I don’t think you would want to.  So ask God if there’s anything in your life that you can lay aside for a season, so that you may focus more fully on your current situation.

To memorize:

Psalm 147:3   He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.

If this post encouraged you, you would benefit from “Unraveling: Hanging onto Faith through the End of a Christian Marriage”, found here or “Living through Divorce as a Christian Woman”, found here.