Have you ever had a wound reopened? So not fun. We all have been broken by situations before. We have all been hurt or let down by people. We get past it. We move on. We heal and we grow. But then there are those times when out of nowhere a memory resurfaces. Someone makes a comment or you see a picture and all the feelings come rushing back. Wound opened. Salt applied. Ouch.
This week has been one of those weeks for me. I realized that the overwhelming feeling I suffer from when this happens is disappointment. Disappointment in myself. I feel disappointed that I’m still hurt, as if I don’t have a reason to be. I’m disappointed that the pain still exists and that I’m not as over the situation as I thought. The lie the enemy tries to whisper in my ear is that God is disappointed in me too, as if God is standing to the side waiting for me to get my act together so that He can lead me to the next thing in my life.
So my natural response tends to be to try to do everything in my might to care for my own heart. I try not thinking about things. I try blocking things from my mind. I pray apologetic prayers, all the while harboring a lingering fear that somehow I am messing things up because I can’t seem to move past my brokenness.
This week God spoke to me. I was praying and asking the Lord what He wanted me to do about my brokenness. Clear as day, He spoke to my heart, “All I want you to do is to receive my love.” I saw an image of myself lying on a hospital bed, wounded. But the Lord was my doctor. It hit me and I finally understood that just like you wouldn’t expect a wounded patient to get up and start doing things to get over their woundedness, God doesn’t expect that from me either. Just like you wouldn’t blame a patient for being wounded by another, God doesn’t blame me for being broken by the actions of others. And just like the best thing for a wounded patient is bed rest, the best thing that I can do in my brokenness is to rest in God’s love. I saw myself connected to an IV and it dawned to me that the IV represented a constant flow of God’s love coursing through my veins. He wanted me to be aware that He sees my heart. He knows what I’m going through and that it is He who heals, He who restores and He that brings wholeness.
The Lord is my heart surgeon.
I suspect that I’m not the only one who has experienced brokenness and reopened wounds. If that’s you, I want you to stop every effort you are making to heal your own heart. Take a time out and recognize that today God desires that you give all your brokenness to Him. Recognize today that God wants to embrace you and hold you tight. Allow Him to mend your heart and put the pieces back together.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34:18
