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Healing and joy come in the mourning and we can find ourselves dancing once again… ~sheila
I am convinced, after traveling many a dark and dismal road, that healing comes through pain.
Not the kind of pain that gets a bandage slapped on it.
But the clean-out-the-wound-until-you-scream kind of pain.
The pain that represents a festering sore that lies deep inside of you.
The one long hidden.
The one you may not even fully be aware of until your life comes crashing down around you and all that remains are the shards of the broken mirror image you created of yourself. The one where you smiled and every hair was in place and the whole world thought you had it together.
Except you didn’t.
And alone at night you knew you didn’t have anything together.
And you would cry out in the dark to someone who was no longer there and the ache in your heart would become so overwhelmingly horrific that it seared you through and through.
Not even dawn’s first light would chase away the ghosts. They haunted you during the day and crept in bed with you as you cried yourself to sleep one more time…
Until the pain got so great you thought you would die, even wanted to die, and you cried out.
You let go.
You reached up.
You took His hand and you took His word to heart. You let every single scriptural syllable of God’s love letter drench you in a healing balm that tasted like honey through your tears.
And He started to wipe them away as He held you close and you realized that all the pretenses and crutches you clung to were just that…nothing at all…a vapor.
And so you let them vanish.
You opened the blinds when morning came and Sonshine flooded every room in your heart for the very first time.
Slowly, you felt the pain subsiding.
The ache diminishing.
You were being healed.
And then it was time to grow up. To let the Lord re-parent you. Help you learn His ways and unlearn all that the world had taught you.
There were lessons in forgiveness.
And choosing to be better not bitter.
And that it truly is more blessed to serve and give than to receive.
And the greatest of these lessons is love.
Loving God with all your heart, soul and strength.
Loving your neighbor as yourself.
Challenging…
One imperfect human being learning to love another imperfect human being.
So Grace moved in.
He took your pain, all of it…even that inflicted upon you by others long ago in addition to your own poor, sinful choices…and He redeemed it.
And one day His love was shining so brightly from your once shattered heart that others were drawn to the Light.
And as they came closer, they saw Him.
And their hearts began to open so that their screaming might be silenced, too.
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12:32)
