The Wound

Wounds come in many shapes and sizes and depths. They can reach back to your childhood or last week. Often they are not your fault, but they are still a part of you and you HAVE to stop scratching them.

One of mine had been there for quite a while. It became one of those things that I had accepted as part of my life. Something that I would simply have to carry around and deal with when it came up.

Mostly it has affected my dating relationships. You see whenever I start dating someone new I have a length of time where I just freak out. I live inside my head, I analyze everything they do, and get angry over the tiniest things.

Now, quite a few girls do this, so it could just be written off as part of our gender. But the truth is that we are not supposed to live with our hurting hearts simply because most people are in the same boat. 

We need to start asking God how to heal and then combat these wounds. 

I had a fairly intense weekend where I began a fasting challenge issued by Erwin McManus, the pastor of Mosaic. I began the fast in desperation. As a last ditch effort of sorts to rid myself of all of my silly thoughts and draw super near to God so that He would make my problems disappear.

I think I’ve grown more in the past week than I have ever. And there have definitely been some growing pains.

The first night, I was hungry and tired. My prayers were less desperate and more weary. I was a sleepy toddler resting in her father’s arms, while still asking questions about life’s great mysteries: Boys.

That was when God spoke to me so clearly.

“This is not about you and boys.

 This is not even about you and me and boys.

This is about you and me.”

This may be the first time I have mentioned hearing God speak to me in this blog. It is difficult to explain the way I hear God. I do not always hear Him so clearly. Sometimes I have to wonder if it was my own thought or God trying to break through the chaos that is my mind. And then other times it is so clear that I can barely keep from shouting with how present He is.

This time was certainly the latter.

 And would you believe that my reply was “But God, this is just a part of who I am. I will have to have this conversation at the beginning of any relationship I start because that is the way I have always done it.”

God’s response (once again more clear than normal)

“No. This is not something to work out with a boy. This is something I want you to work out with me.”

Whoa. Freaking whoa.

From there God took me back to where the entire thing began. The root, if you will. It was not a self-inflicted wound, but it was a wound that I refused to let heal. It was something that I scratched at until it became raw and infected and in desperate need of cleaning.

When a child itches at one of their ‘boo-boos’ there is really nothing a parent can do to go about helping it heal before they teach the child to stop scratching.

So even though I have walked with God for a bit now and He desires nothing more than to heal me and make me whole, it just was not possible until He could make me realize that continuing on the way I had been was not going to help.

The thing is we often don’t realize we are hurting ourselves. Itching the wound feels good and so we just keep doing it, totally unaware of the damage we are causing. Luckily God loves us enough to show us. 

I began to let God heal me that night. He may have told me it would be painful but at the time I just did not care. He was so near and so audible that all I could think about was the fact that I got to be close to my savior for a bit.

Most of us have a wound that we have accepted as part of our being because we see no earthly way to rid ourselves of it. 

It is just our baggage. 

And oh, how I have grown to despise that phrase. God doesn't want us carrying all this baggage around just because everyone else is doing it. He wants to make us whole and baggageless. He desires to heal us to the fullest. And He knows just how to get the job done.

So if you are in pain from a wound that you just can not seem to get rid of, ask God about it. Ask Him where it came from, ask Him to heal it, and then take His hand and hold on tight because the healing is not always easy. It will be the best thing that ever happened to you and you will be so grateful on the other side, but in order for God to heal us of all the things we put ourselves through we have to go through the fire. And unfortunately there is just no spiritual Novocain. 

In my next post I will share a little bit of my own fire with ya. So stay tuned!

EMG