Wounds are no fun. Is that like the understatement of the year (it very well could be since we are only 7 days in!!! hahaha!)? But truly, a wound, an injury is something that we dread. And emotional wounds are just as painful as the physical. I have many physical scars. One on my knee from when I fell in my driveway running as a little girl. I remember it hurt like the dickens. It bled and bled. It throbbed. I went into my house and my dad cleaned my bleeding wound. He was tender and compassionate with me. He wanted to hear how it happened and listened to me go on and on about how much it hurt. He washed it out. He dabbed at it with a clean cloth. He dried it, gently put neosporin on it and placed a secure bandage over it. It began to heal quickly as my body provided a natural bandage. However, because of where it was on my knee, if I bent my knee too quickly, it would pull open. The pain was sharp and it would bleed again. I would have to go through the cleansing and healing process of applying balm and a bandage. In my childishness, sometimes I became bored and would pick at the scab. You can imagine that again, the wound would be painful and bleed. Again, the balm, the bandage. Until finally, one day, it was healed. No more scab. However, there remained a big scar. It was visible and every time I looked at it, I remember how I got it. I remembered the pain, but I also rested peacefully in the healing.
As you can imagine, the emotional wound of my husbands affair played out similarly. The healing balm? The Bible. God's tender and gentle words. God was my Daddy, who carried me after I fell down, who though already knowing what happened, listened to my tearful explanation of how my marriage fell down, and how my heart got ripped wide open, and how badly it hurt. God cleaned my bleeding wound, He washed it with His Word. He dabbed at it with the promise of Redemption and with the understanding of what it was like to be betrayed. He dried my tears and covered my heart with the healing balm of Truth, of worship music, and supportive friends and family.
But there were times, as described below, when it would tear open. It is a scar now. A scar that I count as lovely. A scar that I would never remove, because it continually reminds me of the Gospel and of my desperate need of it.
September 5, 2011 from my journal:
Jesus, good morning! I need to praise You, Father, for the good
work You are doing around and in me.
Each day that goes by the wound of C’s affair heals a little
more. But like all physical wounds,
there are times where I twist too sharp, a memory, a question, something pulls
the wound open again. And it bleeds, it
festers, until I put the healing balm of Your truth on it. And there are times where I chose to pick at
it, to open it up to bleed again. And
again, it doesn’t begin to heal up until I put Your healing balm on it. I know God, this wound will heal. I also know that it will scar. Be a big scar. A reminder of this pain. But, like any physical scar, though I see it,
and remember how I got it; it will no longer hurt. And I praise You, Healer, great Physician,
for caring ever so tenderly for my wound.
With any other doctor, this would be a fatal wound, but not with You.
