It had been a lazy morning, and after coffee, and playtime, and making a list of all we planned to accomplish for the day, I was finally getting dressed, when my phone rang.
"You need to take me to the ER."
"What happened?" I wondered, as I rushed downstairs.
When I got outside Jon grinned sheepishly at me, covered in dirt and sweat, with blood running down his leg and splattered all over the grass.
Tearing out an old ramp on our property, he had stepped down on a piece of jagged wood, slicing open a quarter-sized piece of skin on his calf. Eww, I know.
This wasn't what we had planned for our Memorial Day holiday, but, leaving a blood-soaked shoe in the grass, we headed for the ER.
The worst part was cleaning the wound. Dipping a sponge in solution, the nurses carefully disinfected around the wound, and the wound itself. He was grimacing something fierce, eyes shut tight, clenching his whole body in pain. My mama bear instincts kicked in, and I found myself furiously kneading his shoulder, which was no help at all, except to make me feel a little better!
Stitched and bandaged, we headed home. I thought about wounds as we drove in silence. On our bodies, and in our hearts.
If we hadn't gone to the ER, or cleaned out that big gash in his leg, it probably would have gotten infected, which would have led to other problems. Despite all the pain he went through, choosing not to clean out that wound would have been a terrible decision.
We're so careful to attend to wounds on our bodies. Even through the pain, we clean them and bandage them, applying healing salve, or stitches, or sometimes just a tiny bandaid with a princess on it. Science and life experience have taught us that we have to act quickly, and we have to push through the pain, or we will have a bigger problem on our hands.
We know what we need to, and we do it whether we want to or not.
Unlike our physical wounds, we usually don't respond with the same sense of urgency to the wounds of our heart.
We nurse our aching hearts, letting our wounds fester, poisoning our thoughts and leaking into our attitudes and actions. Instead of attending to the hurts that plague us, we sit with our pain and brood over how hurt we are. Or we tell ourselves we're not that hurt, and shove our feelings away.
Sitting in our pain, brooding over our hurt does us no good at the end of the day. It is actually harmful. Like my daughters who beg me not to clean their ouchies, we spend wasted energy in fear of our own pain, and would rather leave our wounded heart gaping open than go through the painful process of cleaning out the ickies (yes, that is a technical term) inside us.
But it is just as dangerous to tell ourselves that we shouldn't be hurt by something, and try to ignore the hurt without processing through our grief or pain, as it is to acknowledge our pain without dealing with it.
It is important to know when to let something go, and when to recognize that we've been hurt.
If we don't, at some point, everything will boil over, causing more pain and grief.
Whether our pain comes from life's unexpected twists and turns, from the hand of another, or from our own inner voice, dealing with it always brings healing. Healing allows us to walk in freedom - strong, capable, and at ease.
Thankfully, we don't have to clean out our wounded hearts by ourselves. Thank goodness we have a Comforter, the precious and gentle Holy Spirit, who reveals just how badly we are scraped up on the inside, and then gently helps us to clean out all that has caused our pain, binding us up again so that we can walk upright in healing and wholeness.
You are loved!
P.S. I would love to pray for you! If you need someone to pray with you, please don't hesitate to ask!
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