Under Construction

Have you ever had a moment where something inside of you is triggered, and by your surprise you think, in the words of Kuzco, “How long has THAT been there?” 

 Let me explain.  My counselor once told me that healing is like this: the pain from whatever hurt you’ve experienced is like a knife going into your belly.  Most of us come to live quite comfortably with this knife in our belly for a lot of years.  It’s what’s normal for us, and it’s oddly comforting to know it’s there because it’s so deep and it’s been there for so long we’re not sure how to function without it.  Healing is allowing God to pull the knife out for only He can.  We think and have been taught that we can heal ourselves and that we choose the pull out the knife.  We’ve been mislead.  We are taught to cope with the knife, and to function with it.  Even if we could pull it out ourselves, then what?  We bleed to death without help.  Think of this in a literal sense.  If that knife has been in there for some time don’t you think there’s been some festering and infection going on because of it?  If it’s really been a long time has your skin grown around the knife?  How much pain is there to pulling it out now?  Immense pain!  Truth: pain is necessary for healing. 

As long as that knife remains embedded (the hurt is not dealt with – denial, passivity, cynicism, unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, resentment, hate, wanting revenge etc.) healing is not possible.  With it protruding out of you it is very easy for someone to bump up against it and cause even more pain, often to your surprise in not realizing it’s still there.  Something bumped a knife in me yesterday, and to my horror I didn’t realize it was still there.  Immediately it was like blinking lights going off yelling, “Warning! Change Needed!”  Praise God for His warnings, for caring enough not to leave us in our pain, or our merely coping with it. 

I’m asking God to allow me to see what knives I’ve forgotten I’ve had, and most likely that means He allows for someone or a circumstance to bump against it, and cause pain.  But then the healing can begin.  If you haven’t seen “Evan Almighty” you should.  At one point Morgan Freeman says that when we pray for patience God doesn’t automatically give us patience, instead He gives us an opportunity to be patient.  Clearly I’m not taking Hollywood’s warped idea of who God is and how He operates, but this was a powerful truth.  When we ask for healing, often God allows for there to be more pain in the process to bring about the greatest healing.  God is not into quick fixes, or temporary relief. God does not treat symptoms, He removes the root problem.  If only doctors and psychologists would follow His lead!  Resentment, bitterness , anger…these are symptoms of the knife, and they cause us to respond to the person or circumstance that bumped us in completely unhealthy and often harmful ways.  What bumped me yesterday was MY issue, not theirs.  I want God to remove every forgotten and unacknowledged knife, in His way, and in His timing for “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).