Hurt and Healing

Hurt hurts...sounds simple, but we know this to be true. If you are anything like me when it comes to hurt I use an "avoid-at-all-cost" approach. But it happens, and when it does I find myself trying to figure it out, how I can fix it quickly or blame it away. This is how we deal with hurt for the most part, right? Either try to figure out why it happened, fix it, or blame someone else. Because if we have a reason for the hurt, it's somehow better? It hurts less or goes away?

I just returned from a family funeral I performed on Monday, my older brother's wife had recently lost her battle with metastasized lung cancer that had spread to her bones. I used the term "lost" because it is a term that I often hear used when people become seriously ill and "battle" a disease, and by outward appearance the disease "won". Really? A disease is a living thing that destroys health. Its goal is to live as a disease, and it has as it's bi-product, destruction and death. But whose loss is it? "We" lose a loved one, a family member, a friend...and the disease loses being the disease any more in that person too.

Although it is a battle when we fight a disease, it truly is not the war. When someone is sick I pray for God to heal, period. I also know the three ways in which I am confident He will: miraculous cure, medical intervention, perfect healing. We all pray for the first two, but perfect can only happen in heaven, and that means God needed to take them to heaven to heal them. This is when the healing is the hurt. Sounds backwards, but I want you to think about this for a minute...

We do not get to know why God does everything He does, but we know He is God and His ways are perfect.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord." Is. 55:8

Maybe the hurt you are feeling right now is God's healing? What if what you are going through is part of God's divine and perfect plan, and He is wanting to use this time as a time of healing in your life? This changes everything. Yes it should, because Jesus changed everything. Jesus raised the dead, healed the sick, made the mute speak, and gave sight to the blind!

Maybe it is not the hurt in our lives that is the problem, but how we "SEE" it? If you are hurting, maybe instead of asking God to take the hurt away, it is time to ask God to heal your blindness so you can see what He wants you to see. Then maybe we can start to find the healing...the healing in the hurt.

...just sayin'

In His Grip,

Pastor Pat