"See now that I myself am He! There is no god beside me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand." Deuteronomy 32:39 NIV
At first this verse confused me. Why would God hurt someone? Or why would He allow hurt into someone's life? Well I had to start looking at what causes woundedness, It can come from several different things. It could be because of our own sin or choice, a result of sin or choice of another, it could even be just because we live in a sinful world. In the scripture above, we see that even God wounds but He also heals.
In my lifetime I can't even begin to count the number of wounded people I have encountered. Especially now that I work in the medical field. Yeah sure I see physical wounds, but I am talking something deeper. I am talking wounds inside, ones that aren't visible to the people around you. Some people will speak about their wounds, but it seems to me, more people keep them deep inside.
I have noticed that those who keep those wounds inside, tend to have physical health manifestations. Now I haven't done any study on this so this is just my own observation, but those people who I speak to that have the most health issues, seem to have some of the deepest wounds, none physical wounds. Why? I believe it is because they chose to bury the wounds and not address them.
So it doesn't take someone in the medical field to know that if you have a wound, and you chose to just ignore it, its going to get infected and get worse. So, again just my observation, if your hurting about something in your life, and you never talk about it, it festers and gets infected, just like a physical wound would. It may scab over, but it never truly heals. it will also hurt all the time and never go away.
I see people in my line of work, meet people at the gym or other places I go, work with people and even have friends and family that are what I call, the walking wounded. There are things in their lives that have hurt them, but for some reason they have chosen to bottle up that hurt, not seek healing for the wounds, and now the wounds are festering. When I see people like this, I see in them things that they might not normally do or hear them say things they might not normally say.
These people may not even be aware of the wounds they are hiding because it is things they would rather not face. When this happens, they tend to strike out at others or find that they can't have successful relationships. They tend not to trust people which makes it hard for relationships to form. And the relationships they do have, suffer because they don't trust anyone.
Its a lose, lose situation for them and those who love them. They can't trust or open up, and the people who want to be in their lives get pushed out or pushed away without ever knowing why. The person doing the pushing may not even know why. This creates a never ending cycle that never allows for healing. It is only when the person who is wounded, either realizes the hurt, or run into someone who has been in that place. or even someone with a background in counseling gets a hold of them, that this cycle can be stopped.
There is hope for those of us who have been wounded. Its not easy sometimes to face what has caused those wounds, it might be a parent, a family member, a person we loved very much, or a total stranger. Its when we see that we are wounded and begin the journey of healing, that we see how much we have lost. Its like a wound that never gets treated, it festers and can eventually cause you to be seriously ill and even lead to death. Now, I am not saying that all past hurts that have created wounds can kill you, but some can.
After years of my own wounds slowly killing me, I decided to ask for help. What others did to me was not affecting them, but it sure was hurting me. The wounds I had went very, very deep. It was awful how badly they affected every part of my life. They even began to steal my health and take me away from my family. But I woke up one morning and decided that enough was enough. I was tired of the deep hurts, wounds that were left gaping. I needed to get healed.
The healing process can be painful as well. Its not like you wake up one morning and say ok, everything is better. It takes time, and for me some other wounds were created in the healing process. Some may have already been there as I look back, I just couldn't see them because of the ones that were so big. But the healing process did begin, the past no longer had a death grip on my life. I began to be able to truly see the many blessings in my life. Funny, they were always there, I just couldn't see past the wounds.
I lost a lot of life, living, loving, and laughing because I was so wrapped up in my woundedness. Life went on, and I was present but never truly present. I feel like I would go through the motions for the sake of others. How sad is that. To not be able to remember some of the fun times in my life because I was focused on the past. My son, the youngest of my four children, said to me, "Mom, you don't drive your car down the road always looking in the rearview mirror, you have to look ahead." Wow, out of the mouths of babes. Well, he is 19, but what wisdom this one has.
I was going through life looking in the rearview mirror, focused on the things that had already happened. So much so that I was missing what was going on in the present. But not anymore. I have begun a journey of healing. Of letting go of the past and things that I can't change. Letting anger and resentment go so that I can feel true joy. You can't feel true joy, love or peace until you let go of the past. By being angry and resentful, my heart was already full. There was no room for other emotions.
Now that I have forgiven, and truly let go, I can feel for the first time. Feel real love, joy and peace. It doesn't mean that there won't be times of sadness, because that is in everyday life, but it means that those moments are smaller and take up less room in my life than they did before. By letting go of the things of the past, that will never be changed no matter how much you dwell on them, you feel lighter, you love better, heck you live better.
SO now the question is, are you ready to let go????
