Healing

Bruised, Broken or Shattered?

Valerie Cullers 20 Comments

Many times in life, we find ourselves in pain. Something has happened to us, and we must deal with the consequences of it. We may have caused the pain to ourselves, or someone else may have done it. Either way, we need help. We need Someone who can take the pain away and heal us.

Lots of things can knock us around in life. Circumstances, the loss of a job, a best friend moving away, or some other life changing situation comes crashing into our life. We feel bruised; others may not see it but we feel it just the same. We are hurting. No, we are not bleeding on the outside but our spirit has been bruised. Is there Someone we can go to, Someone who cares? When describing Jesus in the Scriptures we read, “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth.” Isaiah 42:3 We can rest assured that when we come to Him with our hurts, He will help us. He will not rebuke us for our weakness or our pain.

What about when we have sustained a bone-crushing injury? Something has happened to us that we cannot ignore or hide. Maybe we have lost a loved one or have been accused of something falsely. We need help, and we need it badly. Can anyone come and splint our injury and help us while we go through a time of restoration? Again, in describing the work of the Lord, we read that, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3 All we have to do is call out to Him when we need help, and He will be there.

Is the Lord big enough to help us when we have suffered a soul-crushing injury? We feel we have been run over by a steamroller, and there is not much left of us. Perhaps our spouse has run off with another person. Perhaps the business we have spent a lifetime building has gone bankrupt. Perhaps a hurricane or other natural disaster has taken from us everything we own. Is the Lord big enough to help even when we go through our worst times? I’m talking about those times when we can hardly speak because of the pain we are in. We feel our life is over, and there is nothing to be done. Can He help us even when our hearts are shattered? Jesus is talking about himself in Isaiah 61: 1-3, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” Yes, we can look to Him. Jesus is big enough to bring us through our soul-crushing disaster, heal us from our heart-shattering pain, and give us new life again. We just have to ask.

Soul Scars

Valerie Cullers 50 Comments

monument-412941_640Image by Nini. Courtesy of Pixabay.

A week ago, I was changing a bandage on a wound. It was about three weeks old, and the scar tissue had begun to form. I thought, “Well, I need to put some alcohol on this to make sure there are no germs there.” I got my bottle of alcohol out of the cupboard, put it on a cotton ball, and got ready to feel some real pain, as I knew the alcohol would sting. To my surprise, there was no pain. You see, scar tissue does not have any nerve endings when it begins to form. The nerve endings have been cut in the surrounding tissue, and initially, a person feels nothing.

I began to wonder about our soul scars. If someone could see our souls, what would they look like? Would there be wounds that had healed completely and others that were in the process of healing? Would there be wounds that were festering and causing us pain? I think if people could see our souls, they would see all three kinds of wounds.

The most obvious would be the wounds that were still open, still in the healing process. Sometimes life wounds us deeply with the loss of a loved one or some other deeply personal loss. These wounds may take years to heal, and only as our grief is felt or expressed can we truly heal. Tears are a valuable form of therapy for these kinds of wounds as they wash them and keep them clean while they are healing.

The least obvious would be the wounds that have healed, and the scars have become part of our soul’s makeup. If you look closely at them, you will see that the area around them is healthy and whole, and sometimes the scars have healed so well, they are difficult to discern. 

A Soul Physician would be very concerned about the wounds that are still festering, where there is infection. We all have those kinds of wounds, whether we realize it or not. They are the wounds that have not been taken care of, and no healing balm has been applied to them. Usually, the infection has been caused by unforgiveness, and a person must purposely set out to do their part in the healing process. 

 Festering wounds must be acknowledged, and we must be ready to be healed from them. We must be willing to apply the disinfectant of forgiveness to them and let go of all of our unforgiveness and bitterness. Will there be pain when we lance these kinds of wounds? Yes, they may have been festering for years, but as their purulence is released, there will be a peace that takes its place.

Oh, the sweet peace of forgiveness, may it blanket our souls and make us healthy and whole!

“Forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone who sins against us.” Luke 11:4

Dead Men Can’t Defend Themselves

Valerie Cullers 35 Comments

As believers in Jesus Christ, it is necessary to write to a higher standard than the secular media requires of us. If we want to write about someone who has hurt us personally, we need to think carefully about our words. It will be important to extend grace to the individual(s) as we write our story. Many times, we are not released to write about our experiences until the offending person has passed away.

trees in park

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com.

Most individuals are not entirely good or evil. They are, like us, a composite of both positive and negative traits. It would be easy to portray an offending individual in the darkest of terms and paint them with a brush entirely filled with black paint, or in our case, as writers, negative adjectives. People have also been shaped by the circumstances they have endured throughout the course of their lives. When we write about them, it is important to write about some of the extenuating circumstances they found themselves in.

When people have hurt us deeply, it may take us years to fully forgive them and heal from the pain of their actions. Only because we have received the forgiveness that Christ offers, are we are able to extend that same forgiveness to the offending person. The further away from the negative experience we are, the easier it is to write about it from an objective viewpoint.

We need to remember that there are always two sides to any situation. When we portray the situation from our point of view, the offending person, if deceased, will not have the opportunity to provide an answer to our statements. There will be no one to speak in their defense, and even if their actions are indefensible, we should allow them a certain amount of latitude when sharing our story. It might seem impossible to do this, but I have found that through prayer, I am able to view them in a more compassionate light.

Remember, when writing publicly about those who have hurt us, we must reflect on the words we use. After all, dead men (or women, for that matter) can’t defend themselves!

Which Is The Greater Miracle?

Valerie Cullers Leave a comment

pexels-photo-263337.jpegRecently, my cousin received a kidney transplant. His kidneys had not functioned well for years, but he finally came to the point where he needed dialysis. He sent a letter out letting people know he needed a kidney, and many people volunteered to be a donor. Unfortunately, everyone was rejected for one reason or another. Finally, he transferred to another transplant center, and they began the process of reassessing his potential donors. After a while, a new doctor thought he had found the right match. It was my cousin’s wife who had been the first donor on the list, but had been rejected because of her allergies. Within a month, they were both in the hospital awaiting surgery. Both surgeries went well, and they were both out of the hospital within a week.

I had prayed for my cousin for years, first to be healed by God of his kidney disease and then to find a donor who would be a match. I was hoping for an instant miracle, one where God just touched him and his kidneys were healed. Instead, he received a different kind of miracle, the kind where God used frail human beings to enact his will and bring healing through the medical process.

So I had to ask myself, “Which is the greater miracle?” An instant healing performed with God’s dunamis power, or one where He brought a new doctor to a new transplant center who was willing to accept a donor that had been previously rejected?  Both are miracles, but we stand amazed that when it seemed there was no answer, God brought one by human means.

I’ve come to the conclusion that however God works to provide an answer to prayer fits in the realm of the miraculous. Using a human to meet a need may not seem as spectacular as a miraculous healing, but the person used by God is as big a miracle as God showing up Himself to meet the need.