Wounded: Major
Proverbs 18:14 (NIVUK)
The human spirit can endure in times of illness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?
James 5:16 (CJB)
Therefore, openly acknowledge your sins to one another, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Yesterday we looked at minor wounding but today let’s go a little deeper. Sometimes the pain of a situation or relationship appears well after the events occurred, as if it had been buried out of sight until suddenly it rears its head out of the ground like a rabid dog ready to bite. Some relationships are so deep or important to us that any pain or damage just hits us harder.
When emotional or psychological pain occurs, it can feel like being physically stabbed and the knife will stay in place until removed. But something I’ve learnt is that you don’t remove a knife too soon or you’ll just bleed. There is a parallel with emotional damage: we need time, patience, and experience to deal with it.
When pain occurs, we may not be able to cope and respond by trying to heal ourselves. We make excuses for others' behaviour or our own; we adopt wrong attitudes as a shield to protect us as a way of coping. These can even become part of our identity: we may over-share to get the attention we crave but never deal with the original damage; or we become prickly and defensive so people don’t 'knock the knife'. In doing this we disconnect from the pain and may even forget the real cause.
To receive healing, we first need to own our pain so we can connect to it and express it. We need to understand that emotions have to be processed with our hearts and not just our brains. We need a safe place and safe people who have experience and maturity to help us. Otherwise, we will become exhausted just carrying our emotions in our heads and the wounds may never heal.
We need the power of prayer.
Prayer - Jesus I know that you are the great healer and I acknowledge my pain before you (Speak out the details to him). Lead me to people who are effective in prayer and who can help me express my pain and receive healing. Forgive me where I have not been my true self in order to cope with the pain. I chose to be who you have called me to be.