Time

I was thinking about some situations that have passed through the lives of various family members and friends and my own life as well. The well worn line of "encouragement" passed through my thoughts, "Time heals all wounds." Really? I wonder how many people actually believe that? Does letting something just go with time make it any better?

Well, if you think about it in science and nature, time allows things to decompose. I guess to the benefit of soil, bugs, and land fills that is a good thing. But if you take a disease and leave it to time it doesn't heal, it gets worse and something small and unimportant can end up taking a limb or a life.

How about a mechanical fix? Broken refrigerator or bike, let 'em sit! They'll get better with time! No? Well, of course not!

And of course the ever popular, stir in millions and billions of years and wha-la . . . you have evolution. Well, but that's a different arguement for another day.

My point today is emotional and/or spiritual healing. You don't just "get over" certain things. You may get past them and function, but big experiences, whether good or bad, stay with us and change us inside. They affect the way we think, the way we respond and relate to others, how we trust or don't trust God, and how we view ourselves.

Take the three women I am very close to who experienced the devestation of being molested as children. In every one of those women it changed who they are forever. It took something from them and time will not heal what was ruthlessly taken. It took hope, the ability to trust others or God, and shattered any self-respect they may have had.

Or the families who have suffered the loss of a child: to disease, to drugs, to a car accident, to war. Those parents will never "get over it" and although I don't know that anyone has been cruel enough to suggest such a thing outloud, I know they have all felt the pressure as life moved forward and a piece of who they are is stuck in that horrible moment forever.

The woman who has lost her children because she was "unfit" and in truth she was. She couldn't take care of herself, stay clean, sober, away from the life of prostitution. Let alone, take care of a few small children. The regrets and self-hatred that come every day to scream anew at her that she is worthless and useless and she can't even take care of her own kids. How does time do anything but make that worse for her?

And yet, while time may heal nothing, there is one who able to heal all wounds. In the Old Testament we are introduced to the name Jehovah-Rapha. The Lord who heals. He is the only one who is able to take even those worst possible situations and bring healing on the wings of hope and comfort. Only He has the power, the ability, the authority to bring that healing.

Those three women I mentioned at the beginning, each of them has suffered and struggled to find that place where they can trust Him and allow Him to touch the tender infected areas of their soul. And yet, through the years that I have watched them and walked with them in it, I have seen triumph and healing come. Usually in small steps with many back steps along the way, but slowly in Him they begin to see themselves through His eyes, through His Word, and then learning to walk in love, forgiveness, and wholeness they have each to some measure found freedom and healing.

Those parents who live daily with the hole of the moment of loss that can never be removed or filled up, I have seen them walk in victory as they press into the comfort and let go of "why" stepping into "I choose to trust You, Lord." In that trust comes the peace, the healing, the knowledge of how to hold onto the memory of that child and move forward. And I believe they taste just a small taste of what the Father suffered the day of the cross. Therein, do they partake of the suffering of Christ?

And the woman, lost and without hope of regaining custody of her children, where is her hope? I pray that she will come to Jehovah-Rapha, to Jesus and find healing and the love she so craves. It is only in Him that she will find any peace from the devastations of life and her choices.

And I haven't mentioned the woman who was raped and lived in shame, feeling that she had "brought it on herself" for years. The man whose fight with alcohol cost him everything important in life. The child abandoned and left by those she trusted and needed. In each of those stories is the hope of healing by the God who is bigger than our issues and our wounds, even when they are life threatening.

Time heals nothing, but it does allow us a place of perception to understand in part that He is our only hope, our only salvation, our only healing in body, soul, and spirit.