Are some wounds never healed?

As I wrote this, I thought, this is too much, too personal, too raw, too real to post to the cyberword. Too deep inside of me to vulnerably reveal. Yet, I thought, what is this blog about? If it is about me and my family, than isn't it about real?

So from time to time, I dare walk into the deep waters of my pain. Don’t worry, I won’t stay there…but for today (tonight) here is where I am. And it is deep, and wide, and a little murky.

……….
Are some wounds never healed?

In many ways, inside, I am still 15. Still this young girl so in love, disapproved by his parents and broken-hearted. 38 years later still wondering, why did you not choose me? Why was your love not strong enough to stand up against them, and choose me? And I wonder how a 15 year-old’s choice can impact an entire life.

I trace back so much subsequent pain in my life, and choice after choice, back to that relationship…so young, so intense, so unknowing. How in the world can a 15 year-old boy and a 15 year-old girl be equipped to handle a life choice like that and even have an inkling of all that would follow. That a choice could cause a heart wound that runs so deep, I don’t believe it has ever healed.

All my life I have had dreams, sometimes with a gap of 5, 10 years in-between, that we meet again and this time we rewrite the ending to this story. That this time our love is strong enough to defy opposition. That he loves me enough, values me enough, sees me enough to choose me. As if we were meant to be together and somehow, we find each other again.

My logical mind tells me it is such silly, romantic, foolishness. My unhealed heart does not listen and can cry in a second, 43 years later.

Do some wounds never heal?

I have since laid wound after wound on top of that first one. I believed (believe) due to some great flaw in me, that I was (am) not good enough. Something in me was unlovable, unwantable, unvaluable. So EVERY relationship and life decision since then, since 15, was based on that assumption. Layer upon layer of reaffirming hurt, poor choice after poor choice of self-fulfilling prophecy.

I have gone through stages of being independent, self-sufficient, I don’t need men, to no faith in any man, all traced back to a 15 year-old boy who would not (could not) stand up against his parents to choose me.

Wow! That’s a lot of damage to pin to a 15 year-old.

And why, faith-believing, God trusting, sovereignty professing, am I still wounded? I now raise little men and women of my own, and wonder…how can I? How can I raise my boys to be faithful, strong men and one day husbands, when I do not believe in the faithfulness of man? How can I raise my girls to be strong, pure, valued, loving women and one day wives, if I do not believe in the faithfulness of man and, if I dig deeper, do I believe in the love and sovereignty of God? Why God would allow a 15 year-old girl to be so wounded and carry that wound for so many years…that she could not be healed of it, that she could not see the world without a wounded lens?

I have done many things to try to bind up my wound. Bible studies, discipline, independence, failed relationships, therapist, self-sufficiency. When I hear of faithfulness in others, it floors me. Is it real? People really do that? MEN really do that? Or is it all a Disney fairy tale with a happy (lying) ending?

I have filled my house with children, God knows I love them so! I love them for them, for their lives, for their eternity, for their blessings and uniqueness and value and worth. I see in each of them their specialness. That yes, they are worth it. They are valuable and loving and worthy to be chosen. I see it in them. (but not in me). I fill my house with children for many reasons, and I know, somewhere deep down at the core of it, it is also for the wound I still carry. Yes, I do it for them, because I love them and want them to have a loving family (as broken as it is) and want them to know Jesus and love each other and walk in the life God has for them…yes…all of that. But as a broken momma (of broken children)…I know I also have them to try to bind up my wound. And it does not work.

Jeremiah 6:24: They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace.

Yet, I believe God’s word is true…HE is faithful and true….and his wish is not that I remain the walking wounded. That my pain would impact my children (yet it does…why is that?)

I believe every word in the book of Isaiah, that it applies to me. That he loves me with an everlasting love….that he is the one who comforts me, that my sons and daughters will be taught by the Lord and not by their momma’s brokenness, and that great will be their peace. That no weapon forged against me will prevail, even letting the enemy use the ache of my past wound to harm me or harm those I love.

I know God is the healer of the brokenhearted, and the only true binder of my wounds. Yet, knowing, believing I still walk around wounded.

I am like the woman in Mark 5, with an issue….If I could but touch him, I would be healed.

Mark 5:25-34
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
32But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Haven’t I touched him? Haven’t I reached out and grabbed hold of him? Why is my healing just temporary, never whole? Will it ever be whole?

I just came back from Ethiopia and saw so much poverty, suffering, pain, hopelessness. I talked with our driver, a Jesus-believing man, about hope for Ethiopia. God is our only hope. Yet, Ethiopia suffers.

In the face of such poverty and pain, we think what can we do? I can do a little here and a little there. I can share the hope and healing of Jesus…But I cannot remove them from their situation. I cannot solve it. (I cannot heal myself)

And like Mark Buchanan states in his book, Things Unseen, short of heaven, we will never be fully satiated….. Anything less than the full presence of God is still less.

I remember being struck by something Beth Moore once wrote, and Katie echoed, regarding those in hard situations, that you share Jesus and cry over the pain and situations that YOU CANNOT SOLVE….but (in my own words) giving them the hope of Jesus, is giving them an eternity with healed bodies and hearts and no more poverty and pain. The healing may not come until heaven.

So maybe…on a more personal, smaller scale….my wound inflicted at 15, will never be healed, fully, this side of heaven. That once I am face to face with the One who IS trustworthy and true, faithful beyond reason, who called me out and will stand up against all on my behalf…maybe the day I truly get to reach out and touch the hem of his robe, tangibly, in my hand, that will be the day of my healing.



Isaiah 30:26
The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.