Hurt

If I could summarize this past week in one word I'd say: hurt.

In the last few days I've been bizarrely injured multiple times.  With a few of them I've had to seriously contemplate if professional medical attention would have been inappropriate.  It seemed every time I put my First Aid kit away it needs to come out again a few hours later.  I've always been the "girl with the Band-Aids" and now I'm "the girl who needs the Band-Aids."  It's annoying, but what is more annoying is that not all hurts are physical.

Emotional wounds are harder to treat.  Neosporin and Band-Aids don't cover it (no pun intended).  You think they're healing and suddenly you're gushing tears again.

At (adult) Sunday School I shared the prayer request that I keep getting hurt physically and emotionally, and I am sick of reaching for Band-Aids.

Our Sunday School teacher Matt smiled.  He said he could write his own name next to that request every day.  He said many others could do the same.

When Matt prayed, he thanked God for the rain pounding on the roof.  He said it was healing rain sent to cleanse and heal those of us who have hurts like I mentioned.  Later, he asked God to relieve our (my) physical, emotional, and spiritual hurts.

My first thought was defensive.  "I didn't say I was hurt spiritually."  As Matt prayed, God prodded gently.

"Yes, you are."

I can put a Band-Aid over my scratches to cover them up.  I don't have to see their nastiness and neither does anyone else.  Why am I still putting man's Band-Aid over God's band-aid (a scab)?

Emotional wounds don't need Band-Aids; they're covered in a different way.  They're hidden deep within me as if that'll make them go away.  The other day Luci said, "Katie, you're like a box.  I keep trying to open you, and I can't."  That hurt.  But it was true.

Is God saying that to me too?  "Katie, I'm here ready to open you, ready to heal you.  I'm ready and you won't let Me."

Just like physical wounds need to be cleaned, so do emotional and, more importantly, spiritual wounds.  Boy, does it hurt!  But it's vital.

<>< Katie

"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5