Our hearts are the same way. When we’ve been hurt, when we are wounded, we can’t undo the injury. We can’t take back the loss or change the facts. So our options are to: 1) deal with the wound most effectively to bring healing as quickly as possible, 2) ignore it or 3) infect it.
All of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, desire the first option. We want complete healing. But it’s the effort it takes to heal our hearts that often makes us give up.
The Truth About Healing
Jessica came to see me, depressed, not sleeping, not eating and crying all the time. She was 27 and had a 13-month-old child. Six months earlier she awoke to find her husband dead in bed next to her.
Jessica blamed herself. “If I were awake, I could have heard him stop breathing,” she said. “If I would’ve woken up, I could have done CPR.” She filled her mind with images of him lying there cold and blue. She put his pictures up everywhere in the house. She thought of him constantly. She told herself, “I can’t go on without him. I should have died with him.” She began to contemplate suicide.
Jessica was hurt, injured and heartbroken. She had suffered loss and she couldn’t undo that loss. But Jessica was infecting the actual loss with lies, distortions and falsehoods that served to worsen the pain, confuse the mind and prevent healing.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32, NIV). This principle works in all situations. The truth may not be pleasant, but the truth does set free.
If you have been hurt, if you are in pain, if you have lost someone—either by death or divorce—or you have other injuries, other losses or other pain, I want to describe seven steps you can take to cooperate with God to help in the healing process of your heart here and now.
