Healing

I go to a support group on Monday evenings. Every few weeks they draw a topic from a box. The first time I went it was "honesty." I'm putting great effort into practicing honesty. Sometimes it's hard. It isn't necessarily lying that catches me up, rather not always telling the truth when the truth needs to be told. All too often I am afraid to say what is on my mind or how I am feeling deep inside, so I bottle it up instead where it can fester and burn. I'm trying to loosen the bottle cap and learn to let off some steam. Trying.

Last week's meeting topic was "healing." When someone is sick or wounded, we pray for healing, but what we really want is total restoration. We want the cancer to go away, the broken bones to be normal, and everything back to how it was to start with. But that isn't always how things work. Sometimes God heals in ways we don't expect. Sometimes He heals in ways we don't want. Cancer patients die, broken bones heal crooked, and relationships change. Healing requires growth, and growth requires change. And sometimes change leaves scars. Dad's childhood battle with polio left one leg an inch shorter than the other, but it also left a determination to succeed. He told me learned to "push through" when things got tough.

I'm trying to remember, as I pray, that God's will is not always the same as mine. It counts when I pray for the needs of others as much as when I pray for my own situations and the needs of my family. My dad didn't have his cancer healed here on earth, but in heaven he is cancer-free. Our hearts may have been broken when he left us, but the tenderness the wound left gives us new perspectives. We would have loved the gift of physical healing, yet the balm of spiritual healing is what we really needed.

Wounds and scars. We all have them. As I pray for healing, may it be the kind that God gives, because even if it isn't what I wanted to start with, His healing is complete.