Day 121: Forced to Heal

A friend of mine, who I feel is in some ways wise beyond his years, wrote this as his facebook status today:

“Broken people; we feel love, but it scares us. It feels fake and cheesy, so we respond awkwardly or sometimes almost violently. We learned to fight against that because when we were younger and more impressionable it was very often and/or quickly followed by pain. We learned to survive. Jesus works on us, with us over time.

Please continue to partner with God's only Son as He works on the lives of people around you, in all the different ways that He does it. Don't force your time-table for someone else's healing. We want to heal too, some of us know that you just want it so badly for us that you try to push, coax and encourage us. As God leads you, do these things but most of all; love us.. Love us, in deed and in truth.”

When I read this, I was almost in tears and immediately convicted. I realized how guilty I have been of almost forcing other people to heal. When you care about someone so deeply, the greatest difficulty is to watch them struggle through the pain in their lives.

Sometimes it's too much, and we try to step in and encourage them to move past it, to rest in Jesus, to get over it already!

How insensitive and counter productive. How selfish.

I just want my friends to be happy, and at peace with their lives, but I am discovering that I have very little to do with that. I am not God; I am not the one who can make them whole. So why do I act like that, sometimes? Why do I think that one word I say will magically heal them from years of deep wounds and pain?

Wishful thinking never really got anyone anywhere.

Thinking on Jesus does, though.

So as I watch my friends through ups and downs, and even as I feel my own life traveling down corridors of joy and adversity, I have to remember that we heal with God on His time, not on our own, and certainly not on the time of our loved ones.

I wanted so much to encourage and love my friends, that I didn't realize I was sometimes making them uncomfortable, and perhaps even disrespected, in my urge for them to “get better.”

God is the great physician, healing my friends and me from the brokenness of this world.

This is an open apology to any of my friends who have felt like I've pushed them to heal faster than they were made to.

I'm sorry, ad I hope that you can see how Jesus has changed my heart, and is showing me that I am just to come alongside you, and love you, for however long it takes.

And I am willing.

In Christ,

Lilia