"The mountains will bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He will bring justice to the poor of the people; He will save the children of the needy, and will break in pieces the oppressor." (Psalm 72:3-4)
And on this episode of Tirzah's Double Ewe Tee Eff Journey to Emotional Healing, we'll talk about… drumroll… cymbals clang… third-degree burns!
A little over a year ago, I blogged about my own experience with a second-degree burn, and I compared it to emotional healing. I understand that physical healing isn't 100% identical to emotional healing, but I still find it uncanny that it's pretty darn similar. The disclaimer to this post, of course, is that I'm not an ordained minister. I'm not a licensed counselor. I'm not a theologian. I'm a writer who finds it quite therapeutic to blog about what she's learned, and I'm a concerned sister in Christ who's very aware that people can experience pain that's very similar to mine. So, please DON'T try this at home. Please simply let me show you my scars and tell you about them while I'm waiting for them to heal. Some of them have closed up and healed quite nicely, and you can barely tell that they were ever there. But the ones that still have lots of scar tissue underneath or that might still be stinky with infection… I invite you to take a whiff, especially if doing so will help you avoid getting burned yourself. Ewww. I hope that made sense.
About 31 years ago, my family befriended a guy at church whom I'll call Maurice. He was a nice guy, and he was single. On at least one occasion, my family enjoyed a Sunday lunch with him, and he took a nap at our house. (I remember this because he napped in my bed once, and I accidentally woke him up when I opened the door to my room and didn't know he was in there. Why am I writing about this? Is it because waking somebody up was a capital offense at my house, or am I just a rambling storyteller? Hmm. Probably the latter. Have I told you lately about my cats? Tirzah, focus!)
Maurice had an industrial job at a plant or a factory. One day on the job, he was involved in a terrible accident that gave him third-degree burns on his arms. I was a little girl when this occurred, so I will now tell you about his physical healing as the details were told to me, if I remember them correctly. His accident was painful and excruciating, yes. But his healing process was beyond torture. While he was in the hospital, a nurse would enter his room on a regular basis and scrub his raw, third-degree-burned arms. She wasn't trying to hurt him with her large bristle brushes and swift movements. She was just trying to keep his wounds clean, probably so he would avoid infection. But it would hurt like heck, so he would scream during the cleanings. I barely knew Maurice, but he really was a nice guy, and it hurt just hearing about his torturous healing process. This occurred back in the early-to-mid 80s, so I'm hoping technology has helped ease these primitive-sounding procedures. But perhaps the basic principle is still the same: While a deep burn is healing, it must be cleansed, and the process will greatly sting. I also heard that sometime after he completed his burn treatment, he got married and lived happily ever after. So, I think he's OK, even after his traumatic ordeal.
"The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth." (Psalm 97:5)
I will now switch gears and talk about emotional healing. About 3 years ago, my church launched a series of messages called Summer of Freedom, and I thought I should attend because it would be a good refresher course (on things like forgiveness, rejection, shame, etc.). Heh, heh, heh. Little did I know that that would launch Tirzah's Double Ewe Tee Eff Journey to Emotional Healing. Little did I know that God my Surgeon would be like, "Hey, you know what? The last time you went under the knife, catastrophe occurred. You can't feel it because you've gotten used to it, but somebody left some junk inside you before they sewed you back up, and now I need to go in there and clean it out. You won't believe what I found in the X-ray. You've got surgical instruments, a wristwatch, a cellphone, a time bomb, and sponges galore. No time to wait for the anesthesia to take effect. We gotta operate, stat." (Tirzah, you're rambling again. Focus!)
A few short months after the Summer of Freedom, I was at a cubicle and trying to concentrate on my work, and I was in the process of separating myself from a couple of friends. The pain hit me rather hard, as I wasn't really used to feeling pain yet, and I was failing to maintain my composure. The tears came, and I was talking to God and trying to figure out what was going on, and from what I can remember, He said, "This isn't a papercut. This is a third-degree burn, and you need skin grafts." I learned that sometimes when God prunes people out of your life, sometimes He replaces them with new people (skin grafts, so to speak). Anyway, that's one example of how emotional healing can be like a third-degree burn. Sometimes healing happens with other people.
But I think the majority of my healing -- during this Double Ewe Tee Eff leg -- has occurred with just me and God. He needs to keep my wounds clean during the healing process, and there's no real shortcut to it. It's just God coming at me with His large bristle brushes, and He scrubs at the rawness while I scream. Perhaps it's a good thing that this is often a private process, because God is vigorous with His scrubbing, because He loves me excruciatingly and insists on my avoiding infections. Sometimes healing happens in community, and other times I would rather the community not hear me screaming.
Lately, God has been reminding me that there aren't always easy answers. Is Jesus my Healer? Yes, of course He is; He's actually the entire reason why this whole process has been happening. Is the Holy Spirit my Counselor? Yes, of course He is; He's the One with the giant flashlight that illuminates the places where the Surgeon needs to operate. Does God my Heavenly Father care about me? If so, why doesn't He spare me this excruciating emotional process? Well, let me tell you a little bit about Him, and let me tell you a little bit about me.
I've heard of miraculous instantaneous emotional healings happening -- zap, and God healed this person's memory. Kapow, and this other person no longer deals with this issue. Alacazam, and this other person is healed and ready to conquer the world. But from what I understand, my emotional healing has been happening slowly but surely because of ME, and because it's supposed to be that way. Recently, God told me that I'm a woman of process, so my healing has been happening in the process. I'm a shepherd. That means I hang out with sheep and get to know them -- this comes in handy when I'm using a rod or a staff to move them in a certain direction or sniffing out a wolf or a bear that's about to attack them. In the body of Christ, I'm not a temporary friend. I'm a permanent fixture. I'm in it for the long haul. I'm usually extremely loyal, often to a fault. I've noticed that I stink at praying for people at church because I'm usually not satisfied with a one-time prayer event. I keep wondering how the person is doing afterwards, and I'll keep praying for them, and it's actually torture because I won't know how to find them or get in touch with them. But that's who I am -- I'm a woman of process. I value the process. I want to walk with people through their processes (with healthy boundaries, of course). I'm built for follow-up. I'm extremely relational. I don't really know how to function outside the context of relationship.
So, most of the ways I've been hurt is through relationships, or lack thereof. The enemy has perverted the way I relate to people by throwing things into my life like codependence, controlling Jezebel, rejection, abandonment, loneliness, etc. So, God taking His sweet time and healing me up by walking me through my healing process -- even if He's cleanse-scraping my third-degree burns in slow-motion and I'm deep-screaming like a baritone -- is a tailor-made process for me. Yes, I've completely effed up parts of this delicate process by doing effing foolish things like disobeying, etc., along the road. But Tirzah's journey has been a long process, and Tirzah has been getting to know her Creator during the process, and He's been fixing the way she relates to people and accepts new skin grafts.
For example, God's silence can sometimes be a scary thing. People sometimes freak out when they can't hear God or when He isn't chit-chatting with them constantly. But for ME, God has shown me that His silence can be healing. To ME, God isn't a narcissistic chatterbox of a Father who prattles on without stopping for breath. Sometimes God is like a rambling storyteller who has all kinds of information about my past, my present, and my future. But other times, God is the most patient Listener in the universe who doesn't give up on me during my long episodes of pensiveness. The way God designed ME, I need lots of time to think. Sometimes God stays quiet so that I can think. He likes to hear me think. I like to hear me think. I think. Wait. Time to shepherd myself again. Tirzah, focus!
Sometimes, healing happens miraculously and instantaneously -- fire comes down from heaven and devours the sacrifice. But other times, the mountain needs time to melt like wax in God's presence. It might be a long wait, but it will certainly be worth the wait. Maybe God wants to keep the mountain around for a while before He moves it away completely. The verse from Psalm 72 that I quoted at the beginning of this post says that the mountains bring peace. I believe the NIV says that the mountains bring prosperity. Sometimes when I read that, I think about how the issues we deal with in our lives ("mountains") can become like weapons that we can use later. Like if a huge relationship wound stares at you in the face and makes you cry while you're at your work cubicle, and God brings you through it and you bond with Him relationally during the excruciatingly long process, you can remember the mountain later. Maybe if a friend comes to you for advice later, you can say, "Hey, I remember that mountain. It took forever to melt. But it's gone now." Maybe that's one way the mountain can bring peace -- knowing that God my Mountain-Melter is in the process of taking care of it and getting rid of it… because He's an extremely good Father who takes care of me. Sometimes the process seems very vague, but there's plenty of evidence that change is occurring. I hope that made sense.
Well, my little camera-strap huntress is perching contentedly nearby, and my little orange mountain is napping elsewhere in the vicinity. They're adorable little permanent fixtures. Awww.
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