Time Doesn't Heal

Time. 

"The indefinite progress of existence and  events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole"

"A moment or definite portion of time allotted, used, or suitable for a purpose." 

"The right moment"

"An indefinite period" 

All of the above are dictionary definitions for the word "time." I was asked recently by a stranger, "What is one thing you find yourself wishing you had more of?" My answer didn't take much thought, of course. I wish I had more time for things. And at the same moment, I hate time. At least I think I do. Time changes things. Time loses things. Time swallows things.... good things.

And, at the same awful moment, time is our friend. It puts a little distance between us and the painful life events we experience. It supposedly brings about healing. It brings us to new things and takes us from one adventure to the next. 

Here's what I like, God is outside of time. That's such a strange concept to me. But, it is a comfort to me all the same because since God is removed from time, He doesn't change, He doesn't get lost, He doesn't get swallowed. He doesn't become distant after we've survived a painful time. I like that. 

Here's what I don't actually believe: Time heals. 

In all my 21 years of existence, I have yet to witness this first hand. If someone has an example of it happening in their life, please share.  

 Wisdom is "the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement" and at 21 years, maybe I don't have a ton of any of that, but as I try to logically sort out all the happenings of my life and make sense of everything like a normal person would, I've come to understand a thing or two. 

Okay, so, 21 years of wisdom, this is what I got on time + healing in the most logical way I can think it:

God made us. He gave us life. He loves us, He treasures us, He delights in us. 

He gave us a heart. Not the organ,  the other one.. shaped like this: 

And it's special. It is custom made, unique to us. Because it was hand-crafted, knit together and fearfully and wonderfully made. 

We are cautioned to guard it by the wisest man of all time in Proverbs 4:23 when Solomon warns us, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."

You know why it's the wellspring of life? Because when we become a believer, that is where Christ resides. And you know what He is? Life. 

John 14:6a "Jesus answered and said, "I am the way and the truth and the life....."

And then Jesus gives us a great warning: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that you may have life, and have it to the full."

So, observation #1: Our hearts are super important and essential to our lives. Guard, guard, guard. 

Okay, we got that. Nextly.. life happens. Time, if you will. Pain. 

Rejection happens, hopes get crushed, dreams die, sharp words are said, loved ones step into eternity, darkness comes, hurt comes along, disappointments pile up, sadness overwhelms, forgiveness is elusive, and one sword, knife, arrow, dagger after another finds its way into our hearts popping holes in our wellsprings causing the life to drain out of us and leaving us empty. Pain acts like a gas and expands in the empty caverns our our hearts and while our hearts are overwhelmed and weighed down and heavy, they are empty. 

You know what kind of healing time does? Surface. The knife goes in, and time closes the wound.... over the knife. That stays. And while you can look and not see it, if that knife gets poked a little on the surface... it hurts just as much, if not more so, as it did when it first went it. 

It's like this one time when I was probably a sophomore in high school. On some glorious evening in the spring/early summer, my siblings and I decided we would try out this wonderful looking river a few miles from our house. My parents were off at some evening church/Bible study type deal so it was ideal for us to hop in the river on account it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission when we go on grand adventures. The river was deep and fast on account it was spring and snowmelt and spring rains caused it to swell. Our goal was to just sit in it and try it out incase we wanted to ride it with floatation devices in the future. There were a lot of rocks at the entry point.. the really thin kind that break easy.. I think it's shale. Anyways, so basically, whilst standing in that deep river we used our bare little feeties braced against the rocks at the bottom of the river to keep us from being swept away. What happened was that all our our little feeties got cut by the rocks. 

My sister being in nursing school at the time took care of our feet when we returned home so our parents wouldn't know. She lined us up and used super glue to put all the cuts back together. Brilliant right?

Well, while the wound was closed, it still hurt to walk and a couple 2 or 3 days later I decided to split the cuts back open and I found that I actually had thin pieces of shale in my foot yet. Once all of that was removed, then my foot healed a lot faster and walking wasn't a pain any more. 

That's happened to me with splinters, too. You get a sliver or wood or glass or something in you and the skin heals over it but it becomes infected and painful and any poking on the surface produces pain. Then you have to go through the pain of opening the wound, digging the thing out, and letting it heal properly. 

All that is to say, time can only heal properly after the thing that caused the pain has been removed. So many people fail to grasp this concept. (I'm guilty of this too). They think that burying things/not dealing with them will bring healing. Since when does shoving a splinter further down remove the pain? It doesn't. 

My heart was not really made for being a pin cushion I don't think. I don't think God ever meant for it to house swords or daggers or arrows or shards of broken glass dreams. 

There was a time when it did. A time when that's all it housed and all of that nastiness caused thick layers of scar tissue and hard leathery walls that kept all of it in. Somehow I believed that my walls would keep people from hurting me any more. I believed I was strong. I believed that remembering the pain people caused would help me to keep it from happening again. But every surface level tap, poke, or accidental bump hurt so deeply it sometimes took my breath away. And in the scar tissued, thick leathery walls of my broken empty heart which I believed was a safety wall, Satan held me prisoner. 

Until one day, in a desperate plea for God to prove His love and take the pain away I was told by my Heavenly Father that He could only take the pain if I let him. It took a bit of arguing back and forth before I realized that the key to unlocking my prison was this wonderful thing called forgiveness. At the time I was quite stubborn and told the Lord that none of the people who had initially drove the knives into my heart were sorry and therefore didn't deserve my forgiveness and would only be able to hurt me again if I let the things of the past go. Of course the Lord responded back that I didn't deserve His forgiveness at all either but I got it anyways. 

Thus started the most wonderful surgery of my life. As the Lord extracted one sharp object of pain after another, scraped away the dead things, cleaned up the wounds, re-constructed the parts that had caved in, tore down the walls and rebuilt them with love (Which is a much softer but stronger material, btw) and miraculously transformed the most train-wrecked of a heart into a wonderful new thing, I learned for the first time what it's like to know Jesus for real. 

And since that day, whilst arrows and daggers, and knives and swords have all slashed, cut, poked, ripped, and tore away at my heart, My Jesus has gallantly fought and fended and guarded His new place of residency as if it were His most treasured possession. And that makes me feel loved. It causes me to fall in love all over again. 

Sometimes I imagine I shall get to heaven and meet Jesus face to face and I shall look at the holes in his hands and he'll say, "These are from the time that sword almost got into your heart, but I held up my hands and kept them out." 

"And this hole in my side? Well, that was from that time that that really painful thing happened and it almost took the wind out of you, but, I took the hit and kept it from going all the way through your heart. It only got half way before it went in my body..and then I pushed it out." 

"And these holes in my feet? Well there was this one time that you were really being attacked. The enemy was really knocking at the door of your heart. I had to brace the door shut with my feet and they poke their little swords through the door, but no worries, I kept it shut for you. "

" And these stripes on my back? Well, you know.. you built some dreams out of glass and they were beautiful and shiny and clear. Unfortunately, they got shattered and, well, all the tiny pieces ripped me up too, but they got me.. not you." 

"Oh my head? Well, sometimes the enemy liked to attack your thoughts. He had a nasty, nasty plan. So, I let him poke his holes in my head instead." 

"I was beaten beyond recognition, I know. That's because life wanted to beat your heart to pulp and beyond all recognition. I wasn't gonna let that happen so I let them beat me instead."

And I will silently stare in awe of the man who took the beating in my place, not knowing how I could ever have questioned Him or accused Him of not being there.

 And He will look at me with love in His eyes and throw back his head and chuckle as He says, "Oh Fern, It's because I love you. When I gave you the Bible and said, 'The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still' did you think I wasn't serious? When I said we'd drink of the same cup did you think that meant we wouldn't both be hurt? No, you got hurt too. Of course you did, but I got the things out so you would heal. So you would know my love. So you would learn to trust me. How would I have ever showed you that if you were never attacked or wounded?" 

And perhaps I will want to protest and say I'm sorry that He had to go through that for my sake. But He will silence me before such a protest can be said and He will tell me it was His pleasure and He wouldn't have wanted it any other way. And with a cheeky little grin and a wink He will say, "It was worth it." 

I look forward to that.

 Right now I'm stuck in time. That window of "An indefinite period."

The place of, "The indefinite progress of existence.." The space of, "time allotted, used, or suitable for a purpose." God is outside of time, but he reaches in and says, "Fern, here is your allotment of time. It's suitable for a purpose and well, I have one for you. I have plans for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future. Just trust me."

For for the time being, I have no idea what my purpose is exactly. But I imagine that it shall be great.  It must be! after all, Christ is fighting so much for it and considers it worth it. :)

Ecclesiastes 3: 

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die

     a time to plant and a time to uproot,

    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.