Monday, July 9, 2012

Fear Keeps Us From Healing

I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him. -- Isaiah 57:18

If you could have anything you want, what would it be? Millions of dollars in the bank? The home of your dreams? Fame and fortune? Good health? Respect? A happy marriage and children?

Everybody has a different answer. Some people will tell you what they think you want to hear. Others will reach for the moon. Some will seek what they think will change them. If I could have anything I want, I’d want to feel safe again.

I don’t expect that to happen so long as I inhabit this earth. It might. But it would be an unexpected delight and not a realized dream. I’m not alone. Because while some people grow up feeling loved and secure, many others grow up cowering in fear.

I listened to a wonderful speaker earlier today who said that about one-third of us were sexually abused as children. She didn’t give any source for that statistic but somehow I didn’t doubt it either. And that didn’t include those who were physically or verbally abused. Some among us could check all of the above.

We are a broken people. A sinful people. A people filled with pain and longing and a desperate need for healing. A healing that only God can provide.

Except that we’re so afraid of rejection, of revealing our secrets, of facing our guilt, that we keep all that pain bottled up inside us where it festers and grows. Because who could possibly understand? People don’t want to face the dirtiness of our lives. And we sure don’t want to be criticized and condemned yet again.

How can we ever heal if we don’t lay down our burdens before Christ? How can we ever learn to walk as whole, loved, cherished people if we don’t understand that the cross is all about us? Jesus’ blood washed us white so that none of those childhood stains remain.

But first we have to let them go. All those things we’re afraid of. All those silent hurts. All those things we never should have had to endure in the first place. We have to lay them at the foot of the cross, then get up and walk away.

Just the thought of it brings up that fear again. We know about fear. We’ve learned how to silence the pain through denial, drugs or alcohol, acting out. You name it, and at least one of us has tried it. And failed at it. Because that pain we keep trying to hide just keeps rearing it’s ugliness again and again.

The only real solution is giving it to God. Today. Tonight. Tomorrow morning at first light. Handing it over again and again until one day it doesn’t hurt so bad and we’re not so afraid anymore. And then we realize He is restoring us, loving us, comforting us, so that we can be made whole and complete in Him.