Here’s the story. Spiritually speaking many people can sustain a wound to the soul and expire years later. As they say, time does not heal all wounds, but time does wound all heels. There are few people who go deep enough for the “full” recovery. They sustain a low grade infection that weakens and makes them susceptible to succumbing to future traumas. Somehow they think that time will do the trick. It does not. We don’t get strong naturally over time – physically or otherwise. We have to mean to.
I have particularly seen this in ministries like Divorce Care. Some men and women come into DC after being shot decades ago. That wound has become a permanent condition. No one would criticize. Everyone understands. But the condition does not by that become less dangerous. The only remedy is to become strong at the broken places lest at some future time we “die” of the infection.
The directions on a bottle of antibiotics reminds the patient to take all the pills no matter how well the infection seems to be healing. What we know is that infections can hide. They seem to be cured when they are not, only to return later on and threaten us with even greater damage. This is true in so many ways in the life of the spirit. Let’s not make healing seem easier than it is.
Over my time in the blogosphere I have become more and more aware of pastors who do not heal. A trauma, a betrayal, a firing, or a failure sets in motion a chain of events and decisions that over time weaken. Blogging becomes the place where they choose to bleed, and they are branded by their wound. No one is criticizing. Handle your pain as best you can in the way you have to do it. But 35 years or 5 years later, no one will care much who shot who. The thing that matters is that someone has done the hard work of getting better and is now embracing opportunity rather than the pain.
