The dismissive cliché “Time heals all wounds” can sting when quoted back to us when a loss is shared. Why do people say that? Do they think we will feel better? I get angry when I hear it. The cliché seems to minimize our hurt or grief and even can make the hurt worse. Don’t people realize that healing of hurts cannot fit into a timetable or a calendar-no quick fix for a wound?
Many wounds happen when we have a loss of some form; loss creates grief. We can have a loss of a loved one or friend, which brings grief. We can also experience non-death losses such as a move, loss of a job, or a broken relationship, which brings grief. In our culture, non-death losses can be dismissed as something to get over quickly. However, any loss hurts and creates wounds.
We grieve.
We can hold in our heart that God grieves with us.
No one can tell us how to grieve or how long it will take but God understands our grief.
I imagine a china vase falling to the floor and shattering into hundreds of pieces. That image of the vase can represent our heart when we have wounds. Wounds or hurt can shatter our heart into hundreds of pieces and we wonder how it will ever mend.
How do you reassemble a broken vase? How does a broken heart heal? Grief threatens the security of the world we once knew and intertwines with our entire being. We can feel devastated, sad, raw, and lonely.
We grieve, God grieves with us.
Our wise and understanding God recognizes all those fragmented pieces of pain and grief, giving us strength to carry on. God grieves with us. In mercy, God reaches in to bind and mend those wounds.
God heals the brokenhearted
and bandages their wounds.
God counts the stars by number,
giving each one a name.
Our Lord is great and so strong!
God’s knowledge can’t be grasped!
(Psalm 147:3-5 CEB)
We may not understand or see how the binding will happen. God works gently and at times unseen, bringing healing, binding, and mending. The Holy Spirit comes alongside of us to comfort and give peace in ways that time cannot. God redeems our grief, loss, wounds and hurts.
Time may give us some distance from the wound but may not heal it.
God brings the healing and redeems the shattered pieces.
Scars will continue after the mending as evidence of our losses, but those scars will be a doorway to encourage and help others with their wounds.
A prayer:
Great Physician,
You see the wounds, the heartache, the grief and the sorrow. Reach down and bring healing salve into those wounds. Comfort, mend, bind, settle, redeem, and restore. Your understanding is infinite and you understand my grief. Hold my heart. May the Holy Spirit give peace to the turmoil of my pain. Thank you for mending my shattered emotions and thank you for using the scars to be a door to help others. Amen
Below is a link to a song from Blanca. The words of God’s redemption of our pain are in her song “Shattered”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Z0HA39lZU
Lyrics to “Shattered” by Blanca Elaine Reyes
I have seen valleys, the lowest of lows
I have felt heartache that would not let go
I have been shaken, deep in my soul
I have been broken more than you know
But here I am still standing
So believe me when I say
If you shatter
Every piece of you that’s on the floor
He can restore
And after
You’ll be even stronger than before
He can restore
What’d shattered
Nothing is wasted, there’s always a plan
He has a purpose you may not understand
He’s never been closer if you just hold on
He’ll take you deeper, He’ll give you a song
‘Cause here I am still standing
So believe me when I say
If I am still here standing
You can believe me when I say
That He is more than able to redeem Your every pain
Copyright:
Writer(s): Jason Ingram, Blanca Callahan
Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com