God Is Healing You In Places No One Sees

I remember being around 11 or 12 and my brother and I riding our bicycles up and down our street, racing each other. More than the fun, I remember falling off my bike and skinning my knee so badly that it hurt to extend my leg. It felt like it took forever for my knee to heal, and once it did, every time I got on that bike, I was in kneepads, elbow pads, and a helmet. I felt like I couldn’t trust myself on my bike without them.

Thinking about this story now, I’m not sure I insisted on protection because of the injury only, but also because I knew how much the healing process hurt.

I think if we all had a choice, we’d choose pain that left us with physical scars over those that don’t. Why? Although the healing process may be painful, once the scab falls away and the scar is evident, we’ll know we’re healed. Emotional wounds, however, have a way of appearing healed, but an inconvenience, a memory, or a picture can rip them open.

What we think of as having to start the emotional healing process all over is often just a prolonging of unresolved wounds.

Learning To Trust Your Heart 

He’s healing you in places no one sees because He needs you to learn to trust your heart again. Many times, we’re the victims of the situations and people that traumatize us, leading to emotional wounds. But we have this uncanny way of treating ourselves as though we’re the perpetrator. The punishment? Our hearts become prisons; no one is let in, and nothing is released.

This gives an illusion of security, but it also arrests the Holy Spirit, making it difficult for Him to speak to you. While you may have said yes to His purpose for your life, the plan to get there has not been fully revealed. The steps He needs you to take and the path He needs you to follow are only communicated as He speaks to your heart.

When Jesus died, we think all that happened was an escape from hell through the salvation He provided. This is true, but what He also gave us was direct access to the Father. We no longer need a High Priest to petition God for us. We no longer need to build altars and sacrifice animals to hear from Him.

The Holy Spirit was sent to reside in the hearts of believers (those who accepted Christ as savior), and it is through Him that God speaks to us and we to Him. What we may incorrectly envision when we hear this is a secret service agent with a discreet earpiece tucked in his ear, and it clearly transmitting step-by-step details and instructions. The way He operates is by speaking to hearts.

Given that we are closer to God than ever before, we have a hard time hearing Him when our hearts are heavy with the burden of emotional trauma that only He can heal. We often blame the distractions around us for our failure to hear Him or understand His thoughts toward us. But truthfully, these distractions are only hindrances when they align with the chaos we carry.

Your Healing Shapes Your Purpose

Regardless of the specific purpose God has revealed for your life, its ultimate purpose is to reflect Him to the people He places around you. This isn’t pressure to pursue perfection but an invitation that allows Him to heal and remove everything that prevents you from looking like Him.

Unlike physical wounds, emotional wounds have no prescribed bed rest. If you get your heart broken on Sunday, you still need to perform at work on Monday morning.

We think our everyday living helps us cope, but what it really does is make us indistinguishable from what happened to us. We may not think our wounds show, but the people around us can taste the difference.

I made some stuffed bell peppers last Sunday and used ground turkey as the meat. After I heated my pan with some olive oil, I added the raw ground turkey and then threw in my spices: salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika. Now, ground turkey is pink when raw, so spices are easily detectable when added. However, once it begins to brown and simmer, the spices are absorbed into it, and the only evidence of their presence is the flavor.

God has never asked or told us to be emotionless. However, there is a difference between a response to emotional trauma and a response triggered by emotional trauma.

We have a hard time objectively deciphering between the two, but again, the people around us can tell the difference.

When life takes a bite out of you, what do the people around you taste? Bitterness, resentment, withdrawal, jealousy, and anger?

When we yield our broken pieces to God, and He begins His work, they will taste peace, mercy, forgiveness, and grace.

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