I Don’t Know How to Heal!

I can tell you right where I was when the words formed themselves into a sentence: “I don’t know how to heal!”  I was outside where my little ones couldn’t hear me cry, under a blue sky, next to twin patches of daisies and quaking aspen in my front yard. It was several months after my husband’s two-year battle with cancer and he was gone. To no longer be able to look upon Matt’s face again for the rest of my life, was, oh, so hard, and I was desperately sad, overwhelmed by grief that didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t seem to go away. It was grief that just grew bigger and bigger. It was a hole of emptiness somewhere inside my chest that hurt abominably and kept growing.

The feelings were so consuming I wasn’t sure how to survive, let alone do all that needed to be done as a now-single mom of four, ages 3 to 8, at the time.

I’d been told time will heal your wounds, but it didn’t make sense to me. How could being separated from him longer make things better? I’d also been told to talk about my feelings. But, I already knew talking didn’t fill that hole and it couldn’t take away the pain.

I needed to heal, and I didn’t know how.

But something special happened out there, in front of my house that day. There was a calmness that came, as if on the breeze, and settled on me suddenly. And with that calm feeling, I sensed a message that was completely clear: You don’t have to know how to heal.

What?

You don’t have to know how to heal…because you were made to heal.

There was a little cut on my finger. As I looked down at it, I knew that message was true.

All I needed to do for my finger was keep the little wound clean so it wouldn’t become infected and my body would heal itself; it was made to heal itself. That hole in my chest, then, could heal, too. I didn’t have to know how to heal. There wasn’t something I needed to do to heal. I just needed to keep the area clean—free from bitterness or blame or whatever might infect it.

What a comfort and a blessing that little revelation was to me!  It set me free from a wretched, unproductive kind of worry that I couldn’t heal. It was a sweet outpouring of simple wisdom beyond my own, that helped me know I wasn’t alone. And, it was true. It was true for me. And it is true for others. Human beings are created with a remarkable ability to heal, and we don’t even have to know how.

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