Reverb 10: Day 19 - Healing

Today's Reverb 10 prompt:

December 19 – Healing.

What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011?

(Author: Leonie Allan)

I feel like of all the prompts so far, this one should really be the easiest one for me to form an answer to.  I mean, I talk about healing, and my own journey of healing in this space on at least a weekly, if not a daily basis.   Healing in general, in all its forms, is one of my favorite topics of discussion, writing, and conversation.  And yet, I spent a good chunk of time today wondering how I was going to answer this because so much of the answer is still too deeply personal and internal to share in this public place where people I know, and people I don't show up and read each day.

Here's what I can say - healing came in unexpected forms and places this year.  It came in conscious choices.  It came mostly in the latter part of the year.

I have particularly found healing in some decisions I made after escaping to California in September.  The complete change of scenery gave me the mental, emotional and spiritual space to re-evaluate many things and make decisions about moving forward.  I made conscious choices to involve some others in my journey of healing.  To seek help where I needed it, and to draw a very unexpected group of people around me to pray and love and support me as I sought to heal.  I found incredible healing in discovering that the messyness of life was known by these people, and that I was deeply loved for who I am, and not for what I contribute.  I found healing in conversations and prayer, and a continual commitment to seek it out.

I have found healing in the job I'm working at right now.  It was another unexpected God thing - He knew before I did that I really needed to be employed for these six weeks, and not trying to fill time at home.  I think He knew, too, long before I discovered it, that I needed to be working for a Christian organization that really does put God at the center of what they're doing.  An organization that seeks to live out the scriptures that talk about feeding and clothing, and about doing justice and loving mercy and walking humbly with God.  After so many years in the position I lost, in a place where in some ways the faith label was just there to garner business, and a lifetime as a pastor's kid, I have found it healing to live in a place where a love for God really is something that is lived out and plays out all around me each and every day.

Honestly, as 2011 comes, I pray that the healing that has begun in 2010 continues.  That it comes in ways that surprise me, like this job, and that it comes in those same relationships and choices that have also blessed me.