Thirteen Days In

Thirteen days ago I came to this space and declared to the world that my one little word for 2011 was Heal.  I'd almost picked "grow", but as I'd been journaling and praying that day, I felt the Lord clearly saying that Heal needed to come before the word I'd nearly picked.  That before the aim became growth, there needed to be foundational repairs.  That what had begun needed to be seen through to completion.

In the days just before the new year began, I'd made a series of decisions.  Decisions that didn't come easily, but that I was excited about.  Decisions to care for myself, to respect and honor who I am.  Decisions that were part of a process that began last year when my world started falling apart.  A process of healing.

And after all of that, after a whole year of the deconstruction of my life, and then slowly beginning to pick up the pieces, I was pretty confident that I had a handle on what "heal" would look like for my life.  I'd made some good choices, and I was riding a wave of confidence based on those successes, based on the ways I'd seen healing happening tangibly in my life.  Things were, after all, looking up.

Thirteen days in, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't look anything like the happy and victorious walk that I'd imagined it would be.

Some days it's sad.

Some days it looks like slogging.

And some days it hurts like hell.

I forgot, you see, a few fundamental things.

First, I forgot what I know about the process of healing.  What I'd learned as I studied anatomy, and what I know from friends who work in the medical profession, and what I know from years and years of being obsessed with every medical drama on television.  I forgot the part where sometimes the process of healing is slower and more meticulous and more painful than the thing that actually inflicted the wound in the first place.  The the dead and dying bits - the diseased bits, and the parts that are poisonous must be removed for healing to happen.  And that that process of removal is rarely without pain.

And I forgot something even more basic.

I forgot that what I envision and see is so very often not what God sees.

I forgot this ongoing lesson of trust.  Of trusting that what he envisions for me is so much better than what I had been counting on.

I forgot that while He had been calling me to long for things, to really desire things, instead of constantly walling my heart in, guarding it against disappointment, that in being obedient, there would quite possibly again be disappointments when my timing and longings didn't match His.  And that those disappointments would come, and then I would still need to be willing to risk my heart, and continue to long for the dreams He'd placed within me, and trust His timing for them instead of mine.

It doesn't look anything like I thought it would, only thirteen days ago.

But I still trust that word, and this process.

I trust that 2011 will be a year where heal will come to mean deep things to me.

Where I will see healing at work in my life.

Even, and perhaps especially on the days when it feels sad, or like lonely slogging, or it hurts like hell.