One Word 2011 - Halfway

Alece has reminded all of us that we are now half-way through the living of our 2011 One Words.

So, it's time for an update.

My 2011 One Word is "Heal".

It's a fascinating word, and it looks nothing like what I thought it might when the year began.

The first days of 2011 were a high.  I'd just made some pivotal relational decisions that were resulting in a profound freedom.  I'd been working on healing already, and was seeing progress.  I think I started 2011 assuming that heal was going to be a victory lap, rather than a journey or a battle.

I was wrong.

It's been a journey.  A long and hard one.  One that at times is probably more accurately described as a battle.

Healing has required humility.  A willingness to throw aside pride and admit how truly broken I've been.

It's required patience for a slow process instead of an instantaneous miracle.

It's required flexibility as changes have come, and new decisions have had to be made.

It hasn't looked anything like the victory lap that I thought it would be.

And yet, I'm seeing healing in new and deep and unexpected places.

Just in the last week, I've seen incredible glimpses of healing in my relationships with my brother and sister in law, and especially with my other brother.  If you had told me that the sort of conversation I had with my brother J early this week was possible, I wouldn't have believed you.  And yet, in a relationship that has been constantly marked by judgment, we had a conversation marked by grace.  The kind of conversation where I closed the door behind him as he left and simply stood there, stunned.

God is being faithful, in the places in which I'm being deliberate in seeking in healing, and in the places in which I least expected it, to work this word out in my life.  It doesn't look how I thought it might, and it has been hard, yet it has its own unique, painful, wonderful beauty and grace, and I'm so very thankful for that.