The Truth About Healing
(*If you’re wondering, yes it has been a bit since I wrote anything. Thanks for your patience and enjoy!)
For the last 8 weeks or so, I’ve been trying to find a comfortable way to sit upright while also keeping my leg elevated. My conclusion?
God did not design the human body to bend like that - at least not for long.
I had some reconstructive foot surgery that required the breaking of bones, screwing & stapling bones back together, and the result is 8 weeks of zero to limited walking with the aid of a canister boot.
The hard part of this procedure is that I knew I needed to have it done years ago, but waited until the pain was substantial enough to force a decision.
Seems like every kind of repair and healing happens in the same way.
We know the pain is present, but it isn’t enough to do anything about it. The meandering relationship, the ever-deepening wound from a past indiscretion (either ours or someone else’s), the betrayal of our trust by a person or by the faith that once gave us life - we know the pain exists but there’s no motivation to do anything about it.
And then, we decide. We decide to ignore it, perhaps. We affix it to the wall of our souls and make it part of the decor.
We decide to blame someone else and funnel all the darkness and vengeance at them - under our breath, of course, without their knowing anything is going on - and we live as if that’s healthy.
After 4 weeks off my feet, I returned to the clinic to have stitches removed and a new dressing applied to my foot. The first dressing was thick and heavy; it looked like a cast. The new dressing was light and breathable, which gave my spirit a lift and reminded me that this is not forever. The pain of the inconvenience, ache, and tenderness has a shelf life.
But still, it was two weeks more in the boot and another three or four weeks in a loose shoe with gentle movement. And then there are the scars. The sides of my big and little toes bear a noticeable groove and a bit of bruising.
The entire time I was flat on the couch, icing and taking painkillers, I was envisioning the time when I would return to “normal.” Walking, no longer thinking through the dynamics of getting the boot affixed and fastened only to make the 20 foot journey from the couch to the bathroom - those would be days of glory and goodness.
But of course, the time after the wounds - the time of being healed, feeling healed, and continuing to heal - would never be normal. My feet would never be the way they were before.
This of course is perhaps the greatest challenge of our pain: even when we heal, there is no return to the way things were. Scars carry forward.
It’s no wonder to me then why the Divine is part of the true healing process. We lack the perspective to see how remaining in the present and moving forward, never to return to the time-before-the wound, is our only option.
We need someone - literal “someones” and a holy Other - who can help us look at our scars with a balance of regret and hope, knowing that survival and healing are down payments on the future goodness we are able to give to the world.
When we are cut deeply enough to require our forgiveness of another, we will never be the same but the act of daily forgiveness makes us different for the future.
When the faith that once gave us life disappoints and betrays us, either philosophically or literally, that form of faith must die. But from the burial place of our old form of faith a new budding emerges and a new form of faith carries us forward.
In any case, the truth about healing is that it is not a return to what was.
Healing is a welcome from the Divine into what may be and who you may become.
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash