Healing is in His Hands

"No matter where I am, healing is in Your hands / How deep, How strong / And now by Your grace I stand, healing is in Your hands." From Christy Nockels's Healing is in Your Hands 

Recently, a close friend texted a reminder to me about Christy Nockels's song Healing is in Your Hands to encourage me about the process of healing. Within the week, I joined a new Bible study group where the leader mentioned the subject of healing as well and how there are two ways people react to tragedies. God often teaches me, through circumstances like these, more of His truth. As a result, I've been thinking a lot about the ebbs and flows of the healing process all the while praising God that it is in His hands and not mine.

Life is hard. Tragedies strike suddenly and oftentimes more than once. It's all too much to handle, so people may choose to "fix" themselves themselves. People seek healing by losing or gaining weight, buying new things, divorcing spouses, marrying new spouses, taking pills, drinking drinks, and sleeping with strangers. Not one of these things works. They are all temporal fixes for an eternal problem.

God's healing takes lots of time, seems painful and unfair most of the time, but works! When God heals, He teaches, molds, refines, and reforms us into the creation He wants. Like the song says, it doesn't matter where we are in the healing process, we just have to trust Him to keep healing. His grace gives us the strength to stand when we have it not.

One of the best illustrations I've heard is that tragedy is like a deep cut in the skin. As time passes, the wound scabs over. More time passes, and the wound leaves a scar. Some people would look at this as a bad thing: "There's still a scar. You never completely healed." But underneath that scar lies thick scar tissue making that spot much harder to wound. In other words, God's healing may leave a scar for all to see, but that is the very thing that makes one stronger. The scar says to the world, "I've been hurt, but I am stronger now that God has healed me." It also serves as an invitation to the world: "I know pain, and I survived. I can help you with yours."

The question we all have to answer is this: Will I try to fix myself knowing that failure is guaranteed, or will I seek God--no matter how painful and time-comsuming the process--to heal me? I say, "Show my ugly scars, Lord. Use them as an example. Use my scars to help others. Just please use tragic circumstances I've faced to bring You glory."

What say you?