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While scrolling through Facebook recently, I came upon a meme that, initially, begged for me to push the like button. It read:
An unhealed person can find offense in pretty much anything someone does
A healed person understands that the actions of others has absolutely nothing to do with them
Each day you get to decide which one you will be.
The last line is what caused my finger to stop before hitting the thumbs up icon.
While I understand the good intention behind the last line, it gives the impression that emotional healing is a switch that can be turned off and on, simply by force of will. Tada! I’m going to walk around healed today and nothing will get me down. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it places all the power to be healed within ourselves. While the decision to walk down the road to healing is ours, the power to do so comes from Jesus. Even then, it’s a bumpy road where we will unexpectedly trip and fall. A friend will say the wrong thing at the wrong time, nicking at the scabs of an old wound. An unexpected event shakes our sense of safety. We react in a way that shows we aren’t healed. Not fully, not yet. What we need in those moments are grace and love. We need someone to hold out their hand and help us back up.
We don’t need someone to tell us we’ve made the wrong choice, flipped the switch in the wrong direction. Odds are, we’re already beating ourselves up about it. Why did I yell at my daughter for refusing my help with her homework? Why did I let what that one lady said keep me from going to small group? Guilt and shame and regret weigh us down, slowing our road to healing.
Then we read a meme posted on Facebook, telling us we made our choice that day—and we failed.
Sometimes it discourages us from continuing at all.
If I were to rewrite the above meme, I would change the last line to say:
Today, chose to allow God to walk you down the road of healing.
It’s a journey, not a switch. One we can’t do it alone. One that takes a lifetime, finding completion when we are in the arms of Jesus.
