When things are wrong with our bodies, they respond with pain.  Yes, there’s a whole slew of chemical receptors and signals that explain it, but when something is wrong, we usually know it right away.  And yet many of us, myself included, wait.  We try to ignore the pain, take drugs to relieve the pain, tell ourselves it’s not that bad.  But many times, if it’s bad enough, we succumb to the pain.  We finally go see a doctor, or go to the ER, because it’s interfering with our daily life, the things we want to do, the things we have to do.

When things people do or say are hurtful to us, we know it because we feel it.  Words hurt.  (So do sticks.)  An invitation to others around you but not to you – stings.  Instinctively, we know that these things hurt, but in a different way than pain.  We are aware of the things that people say or do that hurt us, but we often don’t think of the things that we do or say that hurt others.  There’s no pain receptor for that.  Often we don’t even know that we have hurt someone until after the damage is done.  There’s no fluorescent tag, or outward sign, that we have hurt someone.  But we have.  And the damage can sometimes be irreparable.  But just like physical pain, emotional pain can be healed.  It takes time, energy, patience, forgiveness, admitting we were wrong, tears – those are the drugs and the surgeries that can help to heal us.

I didn’t say it was easy.  It’s not.  For us or the other people involved.  But we have to start somewhere.  Doctors start with tests – bloodwork, X-rays, MRIs – so what do we start with?  Questions.  And not the “How are you?” on the street, hoping you’ll just say “Fine” and walk away.  Meaningful, hard questions.  Questions like, “Is there anything I’ve done that has been wrong?”  “Have I hurt you?”  “What did I say?”  “How can we fix this?”  “What can I do differently?”  And then, we interpret the results.  The answers to the questions.  We change things then, or at least we should.  As per the doctor’s recommendations, we take medicine, rest, take time off from work.  In these situations, we pray.  We change.  We love.  And we pray some more.  Sometimes, the results are good, and they happen almost instantaneously.  Other times, it takes months or years to heal.  And sometimes, we never fully heal.  Someone says something, and we remember.  A place makes us remember.  A time of year, a particular day – makes us remember.

For those wounds that never fully heal, we do the best we can.  For those wounds that do heal, we are thankful.  For those wounds which we have yet to begin to heal, we are hopeful.  For the wounds we cause others, we are sorry.  For the wounds we have not yet caused but will cause, we are sorry.  For those wounds which are healing, we continue to feel the pain.  But in all, God is still God.  He is still good.  And we have wounded Him worst of all.  And yet He loves us, heals us, picks us up, saves us, and calls us.  We are His children, and even though we have hurt Him, He heals us.  Should we not try to do the same for others?  Listen to the pain in your own heart, and ask God to let you see the pain in others that you have caused.  That’s what I’m doing.