Broken lives. Broken relationships. Torn and stripped. Life is so fragile. What does it take to be strong? What does it take to endure and overcome? Whole and healed. How?

What a subject. We could write books on this subject and there are, but what are the basics. How can we become whole and healed and then how can we help others. I’ve been on both ends and I’d like to share some things with you.

I believe the first step towards mending is being able to admit we are broken. We are in a mess and are helpless to fix ourselves without putting up defenses and shields. I can’t clean out my wound for the healing process to begin until I admit that I am wounded. I can’t keep it from happening again unless I understand why it happened in the first place. Next, I need to understand that the healing process might just take a while. There might not be a quick fix. If I neglect any of these areas, the healing won’t be complete.

Whole means whole and healed means healed. If I am only partly healed, I am not totally whole. But how can this ever happen, it sounds impossible?

We have strange beliefs in our culture. We tend to think that others hurt us intentionally and personally. This is not always true and not even the majority of the time. Most of our wounds are from friendly fire, so to speak. Ask a military person what friendly fire is and they’ll tell you it is from one of their own. How does this happen? It is normally through fear or miscommunication. How do we get hurt? It is usually the same way. This doesn’t make it any easier does it? How can we ever trust again?

First of all, we need to find someone we can trust. For me, this was the Lord. I decided that He was the only One I would be able to trust. His ways aren’t based on any human emotions. Next, I realized that I would not be able to trust or depend on any human completely. Even Jesus stated this while He was on the earth. This eliminated any hero worship as I realized that every human being was going to let me down at one point or another. The ones who would let me down the most were those who were going to be the closest to me. The main reason that people would let me down is because of the expectations I had of them. Some of these expectations were unrealistic. It put them in a place of having to perform for me and not to be just who they were. What a terrible thing to do to someone else. In fact, I was starting to see how in some cases, I was responsible for some of my wounds. I had expected too much of those around me and they simply weren’t able to meet my selfish expectations.

Okay, so I made it this far, now what next? The next phase is called forgiveness. First, I had to forgive myself for not being who I thought I should be and for my shortcomings. Next, I asked the Lord to forgive me for my selfishness and the way I had treated others. Then I had to release others from my expectations of them. And last, I chose to forgive others for their shortcomings and for hurting me. As I looked back on things, I began to realize that most of the people who I thought had hurt me, didn’t even realize they had and it was unintentional. They were completely unaware. I had wasted a lot of time and energy on trying to make them see and pay. I had also hurt others because they hurt me. I had to make them pay. This started a never ending cycle until I broke it with forgiveness. I won’t go there anymore, it is simply not worth it.

I know that this is just a brief overview and maybe we can go more in depth at some other time. I hope you have been encouraged and have gained some wisdom. May you have the courage to do what you need to do to be healed. We are a fragile people. It is the Lord’s love that makes us strong. When we are weak, He is strong. When we let Him cover us in His love, we are strong. Fragile/Strong

Joseph