The Choice

Musings on Healing

A few months ago, my mom told me she had been reading a book that changed her perspective on many circumstances in her life and in our family. Though I have not yet read the book as I intend to, its title has been etched in my mind since then: Healing is a Choice. Simple, really. But I couldn't get around the truth in those words.

The doctor cannot force his patient to get well. The abused cannot heal until they refuse to accept such abuse. If we do not want our cuts to become infected, we have to choose to put painful disinfectant on them in order to protect them. In short, all healing must be chosen in order to be real or lasting. That does not mean that healing will not hurt. It likely will. But, brokenness needs healing at whatever cost.

Over the past two years, I have learned more about brokenness than I ever wanted to...physical, mental, emotional, relational, material. Broken. Deeply. When relationships tear, when home is relocated, when my body is weak, when my mind is exhausted, when my heart is pulled in one thousand directions, broken in one million pieces, and alternately frozen and thawed with the changing of the seasons..this is when I realize that I cannot deny the brokenness in my life. This is when I realize that wallowing in regret and self-pity only cause the cracks to widen as I sink deeper and deeper within myself.

Isolated. Shaken. Teetering on the fence between reckless abandon and debilitating caution.

And as I stand there, attempting to maintain my balance, I am reminded, "This is my choice. Healing is a choice." And I make it. I sit down on the rails and calmly step down onto the ground beneath it. I find that all I need to balance between dangerous extremes is a foundation of Rock, solid enough to withstand my stumbling but soft enough to cradle me if (and when) I fall down.

Because the truth is, all life is broken. Human existence, at its very core, is flawed. Flawed because it is not all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, or all-understanding. (Perhaps the last one is the most unsettling.) We are flawed with sin and all the shame and guilt it carries, with insecurities and doubts and fears, with pride and selfishness and obsessions. We cannot see clearly because we were born with a cloud inside of us that obscures reality. It is called humanity.

What do we do? How do we begin to heal? Who do we turn to?

Have you ever noticed that zen gardens, places for healing, are typically made up of three components? Water, sand, and rocks. I would suggest that healing involves these three.

What do we do? We wash ourselves in the water. Take the plunge. Dive deep.

How do we begin to heal? We flip the hourglass and let the sand keep running- the past is in the past. We walk barefoot. We feel the grains slip through our fingers and relish every single one.

Who do we turn to? The Rock. Our Rock. And all those seemingly insignificant "living stones" He put beside us to help us keep standing as the waters rush over us.

As ridiculous as it may sound, sometimes the best feeling in the world is to be broken...broken and in the arms of one who can see our brokenness and still see us. To recognize that God knows and still loves. To see that our spouses or future spouses know and still love. To understand that our children know and still love. To know that our friends know and still love.

Healing IS a choice, one we make daily as we face our pasts and our futures. Whatever is broken in us needs to be taken to the water of Scripture for cleansing and comfort. We need to let the sand run and live our life moment by moment, founded on the Rock of Ages.