Healing

Dear Friends in Christ -

Since Sunday, I've been paying attention to this spot on the top of my foot. Rushing around in the kitchen in my socks, I splashed boiling water on it. Immediately the skin blistered and peeled away leaving, as my kids would say, a big owwie.

As I've dressed the wound each day, giving it air and salve and covering, I've literally watched the skin grow back, millimeter by millimeter. It's so amazing to actually be able to watch healing take place. To see a hurt get better.

I spoke with someone this week who is struggling with his own wounds - internal ones, deep ones. He's waiting for healing to happen, and he wanted to know: How can you tell if healing is happening when the wound is internal? How do you measure progress when you can't see it?

I have to confess that I didn't have any easy answers for him. I'm not sure there are any easy answers. But I suspect if he gives the wound in his heart the air of truth and the salve of faithfulness (putting one foot in front of the other as best he knows how) and the covering of encouragement from those who care for him, his wound will heal. Millimeter by millimeter. And though it's hard to be patient. That kind of healing - the kind that's from the inside out - will last.

Faithfully,
Janet+