Wounds that Don't Heal

It is ironic that I work in a hospital, considering that I don’t believe in being sick. The Lord truly has such a sense of humor when it comes to the way He deals with me. So many parables in my life reflect the things I am going through spiritually. I’ll tell you straight up, I don’t understand the things I am going through spiritually.

The other night I went out to celebrate my birthday with my new friends and my aunt and cousins. My one Christian friend, bless her heart, asked me where I think I would be if I wasn’t here in Wyoming. I started to respond with the fact that I would probably be practicing my guitar in my parent’s basement, when she added, “would I have grown spiritually?” I actually was stunned. I don’t feel like I’ve grown spiritually at all. I feel like I have regressed. I feel like I have regressed all the way back to where I was before I started this journey.

In a way, I AM back where I started. Back then, I knew I did not know the Lord. I wanted to know Him and seek Him and above all, please Him. Now, I understand that if I seek Him, I WILL find Him, but I will also find out that the more I know about Him, the more I realize that I do not know Him, because His ways are past finding out.

Oh my God! Just now as I was writing this, the Lord revealed to me about pleasing Him. I wanted to please Him, and now I understand that I am pleasing Him. Jesus said, I do always those things that please Him. Yes~! Because everything is God’s Will, and nothing happens that is not His will.

Before, when I thought I was spiritual, when I believed wholeheartedly that I was one of the “elect,” it was really all about me. MY love for God, MY obedience, MY beliefs, MY doctrine, MY legalism. Me, me, me. Oh Ma! You hit it right on the head when you said that it wasn’t about you (me). It’s not about us, and I wasn’t seeing it before either.

Oh Susan, understand, that I have been where you are. I have wanted to make people see the error of their ways and don’t they understand that there really is an anti-christ and a place reserved for the devil and his angels. Yeah, yeah. That there is.

Maybe I can make you understand where I am at spiritually by an example. I have a wound that will not heal. It is where my biopsy was. I had my biopsy over a month ago and it definitely should be healing by now, but it isn’t. It is an open wound. It reminds me that I have open wounds in my life. My daughter has not spoken to me since her son was 6 months old. He will be 4 in March. That is an open wound, yet maybe it is a reaping what you sow, because there were times when I was her age that I did not speak to my own mother.

My loneliness is like an open wound. I walk home to an empty house and wish I had a significant other to put the tape on my bandage, and maybe cry just a little at the fact that I have to go through this kind of thing by myself.

I think a lot about unconditional love. I understood first, how I was supposed to love the people around me unconditionally, no matter how gross or offensive they might be. Then I began to see – how offensive and gross I am, in the secret of my room, in my wound that will not heal. Then I began to see, that I was really mad at God, for my loneliness, for my lack of a significant other. I get it now. I am to love God unconditionally as well. Not based on obedience, not based on what prayers go unanswered. The Pharisees believed that their doctrine and their obedience was enough. That their searching the scriptures was enough. But they missed the mark, by their lack of compassion and love. They would tithe rue and mint and gold, but they missed the weightier matters of judgment and love. In the Old Testament times, God said that obedience was better than the sacrifices. But now, unconditional love is better than obedience.

There is something else as well. I don’t understand things the way other Christians understand them. American Christianity has been tainted with traditions that were never meant to be. I understand things the way the Father has revealed them to me, even if I do not like it, or agree, or any of it. The truth is the truth, and I either am willing to give up the traditions of men, to embrace the truth, or I turn a blind eye and believe the lies set before me. The truth is – all men will be saved. You can ask me to prove it, but in the end, you will believe what you want to believe, that God is vicious, but you have somehow pleased Him by your believing in hell and your obeying the law and your demanding that everyone conform to your interpretation of the scriptures. Whatever. Do what you want, believe what you want.

Here is another thing: I keep my butter in the cupboard. Why? Because I can. Maybe you will not understand where I am coming from on that, but in times past, I would not DARE to keep my butter in the cupboard. Butter belongs in the fridge or the counter. Strangely, modern Christianity is like that. Jesus is either in the fridge or on the counter. Either you are the “elect” or you are not. But it can’t possibly be that everyone is saved, because then we are just an open wound waiting to be healed. I know people that spend all day concerned about someone else’s salvation. Really? Oh, I have been there too my friends. Who are you, to be concerned about another’s salvation? To his own master he stands or falls. Understand, that God IS in control. He is able to make people stand. When you truly understand that everyone is your brother, that you are to forgive your brother seven times seventy times, that Jesus saves all, then you will understand, that the wounds that are unhealed in your life, will be healed, eventually. That in the end, God will heal all wounds and will set all things right. All things work together for good. Just don’t ask me to tell you or prove to you that these things are so. Seek the Lord and the TRUTH for yourself. Be willing to put the butter in the cupboard or understand why a wound is not healed.

Lots of love!
Linda