Healing balm

About 15 years ago, I broke my ankle. I was just messing around on the ice, sliding and goofing off, and I hit a dry patch. My body twisted around, but unfortunately my foot did not. It was kind of a bad break and required surgery to repair it. I had three surgeries actually - one for the initial repair and two additional ones to remove the hardware that was used to put all the pieces of my shattered ankle bones back together. As a result of the surgeries, I have a scar about 4 inches long, and even after all these years it is still sensitive to touch. I can't have anything tight around my ankles, and even touching it at all makes it tingle and hurt. Not only has the scar always bothered me, but because of the nerves that were unavoidably damaged during surgery, the entire side of my foot from my ankle to my pinky toe has always been sensitive and I've had to be very careful with it.

One day, when Vince and I were dating, he offered to give me a foot massage. Ummmmm, yes! Hello! Who would turn that down? So off came my socks and out came the Bath & Body lotion....warm vanilla sugar to be exact. I use nothing else. It's yummy!! Anyway, as he began rubbing the lotion into my feet I told him to be careful around my scar and the sensitive areas of my foot. He was, but I remember even the thought of him getting close to those areas would make me jerk my foot away.

Foot massages soon became a regular thing...he was always gentle and very careful , so much so that I didn't even notice that despite my fear and warnings, he did not avoid those sensitive areas completely. He started out barely touching them at all, and over time he increased pressure until something miraculous happened...it didn't hurt anymore. Those sensitive areas that I protected and avoided all those years, were healed by his touch.

Do you have sensitive areas that you protect? That you avoid, and even fear anyone getting close to? Even God?

I do.

And God reminded me of this yesterday in church...He wants to heal. Every hurt, every sensitive area, every scar. He wants us to trust Him and expose those areas of our hearts that we have kept hidden, that we have protected, that we have not allowed Him to touch...so that He can bring healing. Dont' jerk your foot away. Let Him get out his healing balm and do what only He can do. He will be gentle, He knows it hurts. There may still be a scar, but His desire is not for our scars to continue to hurt. If it still hurts, it's not a scar. It's a wound. And because of His wounds, we are healed. He doesn't want us to be wounded, He wants us to be healed - to grow us and bring us to a new place where we are not afraid.

Because He's there. I'm not afraid.