When the healing doesn't come

From the moment we got back from Caleb's funeral I started praying for healing. I wanted to be healed of this massive wound that had left a hole in my heart. I wanted my life to be healed of the brokenness it had become. But the more I prayed for healing, the less it felt like healing was actually happening. As the days turned into weeks and then into months I found myself even more broken. My life was still in pieces and it felt like God had "skipped over" the healing when it came to me. It all hurt so much and the pain kept getting worse, not better.

So in an attempt to find healing I went on a "healing" retreat this summer. The kind I am sure some of you have seen only on television. Where people pray over one another and are healed from their aliments instantly. The kind where people speak in tongues and the Holy Spirit moves in powerful ways. And I went, and I believed that God could heal my heart during that 3 day retreat. While I was there I prayed, I cried, I had other people pray over me. I left with a still broken heart. It wasn't healed, or at least not in the way I thought it should be.

But something beautiful did happen on that retreat. I finally stopped caring about being "healed." I left that retreat with the grace to embrace my brokenness and accept it. I stopped praying for healing and just started praying that God would show Himself to me through the brokenness. I finally threw away the timelines in my head and heart of how healed I should be based on the days, weeks, and months. I learned to love myself in the brokenness.

This revelation was big for me. It led me to write a whole talk on it and base our fall A Mothers Love retreat on the theme of brokenness. If you have lost someone or something dear to you and are in search of healing, know that it might not look the way you think it will, and that's ok. I truly believe that I will never be "healed" of Caleb's death this side of Heaven and that is alright. My love for him is so deep that it should leave a mark on my heart, a big scar that is a testament of the pain I endure, which comes from such an intense love.

Thanking God today for the "healing" that didn't come that way I wanted it to and the brokenness I got instead.

"You are God, you are good, forever faithful One, even if the healing doesn't come"

Must admit that I heard this song first on Angela's blog post here. An awesome post about God's love.