Healing Takes Time

Healing often takes more time than we want to give it. Or more time than we thought it would, or should take. Whether it involves the re-knitting of broken bones or of a broken heart, healing can be a slow process. At times it is a “two-steps forward, one step back” course.

About some things, we never really heal, in the sense of returning to the way we were, how we felt and thought about life prior to the wounding event. There are times when we need to shift our perspective to one of “ground under repair,” rather than “ground restored.” That is, we may need to be careful that we are not pushed back into a previous grief or injury. And from what I seen, there is a lot of “unresolved grief” out there, where you finally have to simply cease talking about or dealing with what you cannot seem to resolve or brush aside.

I recently had a conversation with someone who thought she was healed from a divorce only to discover through a series of events that her grieving was not finished, that she found herself reliving prior painful feelings. I told her that her grief was akin to “ground under repair.” She needed to be good to herself, not be too upset about what she found she had to endure all over again. I said some things you never really “get over”—whatever that may mean—but rather you learn to live with, or perhaps live alongside of, with some kind of fragile boundary between you and the memory.

We Americans have difficulty with our grief. All too frequently we would prefer to deny rather than face what continues to live within us.

It is important to give ourselves permission to feel what we feel, to be where we are. Real healing, forgiveness and resolution can begin only when we tell ourselves the truth. If it still hurts, say so, at least to yourself. Tell yourself “I’m not OK, but that’s OK.” Why must we delude ourselves with “I’m OK—and You’re Ok, too”? To think that way requires us to live only on the surface of life, denying our inner depths.

Many times over the years, people have come to talk with me because they thought they were further along with their healing from a relational disaster than they found out they were. It is interesting that in the Biblical Greek language there are two basic words for “healing.” The terms are “ioma” and “therapia.” The former signifies the eradication of the disease or “dis-ease”; the latter, the careful treatment of the symptoms, while the disease or wound continues to exist.

We spend much more time involved with our therapy than our healing. While we would prefer to walk away from our “issues,” the healthier approach is to face, work with and on what vexes us. Whether it is our plaguing arthritis or continuing resentment of prior abuse, it is better to accept that being human means to suffer. In fact, one noted theologian of the last century maintained that the very first words a human said were, “I am and I suffer.”

Not a very pleasant inaugural sentence! Yet suffering seems to force us to talk about what ails us; suffering generates community. I tell people that “a burden which cannot be shared, cannot be lifted.”

Through our suffering, we are enabled to become more compassionate, more humane. Nothing humbles us more profoundly than suffering. Nothing connects us with humanity more powerfully than our sorrows—and our joys.