Last night I came home to the long awaited Sunny, my new sewing machine. She arrived in a large box at the bottom of the stairs of my apartment building. I was so excited, but I figured I would later solicit help moving the box before throwing my back out trying to do it by myself.
So I headed out to the grocery store, quite frankly forgetting about the machine for some time. When I returned with my bags, I remembered I needed to move the machine upstairs. I couldn’t acquire the help I thought I could get as one roommate was out and the other was sick in bed. I didn’t know when Charoma, the aforementioned absent roomy, would be home, and I couldn’t really leave the box there. So I went back downstairs and prayed I wouldn’t hurt myself.
It was a bumpy ride. The box was large and unwieldy, and I had to crane my neck to see the steps in front of me. I ran into the wall a couple of times as the corners of the stairway are fairly narrow. But at last, Sunny and I made it to the third floor.
Great. Task done. Check. Moving on. I picked up my bags of groceries and set to unloading, labeling, and setting aside dinner ingredients. When I looked at the back of my left hand, however, I was startled. It was dripping red all over the place! “That’s weird,” I thought. I had noticed it was wet, but with the groceries and the fact that I had just come in out of the snowy cold, I didn’t think much of it.
I still wasn’t convinced. I smelled it, wondering if some tomato-based sauce from a grocery bag exploded. Nope. As I leaned in to smell it I noticed two little tell-tale holes on my knuckles. I must have hit the wall pretty hard at one point trying to get up the stairs. After checking the walls in the halls to be sure I hadn’t bled on them, I washed and wrapped the cuts and went about my business.
Then I realized there was a lesson in it. Do you ever go about your life thinking you are just fine and taking certain things for granted? Like maybe you are often impatient with others, or you feel rejected or judged by certain types of people (men, women, attractive people, smart people, you name it). Maybe it takes the form of social anxiety or obsessive behavior. You reason it away and say it’s just your personality. After all, doesn’t everyone behave like that at some point?
Well, the good and bad news is that these types of behaviors come from wounds of your heart. Emotionally, you are bleeding all over the place and not even aware that you are hurt. Sometimes it's because you're so numb you don't feel the pain anymore; sometimes it's because you mistake it for something else. But no matter why it is, you and everything you touch will be affected if you don't put it in check.
It reminds me of a word that a pastor told me once. I was recounting to him a dream I had in which I was watching a married couple relating to one another. I knew instinctively that he was evil and she was broken. As they argued, he pulled out a huge knife and stabbed her in the back. She made several attempts to run away from him, but she was hindered by her own actions at each turn. I knew the message was that I procrastinate, but one thing he pointed out that I overlooked is that she was wounded. It boiled down to the underlying reasons I procrastinate, not just the action itself.
This doesn’t mean we have excuses for our less-than-savory behavior, but it does mean there is a reason we do the dysfunctional things we do. And if there is a reason, an internal brokenness, it means we can find healing! Isn't that GREAT news? The only one that can heal us, thankfully, is the sweet and dear Maker of our hearts. God knows exactly when, where, how the wound happened, which is more than we know. Think about it; some of it happened when we were babies! So no matter how insightful and introspective we are, He still knows us better. It's not like we can just change with enough will power. That just leads to either frustration or new dysfunctional behavior. But you know the awesome part of God knowing us so well? He longs to help you, not to condemn you. All you have to do is let Him love you. Will you? I'm learning to, and it's so freeing!
Love,
Stacey
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