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healing

In the Middle, We Are Restored

March 29, 2017

restored

Sometimes, one thing leads to another

My injury was hidden. I hyper-extended the big toe on my left foot. Without knowing it, I began walking differently to avoid pain. The change in my gait resulted in more pain on the outside of my foot. After six months and four doctors, I got my diagnosis: stress fracture.

From the outside, I looked fine, but I wasn’t. I was in a lot of pain every day and I couldn’t live a full and normal life.

At three different offices, they x-rayed me from multiple angles. Plus the MRI. The last doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, said, “All the diagnostic studies show normal anatomy and there is nothing to suggest that you have had any injury,” he paused to let that sink in. I knew that. I had read the reports too. Then, I got all choked up when he said, “But I know. You’ve been in pain for a long time, haven’t you? Don’t worry. We can fix this.”

Have you been living with pain for a long time?

Maybe you’re emotionally spent. You have a troubled child, an aging parent, a joyless marriage, a soul-sucking job? You lost a dear pet. A friend betrayed you. You’re disappointed with yourself and your life. You battle anxiety, and every day you are waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Maybe you’re just terribly lonely.

Many of us carry heavy baggage around. From the outside, we have a good life, or there’s not much to complain about. And now we add guilt to the burdens we carry because—it could always be worse:

  • On FaceBook, someone’s raising money for a child who has cancer.
  • There’s someone at church who was in an accident and is on crutches, rehabbing a broken foot.
  • In the news, there’s word of real persecution—Christians are dying for their faith.

Our problems seem so trivial next to these.

Invisible pain is still pain.

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28, NASB

Your heavy burden—the Bible calls it trouble, affliction, suffering, a trial, or a difficulty—let’s call all of it “pain.” You can tell yourself the pain isn’t really affecting you, that you’re doing ok, but understand: pain will change the way you walk.

The Hebrew word that means “to walk” is Halakh, which also means the way you live or conduct yourself. When you’re in emotional or spiritual pain, your walk will diminish. We all do this. To avoid adding shame to our pain, we minimize risk. We keep quiet about difficulties in marriage, failure in children, disconnection from friends or family. We hide sin, so we won’t add rejection to pain.

As we hide pain and brokenness, our Halakh becomes broken, too. We live scared, small, and alone.

Sometimes it feels like
it will hurt worse if we say it out loud.
And it probably does. At first.

During the physical exam, the doctor squeezed my foot so hard! I yelped a little. Tears sprang to my eyes. He found my pain point and that was the beginning of my recovery. Finding and sharing your pain point may seem impossible, but you can’t move past pain without acknowledging it.

We can live authentic and wholehearted lives, even when pain is a constant companion. We aren’t meant to put on a good face at church or tell friends we’re “fine,” when we’re a mess. When we come to God in prayer, He wants us to speak truth—confession of sin, confession of need, cries for help, wordless groans—because sharing with God gives us what we’re most desperate for, closeness with Him.

God sees our deepest needs, whether we share those burdens with Him or not.

I couldn’t ice, stretch, or heat my foot enough to heal it. Acknowledging my limitations was critical to my recovery. I needed more than what I could do alone. When we come to Him, God’s always willing to help us deal with our pain. He knows it’s really too much for us to carry.

The way we’re restored is a mystery.

Healing just happened. Somewhere, during the twelve weeks of wearing the boot, my stress fracture healed. I couldn’t begin to guess when it started, but somehow I was restored.

Here’s the greatest comfort: God works in the invisible places. He’s restoring when we don’t know He’s working at all. If you give Him a burden, you can trust He’s at work. If you don’t see progress or healing, He’s still at work. When you wonder if He has forgotten about you and your troubles, He’s working for you.

Don’t be deceived by what you see, hear, or feel. God is faithful. He is always working to redeem the unredeemable, heal the broken, make straight the crooked, and bring life out of death. In the middle—though we don’t know how He does it—we are restored.

Filed Under: Lenten Before & Afters Tagged With: broken, difficulty, healing, Lent, meet in the middle, pain, redeemed, restored

Smile – You’re Rebuilt, Restored, Reestablished

March 8, 2017

restored

Important Work

I know it’s wrong, but I really envy my husband. He’s a dentist and everyday he gets to help people. What he does isn’t like what I do—he’s not washing another load of clothes, grocery shopping, correcting someone’s 1000-word essay, or delivering that same someone, or their sibling, to piano/tennis/guitar/martial arts lessons (again).

He tells me—all the time—that my job is really important, and I get it. I know what he means. I do the job that lets everyone else pursue their purpose. To paraphrase the theme song from an old chick-flick, “I am the wind beneath their wings.” But doing the same mundane things, day in and day out, can feel very purposeless. Some days I find myself longing for more, for a different kind of work.

There are jobs that give you the opportunity to make great changes in someone else’s life.

Smile Ministry

Sometimes my hubby rescues a patient from tooth pain that has been keeping them awake at night. Other times he gives them the opportunity to eat normally, for the first time in years. His work can relieve debilitating headaches or facial pain. He has even had the opportunity to diagnose other disorders like diabetes, fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, and oral cancer.

Did you know that “an estimated 164 million work hours are lost each year due to oral disease”? (ADA.org) That’s a lot of oral disease! Many people dread going to the dentist, but when you really need one, you are thankful to find a good one, like my husband.

When he finishes restoring someone’s smile, Scott likes to take an “after” picture that can be compared to the one taken before treatment. The picture at the top of this post is from a case that he completed while he was still in the Air Force. The patient had some congenitally missing lateral incisors (two of her front teeth had never formed). She’d had big gaps in the front of her mouth for her whole life. Until he placed a bridge to hold the crowns that he’d stained to perfectly and naturally match her other teeth, she had never had a normal smile.

smile

oxforddictionaries.com

For Scott, one of the most rewarding tasks he can do is teaching someone how to smile. Some people have hidden their teeth for most of their lives. When they try to smile, their lips won’t part or they cover their mouths with their hands. When people have lived like that, ashamed of their appearance, for so long, they don’t know what it feels like to smile naturally. He has to show them, while they hold a hand mirror, how to work their facial muscles and part their lips to form a smile. What a profound privilege—to teach someone how to smile.

Smile Restoration

How many of us need a different kind of smile restoration?

Is your smile broken? Jesus is called the Great Physician, but in some ways He is very much like a dentist. In our hearts, He removes decay, restores function, and creates beauty. Sometimes He has to teach us how to smile. And like a dentist, Jesus does custom work. He doesn’t make one-size-fits-all smiles. In the same way that no two mouths are exactly alike, no two people are exactly alike. We each need the personal and individualized approach of Jesus, who said:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Luke 4:18-19

Do you feel like you’ve lost your smile? Is heartache keeping you awake at night? Are you stuck in the middle place, waiting for restoration? Remember that Jesus is always working in the middle, for our good, and remember that He’s a finisher (Romans 8:28; Hebrews 12:2). He will accomplish what He has set out to do, in us, in His time. Jesus is God’s promise to love us, come to life.

Jesus is there with you, right now, in the middle.

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me;
You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
And Your right hand will save me.
The Lord will accomplish what concerns me;
Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting…

Psalm 138:7-8, NASB

 

Filed Under: Lenten Before & Afters Tagged With: healing, heart, meet in the middle, renew, restore

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Hi, I'm Britta! I love a good "Before & After." But trying to skip the middle to get to a happy ending leaves me feeling impatient and discouraged. Let's learn to find hope in the messy middle places of life by remembering God promises to complete the work He has begun in us. Let's curate hope, together! Learn more...

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