Why does healing take so long?

A follow up conversation to Clearing the Cellar

AI generated - that isn't me

Morning, Lord.

Good morning, David.

Finding that batik in the cellar last week has caused me to reflect quite deeply on what’s been going on. And it’s left me with a question I’d like to ask you.

Go ahead, I’m here.

Well, why does healing have to take so long? I mean, it’s been forty plus years since that picture was given to me, and twenty seven years nearly since I had to retire from full time ministry. I’ve been looking for healing on and off the whole time so why so long?

Well, we need, first of all, to recognize the importance of timing. Do you remember the first time you tried to propose to your wife?

Come again? What on earth has that got to do with it?

Oh I see, timing. Yeah, it didn’t go well as I was so nervous that I went about it in such a way that she got confused and was not a little put out because she heard me checking that she was “good enough” to be a vicar’s wife, and not that I was concerned she didn’t take me on without knowing the likely cost? It was difficult to the being on the brink of a disaster!

But when the time came to propose, was it difficult and did it go well?

No, it was easy, because everything came together! The timing was perfect.

And what had changed between the first time that you asked and the second?

I don’t really know to be sure, but certainly I think things had moved on and we had changed. I understood her better, and didn’t try to rehearse. It just happened in the moment. Somehow both of us were ready.

So timing is absolutely crucial, is it not? In microcosm the progress from a fudged attempt to ask someone to marry you and the actual event took time and there had to be a readiness and receptivity in both of you. Likewise in your healing from years of problems and difficulties, timing, receptivity and readiness were also vitally important. As in clearing out a cellar only to find us looking at that picture together. It appeared to happen in the moment - but we both know different.

So, Lord, I get it about timing but what’s this about receptivity and readiness? But I had been ready for that healing for a very long time.

Well, yes, in one way you have been ready in your own mind (and impatient too) but since I’m the one in charge of the process I had to call it as I saw it.

Sorry, I know enough about you now to realize that you know what you’re doing and that basically I don’t!

Let me ask you a question or two before we move on.

OK.

First, do you remember how long it took to help that lady with the voices in her head to receive healing? The one who was being tormented by demonic forces?

Yes Lord, it took about eight years and most of that was spent reassuring her how much you loved her and how she could trust to you deal with it.

In simple terms the healing was on offer but she wasn’t able to receive it - would that be fair? She was scared and deeply wounded.

Yes Lord and over those years I grew and changed. I learned that deliverance wasn’t about power in any earthly sense. It was a gentle, humble power. Your power. I saw that the so-called “power ministries” wouldn’t help someone as fragile as her.

What else did you learn?

I certainly learnt that it was about being present, and paying attention and listening to her. Being with her as she went through the pain. Being patient. Though to be honest I was being patient because I didn’t know what else to do. Unlike you.

David, I just had to wait until you were ready and, in the meantime, to do everything I could along the way to steer you in the right direction. However there’s two sides to this.

I think we’re back where I’ve been so many times before. I wasn’t listening or paying attention to those prompts..

I’m afraid so, David, but don’t worry about it. It’s something everybody has to learn. Love doesn’t shout or bully, so hearing me can be a challenge. It takes practice, a lifetime of it, filtering out the noise…

A

h that’s why when life brought me to a stop - when I fell off my motorbike or had my breakdowns and I had to be still whether I wanted to be or not - then, at times like that, I remember being able to hear and receive the sorts of things that have helped me.

Exactly, David, I use all the opportunities that come along because my concern is always to bring you help and healing.

But Lord it’s sometimes been so painful that I’ve wished that you could have said the word and made me well in an instant. Like the leper? Couldn’t you have done that?

Healing a skin disease is one thing. Don’t forget I gave the leper instructions to make sure his social status was healed too. I could have healed you, “just like that”. Yes, I could have done that - but not without being untrue to who I am. Love doesn’t do things like that.

What?

You know, treat the wonderfully complex creature that is a human being like a machine in which, when it goes wrong, you simply find and replace the faulty part.

So, it was about timing, receptivity and readiness - and me cooperating with you? But only up to a point…

What point is that David?

Well, it seems to me that a lot of the “stuff in the cellar” is hidden, and a part of me has hidden it, so like that batik, I don’t even know it is there, and anyway it’s more comfortable to keep it out of sight…

Go on.

Well if it’s hidden, and it’s down in the darkness, and I don’t want to face it, if it’s beyond me to face it, because I am scared - and deeply wounded - then only you can help.

That’s right. Or to put it another way, there have to be aspects of this healing process which it is better that you know very little about.

David, why did you hide that picture again?

Because it reminded me of pain.

Healing, of the kind we are discussing, soul healing, involves facing pain, revisiting the past, with me. You cannot do it alone, and I don’t require it of you. It’s a journey we take together. Any other way would be as if I threw you into that dark cellar to face those “demons” alone.

Not very loving, even if you called it tough love.

No, not very loving at all. Anyway I promised never to leave you. Also I don’t think Paul used tough to describe love in 1 Corinthians 13, did he?

No, but he did use patient, and kind.

Oh, and that love never gives up.

He said that.

Good news, David. That’s why everyone gets healed eventually. That why the whole of creation will get healed, eventually

How so, Lord?

Because, David, as you know in your own experience, I never give up, on anyone, ever.

It still hurts sometimes, Lord.

Well, a bruise or a cut often hurts while it’s healing. Give it time. We have plenty between us.

Oh and one last thing David.

Yes Lord?

Remember this. That soul healing is a work of grace, my special skill if you like, and all you need to do, to cooperate, is to rest in my love and trust me.

Like Mary, your mother.

That’s right. All it took was her simple yes.

Yes, Lord.