Most of us know that pain is gorilla-glued to the human condition. I even think that most of us can summon some sort of peace in that knowledge—a nod, an honoring, I see you.
Trying to ignore the redemptive power of pain and healing in our world takes a lot of energy. Because proof is sprouting from every inch of charcoaled land, bouncing off the bald heads in infusion rooms, and radiating from the walls of AA meetings, therapy sessions, and homeless shelters.
Wherever humanity finds a home, pain will unpack also.
But did you know that healing is stuck in that sticky, gorilla ooze, too? That restoration is as human as tears, or pores?
There’s this patch of skin on the outside of my left heel that I just can’t stop picking at. Little flecks of skin mostly, and every once in a while I larger piece that I rip away when the kids insult my cooking or David works late or another hurricane rolls by.
In middle and high school I tore away the entire bottom of my heel pads so that each step I took could remind me of my shit-stain status; so that I never forgot about the pain inside. The pain proved I was alive, I could bleed, I was human & not a robot. My wounds allowed me to fix something in my world of chaos and uncontrollable grief.
A bandaid might not be able to keep Ellen alive but it can help with the blood pooling in my shoe.
I’ve detailed the physical pain my bone marrow transplant & cancer treatment caused. What I never had a chance, or the words, to describe, was my physical healing. The one that gave me my life back.
You see, therapy worked really well for the first fifteen months, until it didn’t. The pace slowed after the first year or so and I felt stuck.
But I’m still picking at my heel and my cuticle.
The aches aren’t easing.
I don’t want bandaids anymore, God. Where is my wholeness? I want to be healed!
…like the bleeding woman…and all humans ever…
We just want healing. We want to feel unafraid and electric. We want power, not too much that God would expel us from Eden, but enough that we don’t feel an overwhelming need to consume every croissant within reach.
Did you know that showing up for our healing, our purpose, our life is literally the most courageous choice one can make?
In the middle of my six-week stint at outpatient rehab, a brawny paper towel man lookalike—who was graduating and forced to sprinkle a little inspiration on the newbies—stood in front of the group and drenched us.
“As a fireman, my buddies and me, we’re considered heroes. But you know what?” He says with tears pooling. “You all are the bravest people I’ve ever met.”
I want to be fucking healed!
So for the first time in my life the patch of skin is starting to heal. It’s heel-ing. Yes, I’ve gone months without abusing it before, but then I could fall back on butter and coffee—that is not the case anymore.
There’s nothing to fall back onto except Grace, and a Goodhardgood God. Thanks God, for adoring me even when I black out and yell at my kid so loud she pees in fear. Thanks for holding that so I don’t have to ingest it, or pick at it, or cut it, or drink it, or anything else with it.
Inhale.
Exhale.
How could I stop showing up for the free kingdom compost that God so gladly shovels out? Ellen showed me how to do that, too. She never stopped planning her “healed party” because pain and healing are a part of the glue that hold us together, something my sister understood well.
What if I told you that sometimes I go talk to Jesus in my bedroom? And while laying on my white cloud bed in the dark I allow Him to massage me with these healing flashlights that He keeps in a burlap man purse. A warm red glow softens up my body and melts away the fear. And then the pain is gone. Do you want to go? I’ll take you to Him.
What about the fact that my brain never fully believed my cancer was gone, and that’s why radiating pain plagued my limbs for years, even after the scans came back clean? Because in my mind and body the cancer was still killing me.
Or that it wasn’t until I realized I was finally, and truly, safe from my mom’s belts that my back pain started to soften? Because when my roots felt safe, my core muscles could finally relax and contract, strengthen, move.
Did you know that dread causes pain? Do not be afraid. No wonder! God doesn’t want us to hurt, God wants us to heal.
If pain is a part of our world, then healing is, too.
The Brawny Man is correct. Showing up for all of your life and trusting a Healer is harder than cancer treatment, the death of a loved one, abuse, infertility, parenthood, divorce, infidelity, trying to explain to foreigners how Trump got elected, and running into burning buildings.
Hold and honor your pain, yes. It is an awfully beautiful part of your story. And then, when it starts to feel too itchy & the circles under your eyes become darker than you remember, you have my permission to step toward the redemption that Love offers us all every moment of every day.
To craft and claim a New Story.