Present with us – The Healing Father

When my girls fall and hurt themselves, they know they can come to me, and I will get out the first aid kit, and administer Band-Aids, kisses, or ice packs as required.

But some days the hurts that my girls come home with are internal; harsh words spoken, friends who no longer want to play, or a teacher who shouted at them. For these hurts the treatment is less tangible, a hug, a listening ear, grace when their overwhelmed emotions overflow onto their mumma.

Are you in need of healing?

There is a wonderful promise in Psalm 147:

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds
[healing their pain and comforting their sorrow].

Psalm 147:3 (AMP)

Like my girls, who know they can come to me, we have a father that we can go to for our healing. And his healing is not just for sickness, but also for soul deep conditions. For souls in distress and dismay, for the heart hurting from relationships torn apart, for deep overwhelm and sadness.

Psalm 147 talks of a father who binds our wounds. This image of God gives a real sense of the personal touch. He gets in close to examine the hurt, he decides the best way to administer aid, and he comforts us, just as I comfort my girls.

So, I ask again, are you in need of healing?

Often, we are reluctant to go to our healer as we fear the pain that comes through the process of the healing. We fear the reopening of the wound, the clearing out of the infection, the bitter sting of the medicine that we know will help us.

And so, we nurse our wounds, we guard them, and we decide not to take them to the one who heals.

Are you broken-hearted? Are you in need of healing?

Are you able to gently release your hands from your hurt, and take your broken heart to the one who is waiting to bind your wounds?

As you go about your everyday, may you be aware of wounds that have been there for too long.

May you offer your broken-hearted, wounded self to your healer.

Maybe hesitantly, maybe with a little trepidation.

And, as you allow him to draw close enough to examine the wound, may you be open to healing.

May you let him heal your pain and comfort your sorrow.

Amen