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Years ago Micah was hit by a swing. I had the news broken to me in
stages, first when he called to tell me, and later when he walked in the
door. Still the visual impact left me speechless. To say he had a black
eye would be a euphemism. He had a charcoal gray, mauve, khaki and
scarlet eye. The cheek had swollen so high it almost touched the eyebrow
which had obliged it by meeting it halfway. If he had been leading the
Battle of Bunker Hill the Patriots would never have fired because there
was no white left.
Micah had a lot of practice retelling the event. He vacillated
between the bare facts and a graphic description culminating in a full
viewing of the affected area. Even the lady at the fast food drive thru
was yanked out of her usual monotony when she handed us our bag and
gasped, "What happened??"
One thing I found ironic was how little I could do to encourage
healing. I would have welcomed a regime of changing bandages, massage
and washing twice daily as an outlet for my empathy, yet my efforts were
constrained to a mere arnica and ice. Each morning I would look, every
evening I would pray. But the real miracle transpired in secret without
an audience.
Ten days later the change was dramatic. A shadow beneath and a
small patch of red were all that lingered from what was
turning heads the week before. Even that residual stain melted away.
Where did the swelling go? Who absorbed those grotesque colors and
replaced them with more comfortable flesh? How do those invisible
workers carry away spilled blood and rebuild ripped capillaries? I
listened but I heard no tiny welders, found no miniature paintbrushes.
It's fortunate, because even if I had possessed the tools I would have
been incapable of wielding them.
There are a number of people in my life who are bruised. People
that I love, often through no fault of their own, suffer hurts.
Sometimes the scars seem beyond repair, or a wound will be reinjured
before there has been time to recover. Sprained relationships, torn
marriages, hearts swollen in anger can all obstinately strain the powers
of healing.
I too have been wounded. There are raw places that hide beneath a
thin layer of gauze. Sometimes when I least anticipate it my steady gait
will buckle to an old injury. Yet what I find most remarkable is not
the limp but the fact that I can walk at all. Rather than obsessing on
the tender spots I find silent awe at the expanse of intact and healthy
skin. How many gaping cuts have vanished? How many brown and bloody
places have lost my attention by unpretentiously disappearing?
I can only imagine what kinds of tools the unseen angelic healers
hold. They tiptoe in and make silent work of softening old resentments,
and carrying away the garbage of expired bruises. I have never caught
them in the act but I've seen the afterglow. Tough, scarred tissue is
replaced by supple skin. I have heard the thundering quiet of coming
face to face with an historical foe and felt no residual sting.
It is a miracle outside the scope of my abilities. I cannot cause a
relationship to heal any more than I can mend a gash. But I can place
my hand in the care of water, bandages and someone to apply the
dressing. And I can willingly submit my broken heart to the power of
truth to clean, of love to protect and the host of angels seen and
unseen who stand ready to apply them.
John and I sang these words as our wedding vow, long before we knew what pain was in store.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put
within you. And I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and I
will give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36
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