This week, I was meditating on two of the seemingly contradictory ways of God.  In the next few days, I want to explore these two thoughts:

1.    You must go back.
2.    You can never go back.

Huh? Sounds confusing? I hope you are intrigued sufficiently to continue reading for both statements are true and I am not being ambivalent.  There are times in life when you must absolutely go back. You must go back, as it were, in your mind, your emotions, your relationships, to moments of the past and experience the moments again. There are some very important reasons for us to go back.  And in other ways, we must never go back and in fact, cannot do so, but that is for another day this week.

We are the sum total of our life story. Often we are not really happy about that. We all wish we could erase or at least, rewrite, pages, even entire chapters, of our story. I personally love the undo key on my computer. If only life were so simple! Surely it would be better if we could just get rid of the painful parts of our story! Yet with God, there is a sense in which we become better, stronger, more complete, because of those very parts of our story.

You might say, “How can I embrace the darkest days of my life? How can I accept the darkest parts of my story?” I can only share what I have experienced.
My life story has had many pages, even chapters, of failure, pain, and disappointment. For most of my life, I’ve done my “dead level best” to avoid thinking of those days. I tried my best to forget the painful chapters. Many times I’ve ripped up a photo if it made me think of something painful as if ripping it up would make its reality disappear.  I learned to be quite an avoider of painful memories.  Then my life fell, what appeared at the time to be, completely apart. Humpty Dumpty, who had a great fall, looked to be in great shape afterwards compared to me. But enter the mystery of God…

I’ve found that God’s deepest work in me often happens during days of my personal suffering. Certainly as Christ suffered on the cross, the greatest work of God was happening in and through the suffering. Suffering changes the human heart. It can transform us into strong, beautiful people who can walk in the contradictions of God’s ways or it can turn us into weak, bitter people who shake their fist at God and anyone else who would get too close to our wounds.

When I found myself in deep brokenness, I could no longer keep my painful memories stuffed inside their deep grave. They sprang forward for they were not dead and I found myself face to face, for the first time, with my story. Like a jack-in-a box, I tried to stuff the story back in but to no avail. Initially, I could only barely stand to take a quick peek at the previous chapters of my life, but I have learned to allow my heart to re-experience my story.

And  I found this amazing mystery. It is my story that equips me. It is my story that connects me to humanity. It is my story that offers hope to others. It is my story that makes me accessible, approachable.

So today, I want to encourage you to go back. When the things of your past are still controlling who you are in the present, go back. When the things of your past are still influencing you in unhealthy ways, go back for you must go back in order to go forward. Here are some of the reasons you should go back:

1.    To find healing. If a memory is still painful to see, to think about, to reflect upon, perhaps you need another level of healing in that place. God is not confined to time as we are. He can transport you, as it were, to those places where He longs to meet you to bring healing to you.

2.    To gain understanding and perspective. When we are able to view our story with Christ, we can often find that it was not exactly what we had believed. Lies can be dismantled.

3.    To find God. Going back can allow us to discover where God was in our story.

4.    To grieve loss. If we haven’t truly grieved over a loss in our life, then we need to go back and experience that. God’s Word says there is a time to mourn.

5.    To break the power of shame, guilt, and pain. Allowing the power of the cross to wash away the power of shame, guilt, and pain can bring deep healing to our souls.

6.    To find compassion for your own heart. Many of you need to ask God to show you how to have compassion on your own heart. Self-hatred is a tool of the enemy.

7.    To find the common themes of your story. These can help you find your purpose in life.

8.    To find hope for the future.

9.    To discover keys to helping others.

So today, I want to say, “You must go back!”  If part of your story is buried alive, if you have ignored, denied, or avoided your story, it’s time to go back. Redemptively.  Just as William Paul Young describes how Mack in The Shack has to go back to a painful time in his life to find restoration and healing, we must do the same. The beauty of going back is the mystery of how the going back becomes the key to going forward.

Perhaps your “going back” should be done in the presence of a spiritual director, a counselor, or a very trusted friend. Certainly, it should always be done with the leading of God’s Spirit for he is THE COUNSELOR. He knows when and how we should address our past. Our part is to cooperate with his work when he is leading us in the paths of redemption. Nothing is wasted with God.  As Richard Rohr says, “In God’s reign, “everything belongs,” even the broken and poor parts.”

May God’s grace lead you in paths of healing as you continue to learn more about His mysterious ways.

Jesus came to heal broken hearts and not only as a side benefit; it’s one of his life purposes!  That’s good news because all of us who are in this world have experienced the pain of having our hearts broken in one way or another.  If we look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we find that he moves throughout his days interacting with humanity and healing broken hearts. That healing takes many expressions. Today I want to look at how Jesus healed the heart of a woman as recorded in John 4 and what that healing means for us now.

Let’s take a look at the story.

Jesus was exhausted from his long trip. He had gone to the city well to get a drink of water. However, what followed was not a chance happening at all because we are told that Jesus “needed” to go through the region of Samaria; he was compelled to do so.

 Jews did not have anything to do with Samaritans in those days. Samaritans were considered half-breeds and unclean by Jewish tradition. Yet Jesus, a Jew, chose to go through the middle of Samaria instead of making the usual trip around the area as most Jews did in order to avoid the Samaritans.

Jesus encountered a Samaritan woman at the well. He broke cultural and religious rules by speaking to her. Men didn’t speak to women in public in those days and a Jewish man certainly would not speak to a Samaritan woman. What transpired changed her life.

Jesus navigated through the woman’s resistance and avoidance and brought up a major issue of her life, not to condemn her, but in order to heal her. Jesus spelled out that she had had five husbands and was now living with a sixth man. The Samaritan woman yet again tried to avoid her heart issues, but Jesus persisted. He revealed Himself to her as the “Christ”.

He first encountered her in his humanity, a man who was thirsty and tired. He bridged cultural and religious differences in order to “do the will of Him who sent me” (vs. 34). He confronted her avoidance and resistance, bringing her life story into the light and then offering her “living water”.  In essence, Jesus communicated to her that there was nothing about her that would prevent her from having a relationship with God; not her religious background, her cultural background, nor her personal history.

Although the story doesn’t specifically tell us, I believe the woman took Jesus’ offer. Amazingly, we see her leading many to believe in Jesus because of her “testimony” – There is a man who knows all about me and didn’t reject me; he gave me life-giving water.

He healed her heart. Jesus dealt with her shame. He dealt with her guilt. He cut through the religious, cultural traps and did the will of God, offering healing to the broken hearted.

He is still the same today. He is offering life and healing to all the thirsty, empty, broken-hearted.

Do you need his healing? Allow your resistance and avoidance to fall away. Lay down any religious, cultural, or matters of personal history which you believe disqualify you from knowing God and/or receiving His healing for your heart. Allow Jesus to move you past your shame and guilt and into the living waters.

He desires to purposefully encounter your heart right now. Your heart is important to him. Your heart and my heart were the hearts he was talking about when he said he had come to heal the broken-hearted.

Are you spiritually thirsty? Jesus freely offers living water. Drink deeply of the rivers of this living water for its flow will heal the broken places in your heart.

And may the Church represent Jesus well and offer the same to all today: healing, regardless of  personal history, cultural background, or religious beliefs. When we do, we will find that his living water refreshes and restores and testimonies of his grace will lead others to him as well.

And my heart is drawn to this idea… “When he saw that he was healed…”

Sometimes our healing comes just this obviously. We look and we see.  We are healed. At other times, our healing is a process; it comes piece by piece, particularly when Jesus is healing our hearts.

Today I am asking myself, and I hope you will ask yourself, how do I respond to God’s healing in my life? Can I see what He is doing in me?

All ten lepers could physically see that they were healed. Yet this one, he saw more. He saw the person of Christ. He saw His redeemer.  The others were doing just what Jesus told them. They were going to the priests in order to be declared ceremonially cleansed which would allow them to reconnect with their world and their God. Yet this one…

Imagine yourself as one of the lepers in the story… You have been banished from society. You have a communicable disease which has separated you from your family, your community, your job. No one can physically touch you. Even before you contracted this disease, you already were living with the knowledge that you were considered unworthy by the religious community because you were not of a pure bloodline – you were a half-breed.  You know what rejection is all about.  And suddenly, you are given a pass back to life. You are physically healed. You can barely wait to go hug your spouse, your child, your parent, your friends. You have been given a ticket back to your “church”.

Nine of the ten immediately took the offer Jesus gave them. They were excited about their physical healing; they had to be! But this one…

He saw his healing…

And yet… he saw more.

He had eyes to see that he had been given more the opportunity for more than physical healing, and he entered into it. He couldn’t take another step without connecting with his God. He glorified God by falling at Jesus’ feet and thanking him loudly. He fell at the feet of the High Priest, Jesus, who declared him clean in much more than his physical body.

Jesus declared this man glorified God and his faith had made him well. Oh, but it was so much more than his amazingly wonderful physical healing. His eyes had seen his Redeemer!

Today I wonder if we could take a few moments to contemplate God’s healings in our lives. Perhaps you will be led to see more today than you’ve seen before, to see beyond the obvious to the deep inner work that God is doing in you. Would you take the next few moments to think on the following thoughts?How has God been healing your heart?

What deep work is He doing in your heart?

What incorrect religious mindset is He tearing down inside your thinking?

How is He restoring your relationships?

How is God revealing Himself to you as your Redeemer?

Could you pause to fall at His feet, thanking Him for the restorative work He is doing inside you? And if you are not sure just what that work is, maybe you are in such a dark place that you can’t see what he is doing, would you ask Him to show you?

Our heartfelt thanksgiving glorifies God.

My next entry this week will focus more on how God heals our hearts. Hope you’ll keep walking on the journey with me.