New Year, new leaf, right? As 2022 approaches, many have contemplated what their New Year resolutions will be for the coming year. To go along with those resolutions, many will choose their “word” for the year. In fact, many of my friends have already picked gratitude as their word for twenty twenty two. As I have reflected on this past year and thought about the upcoming year, I have struggled with what my 2022 word will be. Hope was my word for the past two years. Hope is my purpose for Stills Magnolia, to point others to the hope found only in Jesus by sharing my story of loss, heartbreak, brokenness, and living with Adult Onset Stills Disease. Hope will always be my word as I always have it, but as 2021 comes to an end, I find myself thinking about the word healing. After giving my 2022 word much thought and prayer, God kept pointing me to healing. Healing may seem odd for a word of the year, but healing is what God has started doing in my life over this past year, and what I continue to need, as so many people I love need. Maybe you just might need some healing too.
Healing is really an all-encompassing word, isn’t it? People need healing from sickness. Relationships need healing. Injuries need healing. Deep emotional wounds need healing. Past mistakes, broken bones, a broken heart, deep hurt, unstoppable grief, brokenness and . . . the list goes on and on. So much healing is needed, yet still, many avoid it. Maybe they don’t avoid healing from sickness, but I’ve known a few nurses in my day that avoid going to the doctor, just saying. Seriously though, how many of us avoid going to the doctor because we found something and if we ignore it, we won’t have to face it? We have this idea that it will just go away? Ignore and Deny! Healing is a process, a lengthy one at that, and since we live in the world of instant gratification, well, healing, “ain’t nobody got time for that”! Plus healing takes work, hard work, which seems to be something we often try to avoid at all cost. When we open ourselves up to healing, we make ourselves vulnerable which scares us. Scary because we are confronted with the truth that we really have no control of the outcome; be it medical test results or how others will respond to us. Maybe frightened that others will see us in our true rawness or reject us. Scared as we are forced to face the unknown. Or maybe we have to acknowledge something deep within ourselves that is too hard to face. So, we say no thank you and take a hard pass on healing. Instead, many of us choose to numb our pain, our hurt, as it seems easier and helps us forget and not feel, at least temporarily. Oh, yes healing isn’t always the easy path to choose, but when open ourselves up to it, good things happen.
Some of us, we want healing, need it but have no idea where or how to start so we stay stuck, paralyzed really in a cycle of starting to take that first step and stopping. I know this cycle well as I’ve lived in it for way too many years. Not with my health, didn’t really have a choice there, something about almost dying makes a person, or at least this person, go to the emergency room. For me I’ve been stuck for quite some time with how to heal some broken relationships. What I found and know is regardless of what needs healing in my life, Jesus is The Healer of All Things. I have experienced His healing. He healed my broken heart and poured out His healing balm on me when Baby Jack died. While I was lying in an ICU bed as my body began to shut down, He provided me with a medical team, who figured out my illness and saved my life. Yes, I still have Stills Disease but I know that whether I am completely healed this side of heaven or not, one day I will be absent of sickness, for now my Stills is in remission and being managed, that’s healing in my book. The guilt and shame I carried from my past poor choices that left me quite broken, He wiped it away. Time and time again, My Jesus, My Jehovah Rapha – The Lord that Heals (Exodus 15:26), has healed my broken. Now I will continue to lean into this truth so I can take that first step in the healing of those broken relationships. Easy, not at first, but I’ve already taken some steps in a few of those relationships after spending time in prayer asking God for wisdom, discernment, clarity, and for the other person’s heart to be softened to healing the relationship. I have already seen God’s healing hand at work in these relationships and trust He will continue to heal them. God promises us in Psalms 147:3 that He will heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds. I’ve experienced it and I believe it. Oh, the goodness of God! I don’t deserve it, yet He pours out His healing balm in my life. What about you? Have you experienced the healing only Our God, Jehovah Rapha can provide? What in your life needs healing? Will you give it Jesus? Will you trust Him to heal it? As we move into 2022, I will continue to seek healing in the areas of my life that need it. I will fervently pray for my family and friends to give God what needs healing in their lives. I will pray for healing for the hurting, for those I don’t know but God knows. Last, even if things get hard I will hold onto God’s promise to heal for He is my Jehovah Rapha!
Healing, yep, that’s my word. My Word Up! What’s Yours?
Inspirational Videos:
Challenges:
(1) Spend time in prayer over one thing that needs healing in your life and surrender it to The Lord.
(2) Grab your Bible and spend time finding scriptures about God’s healing. Discover how He alone is our Jehovah Rapha.
(3) Pick your song of the year. I decided to pick a song for the year. A song that speaks to how I want to live my life. My song for 2022 is King and Country’s The Proof of Your Love.
0 Comments