Do you hate that healing takes time? I know I want to be whole, fixed, healed as quickly as possible but my body, my spirit, my heart doesn’t always work that way.
Take my knee. When I turned my ankle a little over a week ago, I did go down. I have said it before and will say it again, I am a KLUTZ! This is not he first time I have done this same thing but hopefully is the last. In that little fall, I put a hole – very small but there none the less – in my new jeans. I also put a good-sized – a US quarter size – scrape on my knee. The scrape scabbed over as these things do. Now, it is healing and it itches. It is driving me nuts with the itching.
Take my spirit. It has been, in the past, broken. It takes a much longer time to allow this type of break to heal. I would feel like I could take a stop out of myself and get back to my normal but then it didn’t work. The itch. This feeling went on for years before I found my new normal and the itch was gone. My spirit was whole again.
Take my heart. I was in a fairly intense relationship previously. The intensity was on many levels – emotional, intellectual, physical. When that relationship ended, it took time to heal all of those areas. I would hear conversations in my mind of things that we would have discussed. I needed to get those out of my mind to allow my mind to become my own once again. The itch. The healing. I would feel that we should be doing something together but know that was not happening. The itch. The healing. I would cry over all of these things. The healing as the itch subsided.
Time heals all things, the old saying goes. It is true – knee scrapes, spirits, hearts.
Nicki's Nook 
I’m sorry about your ankle, your knee, your heart. You are right that the healing is painful. I guess that’s why scabs are so tough–there’s tender stuff under there that needs protecting.
I, too, wish I were more resilient. I need a hard shell, like a turtle. Turtles are lucky and they don’t even know it. ((hugs))
Oh TKW! Thank you. The ankle, the knee hurt a bit, not that itching is pain but it is annoying. 🙂
A turtle shell! I like that idea. I can just pull my head inside when I want to!
GL this weekend. I hope that your path to being healed is quick.
Thanks, Suzy! I am really looking forward to Sunday. Ankle is okay to run on. Will ice afterwards.
I do hate it. And I think you make such an important point about the rate of healing that comes from different types of wounds: I find that, both physically and emotionally, the healing that takes the longest often comes from the injuries we don’t even know we’ve sustained.
Kristen – Or the injuries that we think we have taken care of and something breaks them open again. I hate that!
Healing is a long process.
In sunday school this past Sunday, we talked about forgiveness. Forgiveness is the process of spiritual healing. It hurts and can often take a long time. Yet, when we allow ourselves to fully forgive someone–even if it takes years–we undergo a process, a transformation, and learn a thing or two about ourselves.
Ah, deep thoughts for a Tuesday!
Ah, forgiveness. It is a process and does take time. Sometimes, as I have written before, it is hardest to forgive ourselves. I am still learning in this area, Amber.
It’s so much harder as you get older. The physical healing. As for the emotional healing? I actually find that the perspective of a bit of maturity helps with that one.
Physical healing does get harder as we get older. I think emotional and spiritual healing does also as we expect so much more of ourselves.
I’m a klutz too, Nicki! So it’s good to know I have a kindred spirit out there. I tend to fall because I’m often looking up and out, not down. My husband has been trying to teach me to walk with more attention to the ground. And about emotional healing, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately because of a class that I’m taking. The teacher said that the process of healing allows us to come to a deeper relationship with our inner selves. I like that. It’s a way to look at our woundings as regenerative and life affirming. Because we all know if we’re truly living, we’re gonna get hurt sometimes, right?
I have a running buddy that immediately said “you need to wear sensible shoes.” Well, guess what? I was wearing boots with little to no heel that he had commented on being sensible once. I am just a klutz. No way around it! I will say, when I was on The Commons Friday night, I found myself looking down more like I do when I run.
You got it! And who wants to live and not feel the pain occasionally? I don’t know that I would like that type of living at all.
Yes, time heals all things. That’s a comforting thought and a discouraging one. It is reassuring to know that things will get better as the days and weeks (months and years, in some cases) pass. But the feeling that healing is a gradual process that can’t be rushed – that is a heartbreaking truth sometimes. To know there is not much you can do to hurry things along.
Maybe it is that knowledge that I am currently fighting, Eva. I know the truth – that some hurts take much longer to heal. Yet, it seems this one keeps coming back when I finally think it is scabbed over.
You will heal, it just may not be on your schedule and you may not be in control of all the outcomes. I hate to say that to such a planner and micro-planner, but that is the truth. Feel better, both inside and out.
I know you are right, Linda. Just hate that lack of control!
After the healing there is often a scar to remind of us the pain and the eventual recovery. It took me a long time to embrace the scars for what it taught me about pain and healing.
Makes sense, Charlotte. It may not be what I want to hear, though, but it makes sense.