The Blessing of Healing
Posted: October 31st, 2007, 6:45 am
My blessing today is healing. Men do not reach 50 without some regrets. I don’t know about women, but I suspect it’s true of them as well. Life is populated with choices, and due to ignorance, inexperience, sin, or just plain silliness, no one makes all the right ones.
Regrets seem to occur in three varieties;
1. Things you wish you had done
2. Things you wish you’d done better
3. Thing you wish you hadn’t done.
I find all three sorts in my past. Up till recently, they seemed to occupy my waking mind a lot. It’s pretty amazing how long a memory of regret will persist. But that has a lot to do with how much you dwell on the memory.
If you drag a knife across the surface of a board, it will cut a groove into it. If you keep dragging the knife across the board in the same place, the groove gets deeper. Memory works much the same way. The more you go over something in your mind, the deeper it becomes ingrained in your memory. Repetition is used for memorization of anything from a social security number to scripture, and it works the same way with regrets.
The difference between a board and your mind is that the memory “groove” in your mind can heal eventually. If a person doesn’t keep going over a memory, it can fade pretty quickly. I suppose that is why we are enjoined by Phillipians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things”, to the exclusion of whatever isn’t. If we occupy our minds with the one, the other doesn’t have as much of a chance to gain a foothold.
Lately, I have been trying to spend some time each day thinking and writing about some blessing, some good thing that I have or has happened to me. For me, it’s a way to stop dragging the knife of regret over my memories for at a least a little while.
It’s working better than I figured it would.
I find the effects of thinking about good things and blessings are carrying over past the time I spend thinking about them. I am in a better humor more often than before, and more able to avoid thinking about my regrets and/or stop thinking about them if I wind up going there. This, for me, is big progress!
It’s not perfect. I still have the painful memories, and they pop up from time to time. After all, I spent years carving them into my brain. And, I don’t think it would necessarily be a good thing to forget them altogether.
If we fail to learn for the past, we are doomed to repeat it.
But I believe if I can keep this up, it will help me visit and relive the pain of them less and less, and eventually be healed of the damage they have done to me.
God heals some things miraculously, there is no disputing that. For other things, He gives us natural processes, and for others He gives us instructions to follow, like Phillipians 4:8. Even if it’s not instantaneous and accompanied with a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder, it’s still a real healing, it's happening to me, and I thank God for it.
Regrets seem to occur in three varieties;
1. Things you wish you had done
2. Things you wish you’d done better
3. Thing you wish you hadn’t done.
I find all three sorts in my past. Up till recently, they seemed to occupy my waking mind a lot. It’s pretty amazing how long a memory of regret will persist. But that has a lot to do with how much you dwell on the memory.
If you drag a knife across the surface of a board, it will cut a groove into it. If you keep dragging the knife across the board in the same place, the groove gets deeper. Memory works much the same way. The more you go over something in your mind, the deeper it becomes ingrained in your memory. Repetition is used for memorization of anything from a social security number to scripture, and it works the same way with regrets.
The difference between a board and your mind is that the memory “groove” in your mind can heal eventually. If a person doesn’t keep going over a memory, it can fade pretty quickly. I suppose that is why we are enjoined by Phillipians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things”, to the exclusion of whatever isn’t. If we occupy our minds with the one, the other doesn’t have as much of a chance to gain a foothold.
Lately, I have been trying to spend some time each day thinking and writing about some blessing, some good thing that I have or has happened to me. For me, it’s a way to stop dragging the knife of regret over my memories for at a least a little while.
It’s working better than I figured it would.
I find the effects of thinking about good things and blessings are carrying over past the time I spend thinking about them. I am in a better humor more often than before, and more able to avoid thinking about my regrets and/or stop thinking about them if I wind up going there. This, for me, is big progress!
It’s not perfect. I still have the painful memories, and they pop up from time to time. After all, I spent years carving them into my brain. And, I don’t think it would necessarily be a good thing to forget them altogether.
If we fail to learn for the past, we are doomed to repeat it.
But I believe if I can keep this up, it will help me visit and relive the pain of them less and less, and eventually be healed of the damage they have done to me.
God heals some things miraculously, there is no disputing that. For other things, He gives us natural processes, and for others He gives us instructions to follow, like Phillipians 4:8. Even if it’s not instantaneous and accompanied with a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder, it’s still a real healing, it's happening to me, and I thank God for it.