and they put on band-aids,
saying, 'it's not so bad. you'll be just fine.'
but things are not 'just fine'!"
~ jeremiah 6:14, the message
a couple of years ago i started experiencing sharp pains in my abdomen. at first i told myself it was nothing, but eventually the pain was so intense that it would wake me from my sleep and keep me from going to work. i asked kara, my roommate and personal nurse, what she thought it could be. she told me it was gas, that "it's not so bad. you'll be just fine."
after weeks of severe pain with no relief from the dozen different otc meds i tried for acid and gas, i finally went to the doctor. either i had an extremely low tolerance for pain, or this was something that i needed some professional help with. the doctor referred me to a surgeon. the surgeon said, "it's not so bad. you'll be just fine" and sent me over to the hospital for some tests that he was sure would come back normal.
30 minutes later i was on the table and the lab assistant was calling in her supervisor to see what she had found. 5 minutes later i was sitting in a hospital waiting room getting a call from the surgeon telling me that i had gallstones and was asking if i had time for surgery the very next day.
sometimes there are things in our lives that we think are simple, small problems that can be fixed easily. we tell ourselves that "it's not so bad." our friends tell us "it's not so bad." even professionals may tell us "it's not so bad." but the reality is that deep down we are shattered.
it takes a lot more than a tums to cure gallstones and it takes a lot more than a band aid to piece back together a soul that has been ripped apart into a million pieces. sometimes in order to heal, we need to cut ourselves wide open and pull out parts of ourselves we simply don't need anymore.
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