Skinned Up Knees and Open Wounds

Yesterday was my first day volunteering at a horse farm.  I absolutely LOVE horses!  I used to ride, but haven't been around horses in several years.  I had forgotten about the proper attire for a farm.  I wore loose shorts and sneakers that were falling apart.  While I was feeding some of the horses in the pasture, I slipped and fell on some rocks.  I skinned up my knees pretty badly.  I tried to work despite them being in pain, but I didn't last long.  I started feeling sick and I think the heat was getting to me too (it was around 90 degrees).  I felt really bad leaving after only an hour, but the woman I was working for was cool about it and wants me to come back!  Of course, I told her once I get the proper clothes and shoes I'll be coming back.

This morning as I thought about it, I started thinking how often we try to ignore our pains in life on our own, and then it bites us in the ass later?  We try to not think about our pain and just push on with no help from anyone.  I know I've done that before.  Something is eating at me and I try to distract myself from it - even if it works temporarily though, it still comes back.  Now, I know distracting can be a useful coping skill, and yea, sometimes it works.  But there are some things in life that we have to deal with, even if we don't want to.  We can turn to all sorts of things - drugs, alcohol, sex, self-harm, eating disorders, etc.  They work temporarily, but our pain always comes right back to haunt us.  It's like pain killers.  They work in the moment, but several hours later the pain comes right back.  So to make the pain go away we take more and more pain killers - sometimes depending on them too much and get addicted to them.  We try to numb the pain, we try to distract ourselves from the pain, but we don't always deal with the core problem of the pain.

Sometimes we don't always know what the core pain is - that's when therapy helps.  Therapy is good don't get me wrong, hell I've been in therapy since 6th grade!  But what about turning our pain over to God?  What if, we went to God and said, "I can't do this on my own anymore!  I need your help!  Rescue me from this pain and use it for YOUR glory, not mine!"  Sometimes our pain is like skinned up knees, while other times our pain is like a gashed open wound.  What if we allowed God to heal our wounds?  I'm not saying don't do anything to treat those wounds, if you need it then go for it!  But what if the deep rooted pain is something else - something spiritual?

I have a lot of wounds and a lot of scars from my past.  Often times these scars open back up and I relive the trauma all over again.  I didn't know how to rely on God for help.  It's not an easy thing to do for sure.  How can we trust someone we can't see or hear their voice?  How can we trust someone who seems so distant or sometimes even doubt they even exist?  How can we trust someone, when the conversation seems one-sided?  It's tough, I'm not going to lie to you about it.

Sometimes we don't want to bother others with our issues.  We just carry them ourselves.  This was me.  Yes, I'm open about my issues - though more open in this blog than in person.  But I don't trust people to help take care of me; so I carry them by myself.  The burdens are too great for us to carry on our own though.  We weren't meant to be on our own!  I'm raw in this blog in hopes I can help others who either struggle, or those who need to understand these struggles.  We can't live life and deal with our problems by ourselves.  We need people, and most of all, we need Christ.

So how do we trust God with our burdens?  We ask Him.  That's it.  I know, easier said than done.  It's taken me over a decade to figure this out.  Sure I asked Him, but my actions and my heart didn't show it.  I'd ask Him to help me, but I didn't really trust Him or believe He could really help me.  There are some areas I still have doubts about that, and you know what?  That's something I have to work on.  God has been really opening my eyes lately to who He really is and how distorted my views of Him are.  That is why as you may have read in my previous entry my foundation has been crumbling.  But it's being built on better foundation that won't break so easily.  God LOVES us, and I mean REALLY loves us.  So we should trust Him right?  We're not going to perfectly - just like we don't trust others perfectly.  Just talk to Him, tell Him your struggles, your pains, and really believe He will get you through it.  Believe that He will heal your deep wounds if you let Him.  He won't force Himself, YOU have to give it to Him and trust Him to do something amazing with it - something you'd never imagine!  I know He's done that for me.  Through my struggles, through my pain, He has used them to help others.  He has used them to bring Himself glory.  That's really what it's about.  To bring Him glory in everything we do, and He can use our struggles, our pains, and even our screw-ups to bring glory to Himself.  He can heal us!  We have to let Him though.