Tag: healing

When You Are Ready, Run Friend

- dannalundstrom

c906e19c5f3fa56976c39a937f60729dTime heals all wounds; so it has been said, but whoever coined this was possibly confused by the challenge of wounds of the heart and soul. I am certain this is not true, but will submit that maybe it lessens their sting.

Healing is not just a passage of time but a process of purposed pain.

We cannot wait out deep wounds; rather we have to press into them when we are ready for renewal to begin. The mending of mangled hearts is hard work. It takes courage and the perseverance of a marathon, not a sprint. There are no short cuts. It is facing the fire and walking straight through.

As children of King Jesus, we can do this, though. We can enter the furnace with the confident assurance and walk into the affliction that has seared our souls. We are going to get burned up a little, but not consumed because we have a Father who is walking beside us and buffering our burns. Isaiah 43:2 ~When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.

I often got splinters as a child. I dreaded them with a heart-pounding fear because I knew those intruders would have to be removed to stop my pain. My parents would burn the end of a needle to sterilize it before dislodging the splinter. The process of removing the splinter was painful and often involved digging, twisting and pushing of the needle into tender parts of my flesh, but my parents had carefully prepared the process, not because it would prevent present pain but because it would preclude future infection.

The healing of our hearts is like this process. Jesus is removing our splinters to prepare us for His purpose. He carefully prepares the way, and it burns. He knows it is presently going to hurt, but more importantly He knows it is eternally going to heal.

No one can tell you how to mend the heaviness of your heart, nor can anyone give you a timetable. There is no instruction manual or twelve step program for personal pain. No one should tell you to disown your feelings through the process. It is important to remember, however, that feelings ARE indicators, but they are NOT inditers. The enemy will use them that way; to discourage, distract and derail your progress. When he begins charging you with weakness, insufficiency, or whatever his poison is, remember the importance of removing and replacing. It is not enough to eliminate incorrect thoughts; we also have to replace them with infallible truths from God’s word.

God bless you on your journey to heal, friend. It will be a bumpy road, but not bare of hope and hidden treasures that will encourage your heart. Isaiah 45:3 ~And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness–secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name.

When you are ready friend, run to your pain, not away. It is when we face our giants that we win the war. You are loved!

Don’t Give Up

- dannalundstrom


We all have that situation that all hope seems lost. The soundtrack of our mind keeps playing, there is no point anymore; it will never happen or change. Even the people around us lose faith for us, but there is a deep, passionate part within our heart that ultimately cannot let go. An ever present whisper exhorts our weary soul, But God. It is tempting to go underground with this undying desire to avoid standing in shame before others. But God! Only God matters. Psalm 25:3 says~No one who hopes in You will ever be put to shame. Don’t give up, friend. Your hope is in Yahweh, not in man, not in the world and not in yourself. Hope sometimes hurts us, but it also holds and often heals us. You are loved today!❤️

Scandalous Vulnerability

- dannalundstrom

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It is out of our bleeding that we are equipped to become blessings. God’s word says that it is in our suffering that we become qualified to be comforters of those who follow the beaten paths we have traveled~2 Corinthians 1:4.  No one precisely understands like someone who has worn our shoes. No one relates as one who has followed our journey. We acquire so much healing power along the broken roads we travel.

Trails of brokenness where expectations are shattered, wholeness is lost, and life intersects the realities of a fallen world are the very places we are made into the image of Christ. They are the moments HE becomes real to us. They are the hollow spaces that Jesus becomes a necessity and not a duty, a Savior and not a story book character.

Why do we try to conceal our wounds?  In our shame, we dress them up and disguise them, only holding our souls hostage.  In reality, they are beautiful stories that are filled with so many opportunities to help others, and in turn, heal us.  Our trials are signs that something threatened us, but we overcame.  They are painful, but in all their pain lies a power that only we possess to set free.  A power to heal and share that healing with a friend.  As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.~ Proverbs 27:17.

May we all use our wounds to bless not depress; encourage not discourage; connect not conceal; heal and not hide.  We all share a common brokenness in this life.  We can let that brokenness be ruled and concealed by toxic shame, or we can choose a different course. Many things can be taken from us in this life, but the power to choose our thoughts belongs to us alone, it just takes intentional discipline and sometimes an outright fight between the enemy that pursues us, and the Spirit that dwells within us.

The choice to choose to use our wounds to heal, free and connect takes courage and a great act of faith, not to mention vulnerability.  Scandalous vulnerability is a beautiful thing!  It says I am HIS, He has paid my debt, and I am free to be broken because Jesus made me whole.  It is in this place of sharing and connecting that we discover we are all more alike than different.  We find that we are not an anomaly, we are normal.  I pray for the grace to choose faith over fear and scandalous vulnerability over safety.  I am not saying it will be easy; it won’t but it will be eternal.  What is right is often painful, and what is painless is often not right.

Once I savored the freedom of Christ imparted righteousness, and consequential vulnerability, it was the setting free of a hidden soul.  The freedom is yours too friends.  You just have to choose it.

You make me brave
You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves
You make me brave
You make me brave
No fear can hinder now the promises you made
You make me brave ~Amanda Cook

 

Broken Places are Where The Light Shines Through

- dannalundstrom 5 Comments

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The truth is in one way or another, everyone is defined by their wounds, but not everyone is dictated by them.   The importance is, do they refine you or undermine you?  Pain can be poised for abundant goodness, by the avenue we choose to unpack, process and purpose it.   No dirt road was ever singularly traveled.   Don’t be shackled by your story.  Define the fruit of its fire and set it free to sacredly chisel you, and sweetly comfort a friend.   It is from that which we cannot control or wrestle in our sturdiness that we find the true Source of our strength.   2 Corinthians 1:4~ He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.  When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.   2 Corinthians 12:9~ Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”   Be encouraged friends.   Broken places are where the light shines through.

Prayer for the Suffering This Morning

- dannalundstrom

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Jesus in a world of evil that produces the likes of Ashley Madison convict us to lay down our stones of hatred and stretch out our arms in help. Give us the strength to be peace planters, not problem perpetuators. Families are being ravaged by sin. Suffering is no surprise to You, Father. You are not shaking your head in disbelief or seeing us with disparagement. The world says we are doomed, but with confidence You say, ALL, can be delivered. In Your economy Lord, the redemption starts at the moment of the wreckage. Help us remember that you are in the business of restoration, not ruination. You represent redemption, not retaliation. You are a fountain of mercy, not misery; and You Lord are a grace giver, not grievance granter. Lend comfort to the hurting Father; the innocent, the condemners and the condemned. May we go and sin not, but when we do, remind us that in repentance and rest is our salvation. In quietness and trust is our strength.~ Isaiah 30:15. Amen.

Foe support:  www.restore-ministries.org

Our Greatest Grievances Are Our Most Priceless Gifts

- dannalundstrom

 

Sewn within every great struggle, and branded into every thread of brokenness are immense possibilities. Ministry, connection, growth and healing grant our greatest grievances capabilities to be molded into our most priceless gifts.

Shedding Souls

- dannalundstrom

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Our bodies seem to have been created for sloughing?  Sloughing is defined as the act of casting off dead tissue or cells.  According to The American Academy of Dermatology, the average person looses anywhere from 50 to 100 strands of hair a day.  We loose an estimated one million skin cells per hour.  This is not only natural, but necessary for optimal health.  If this is the way our bodies were made to function on the outside, why should our insides be any different?

When I fail to remember the value, and importance of shedding the built up atrophy of my soul, I head down a frail path.  Life, responsibilities and circumstances build up and form layers of dead weight that are important to yield in order to give our minds and bodies rest.

Why do we carry burdens and worries so long?  I often bottle worries deep inside me and bear them longer than needed.  Then when I cannot shoulder the weight anymore, I have to make a critical choice; I either shed them or become subordinate to them.

Have you ever noticed how good you feel after you release a burden to a trusted friend?  It can sometimes feel like an extreme weight loss.  We just feel lighter. A load has been lifted, and we can breathe with less effort.

Not too long ago, my son was wearing the weight of a heavy burden that had been enslaving him too long.  He finally reached a point where he could not keep it at bay anymore.  He needed to “shed” the weight of his heart to someone.  He said it all from behind the voice of one trying to hold it all in, but tainted with the sound of tears. I knew that sound.  He could not hide it.  Not from me.  Not from me who knows him so well.  So he released it all bravely, and then he was rescued by a deep, desperate sleep.

Isn’t that an organic picture of life?  We try to hold it all in, and conceal that which opposes us.  We try hard, and then a little harder to not be found.  Then there comes a point when we are pinned under the pressure of the fire we are walking through, and we release it in a spewing of toxic ash that has been brewing under the surface.

It is in those times, when we let ourselves be fully known that we can be fully loved.  It is those moments of true identity and authenticity that afford us the pacifying balm that our true self-longs for every day.  It’s in the most desperate moments that we are most receptive to receiving the mending, and comfort of Jesus, who already knows us just as we are anyway.  Masking of inadequacies only delays God’s refurbishment.

We live in a world that is in the business of replacing all that is broken, but Jesus is in the business of restoration.  We shoulder burdens and limitations that we were never meant to bear.  Why do we delay our recovery so long?  There comes moments in this life when it takes more courage to fall apart in the presence of someone who loves us than it does to keep it all together.

At the heart of us all we just really want to be seen, heard and understood.  This is a beckoning to trust in our Savior who in His timing restores, and makes all things strong and steadfast.  Part of the renewal process is releasing all the rot that begins to infest our souls.

Restoration rarely happens how we envision it, and never as timely as we would like, but all good things have to happen on a timetable that is outside of ourselves.  Overseen and orchestrated by The One who knitted us together, every little detail, with his soft, sovereign hands.

I am thankful for those moments when courage wins.  I am thankful for glimpses of people’s true identity.  I pray as we all mature in our secure standing of Christ’s righteousness that we will become more comfortable shedding the layers of entanglement and trade them in for the acceptance and love that transparency affords.

It is in our purest identity that we are open to the most beautiful of possibility.  May we all embrace, learn from and release all things that embattle us.  We were given them for a reason, a resource and as a bridge for restoration.