Nurturing A Wounded Heart

 

TUE Evening Prayer Reflection 051821 (Ezekiel 7:10-15,23-27; Luke 10:1-17)

Sometime in our lives at least once we have been hurt by others. In some cases, this burden was carried a long-time causing sorrow, discomfort even inability to live life fully with such trauma. The Old Testament has examples of family traumas that seemed to repeat in the following generations. This is why it is important to examine our own wounded hearts, so we can choose a healing trajectory instead of an embittered and self-destructive one. Nurturing a wounded heart can require us to be vigilant in order to let God move within the situation. As I was reading the Psalms this morning two verses caught my eye: “The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the whole earth.” (Ps. 97) Is there anything that is too difficult for our God? The first task is to tell ourselves, that no mountain is too high for our God! The second Psalm is “O Lord our God, you answered them indeed, you were a God who forgave them, yet punished them for their evil deeds.” (Ps 99) Our God is a merciful God, that’s for sure. But God would not take away the consequences of our bad deeds, if we kept ignoring his ways and doing what is at odd with His will. The Psalmist here calls it punishment for the evil deeds. I know it is tough for us and our modern ears to hear about God’s punishment. This whole idea is seen again with the prophet Ezekiel talking about Israel’s rebellion: Call it a fair warning.

Ezekiel is saying that destruction is coming because of the blossoming of people’s evil ways. Wickedness was growing, pride was budding like new flowers; like ground ivy or chickweed or Bermuda grass, all of which are undesirable plants! The prophet was graphic in his description of the warning. I think I know why! God’s heart is sensitive for the poor and the sufferer. All this wickedness wreaked havoc with others, people were wounded in the process. V11 says that Violence had grown into a rod of wickedness…The prophet further tells us that the perpetrators shall not remain, nor their abundance, nor their wealth, nor preeminence among them. Yes, the prophet is saying that the perpetrators’ end is sealed. In my lifetime, I have seen powerful political figures and their regimes crumble, a once prosperous people disappear and forgotten. I saw ruins where palaces used to be. Prov. 16: 18 says that pride goes before destruction.  You see, there are two possibilities here: (1) Wounded hearts are vulnerable to repeat the wounding of others. Also, (2) Wounded hearts have capacity to trust in the power of our creator God, who is an expert in mending broken hearts. When we face adverse circumstances, we all react differently: For some people, pride takes over and they want revenge at all costs even if, truth be told, it brings no comfort to the sufferer. Others are able to see the bigger picture and decide to let go, so they can live joyful lives, forgiving all evils they have endured. This is a higher road and a harder one in my experience. I know this is oversimplified, but nurturing a wounded heart is not easy, because people are always at different levels of healing. Jesus told us: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

The human heart is fickle. "Who can understand the human heart? There is nothing else so deceitful; it is too sick to be healed. I, the Lord, search the minds and test the hearts of people.” Jer. 17: 9-10 Our propensity is to trust in ourselves instead of trusting in God who truly knows us better than we know ourselves. We need healing not only from our physical traumas, but also for emotional traumas, the healing of our memories. It is true that no matter how long these traumatic events happened, anything can trigger the same painful memory to resurface with as much strength as when it happened. We need to care for our hearts by entering the presence of the Lord. It is where all the mountains can melt, it is where we become exactly what God created us to be! Christ invites us to live in him and He in us. We become his likeness!

I can see how some of our adverse circumstances may be seen as punishment like the Psalmist saw it, but the truth is none enjoys a punishment or the adverse circumstances. We hate suffering, with good reason. However, when parents give their child time out, the child may not enjoy it, but the parents want to make sure the child understands the law of cause and effect: Right behavior brings right/good consequence. In our case, God does not cease to provide warnings like the one the prophet Ezekiel brought, so we can change our minds and stop our eerie and unfortunate trajectory. God warns us and guides us in Is 30:21: “This is the way, walk in it…”

The trouble with us wounded people, is that, it is easy to be in the wrong trajectory, without even knowing it. Violence can be physical or even verbal (accusing, undermining, threatening, trivializing, silencing, blaming, name calling, overtly criticizing unconstructively to name a few) God sees everything. In the King’s college, my mother, as a young girl was singing a song in French: Quand je serais a Paris, meaning when I will be in Paris. A nun reprimanded her saying that she will never be in Paris. Obviously, my mother was hurt. Several decades later, she found herself on the same flight with the nun returning back home from Europe. She couldn’t help it but tell the nun that she did indeed visit Paris. We ought to be very careful at what we tell young people. It is easy to cause wounds even without knowing, we need healing, but also, we need the Holy Spirit to guide our words and our thinking at all times. If you realize that you have wounded someone, be quick to apologize and work at restoring that relationship.

God provides us with opportunities to reason and wake up to realities of our actions and their consequences so we can change. We need to wake up from the slumber caused by the spirit of this age, keeping many people in its runaway train without a conductor. Luke 10 tells us about the seventy disciples that were sent in pairs to every town and place to warn people so they can repent. The Kingdom of God has come near: Choose well what you nurture: Love and healing or bitterness? Has your woundedness been painful? Go into God’s presence and talk to God to heal you, so you can help others heal. Choose words that empowers, words that heal, words that bring peace and comfort and joy in Christ. In Luke’s account, Jesus also said that some people will reject His words: “Whoever rejects you, rejects me and whoever rejects me, rejects the one who sent me.” Choose well and nurture love and the healing of your heart.