When Pain Changes

So my last post was about being in pain both physical and emotional. I was a few days away from surgery at that point.

Well, my surgery took place four days ago and was a huge success on many levels. The constant pain I had in my left side was gone before I even woke up in recovery! My pain had already changed from constant and chronic pain to surgery and recovery pain. And the recovery pain is way easier to deal with and it gets better every day.

I would like to apply this same principle to emotional pain. I would like to have it removed from my heart and wake up and feel different. Unfortunately for me, and everyone else, that is not how wounds of the heart are healed. Wounds of the heart are healed over time and Truth being applied. This is a process that often takes a lot of time, tears, blood, sweat, running and returning. During my physical recovery my heart has had its own moments of being touched and growing. I chalk it up to being tender from the actual surgery and the drugs that I got sent home with. Whatever it is, the past four days have been full of moments that I needed. Moments of clarity about who I am, what I am called to and the community where my heart already is have filled the last 100 hours or so.

I have wanted to live in Kokomo since leaving Logansport in August of 2009. These four days here have been kind of amazing. I have never been more sure of wanting to live here and be here than I am right now. Being here changes some of the hurt and baggage of my past. This is a place of community, true community, of love, grace, growth, freedom and becoming who each of us were made to be through Christ. This is where I belong. Maybe this move is the surgery I have longed for to remove my emotional wounds, depression, anxiety, and junk. The pain is changing, which inevitably means that it is leaving me a new person.