gate of admission

Healing is a process…but what is that process?

First I believe we find healing as individual. Just as a doctor should look at each patient, realizing that they present to him unique backgrounds, environmental, and physical scenarios which affect the patient’s treatment, so it is with the process to healing the emotional/spiritual wounds of a person. We all come from different places in our lives and we have had input from many different arenas that make the process of healing a highly individualized one. Even people who go through the exact same event together will respond differently, due to the glasses through which they viewed that event.

That said, I do believe that there are some gates we all have to walk past, regardless of our “glasses.”

One is admission. The Bible calls this “confession.” Sometimes when we say confess, people think they have to confess to doing something wrong, even though they may have no guilt in the situation. But this is not necessarily the case. When I say admission, we must “own” the fact that we have been hurt. It is a rejection of denial. It is admitting, that yes, this situation or person damaged me and I am in pain.

Funny thing about this is that we don’t like to admit this. We get angry and rail, talk, scream or cry. We will get stoic and not talk about it. We will deny the pain. But until we do, until we “own” the pain, we can never get healed. One of the best things I ever learned about emotions is that anger is a secondary emotion. It masks one of three other emotions. It’s a protector of sorts. Anger hides fear, frustration, or pain (among many others). We experience these things and anger comes to cover it, keep them hidden. It’s a survival mechanism.

So to begin walking out of our wound, our emotional or spiritual pain, we must admit, or confess, that we’ve been offended or damaged. Look at it, be honest with ourselves and God, and others. Own the pain, but don’t stay there. Keep walking past the gates that keep us locked away.