Healing is a process that can take months, years, decades even, depending on the hurt, wound, and cause. I remain on an inner journey of healing and recovery from a painful past.

Reminders flare up now and then, causing my soul to shrink. Not so frequently now, thankfully, but I still find them hard to process.

I’m much further along the healing pathway than I was, praise God, but I’ve written the words below to help those who might feel stuck or require a bit of extra support.

We will all find great relief as we turn toward our loving Father-God, who is eminently helpful, kind, eternally caring, and compassionate toward the hurting.

A prayer

Dear Father,

Only you know the angst that ravages our hearts, the pangs of anxiety and insecurity that wait to box us in at every turn and the fear of being slighted and ignored that lead us to feel so unworthy in this world.

Only you can teach us how what the world calls fulfilment and success only serves to shrivel our souls, and leave us feeling more impoverished than before, aware of our own lack in comparison to the gifts others might have.

Only you can see the hurting child within, who stands unsteady and uncertain at the edges of everything, afraid to make a leap or take a step because she sees failure around every corner.

Only you can sense the vulnerability that closes off her heart when others attempt to get close, how she sometimes has to hold them at arm’s length, wary of soul intimacy because it only causes her to want to hide and run away.

Only you know how much she needs a loving touch, warmth, hugs and love, the oil of joy to penetrate the hardened carapace from early days, when she was afraid of what human hands or words might do to her.


Only you collect the tears she cannot shed, finding they form and rise but soon get brushed back from her eyes as she swallows hurt, shame and pain back down again, where they sit with the rest of life’s detritus.

In this knowing you do not judge or condemn, or criticise your child for not living as freely as you intend her to. Instead, you lavish love, compassion and understanding, offer hope to help her stay encouraged and to begin again.

You reveal the way to process the pain without becoming bitter or thinking everyone will eventually reject her. You unveil the way you see your child, the progress she has already made, and the healing steps she still needs to take to become whole.

In your presence she feels safe, protected from harm, unafraid, bold and brave, open and giving, able to rise above her painful feelings, calmly at rest, while she readies herself to spread her wings, and embrace the new and the next.
Amen

An empathy poem

Let them fall

sometimes tears get stuck 
all choked up inside your throat 
close your vocal cords 
but you can allow those tears
to act as if they are words 

there’s an ache inside
it feels impossible to cry 
so you stop the flow 
swallow back the painful thoughts 
though they don’t want to go

instead they remain
just eating away within 
form a solid block
fermenting with the acid
of every poisonous thought

as you sit with pain
it is here where God steps in 
comes close, holds your hand
calms your heart and gives you peace 
reassures and understands

you can let them fall
when you’re tired of holding on 
like a reservoir
drop them from your anguished soul
create space for hope and love
© joylenton