Maybe you haven’t been there, but I’m willing to bet you have.
You’re sick, or have had surgery, or delivered a baby, and you need care. You need gentleness. You need reassurance that it’s all going to be ok.
Some doctors are good at it. Others aren’t. In fact, some are terrible. I had a procedure a few years ago and the doctor said she’d call Erik to tell him how it went as soon as I was in recovery.
She never called.
She didn’t tell us how it went. I was sent home drugged and wondering if it had been a success. It was a minor procedure. Something this doctor does multiple times a week. But for me, it was huge. It was my body. My life. I needed to know all the details, and yet, I got none.
The unknown — combined with the after effects of anesthesia, my body healing, and my sensitive soul — left me in a cloud of despair. I couldn’t shake it.
The pain from the procedure wasn’t that bad, and yet something in me was falling apart. I called to find out how it had gone, and was told, “Fine.” I said I had been extremely emotional and asked if that was normal. The reply I got was, “Well, some people have strange responses to anesthesia.”
That was all.
I was broken, bloody, and felt alone in it. And yet, that’s how all of us are in this world.
Maybe we aren’t literally bleeding every day, but we are broken. There is pain, there is hurt, there is abandonment, rejection, and betrayal.
We don’t merely need procedures and bandages to fix the injuries and sop up the blood. We need someone who will hold our hand while we heal.
We have that. In Jesus.
I forget this far too often. Instead of letting Him hold my hand, I search for someone — or something — else to calm my racing mind. But those brief moments when I am with Him, when I am raw and bare and He is bandaging me tenderly, holding my hand, telling me that I am not alone, those really are the best.
Let’s try to do that more, you and I. Let’s let Jesus be Jesus. Let’s let Him bandage our wounds and clean up the blood, all while holding us and telling us that everything is really, truly going to be ok.
Jessica Ivaska 