There are times in the healing process when we truly doubt the purpose of it. This is usually because we’re struggling to believe it’s working; we lack faith that we’re healing at all.
Having lost sight of hope, little wonder we’ve lost sight of the purpose in healing. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, fatigued and possibly burning out, confused or overwhelmed, having perhaps lost bearing for the heading or the progress we’ve made.
Bizarrely, when we’re weakest in the fight for healing, we stand on the precipice of possibility, there’s no false pretense in our attitude, as we face our reality in all its bleak starkness.
Depression is strength in that it can no longer
look away from the peril that life has become,
and in that is a hope beyond sight of emerging light.
But none of this is hope to us when all vision for hope seems to have failed. Maybe it’s only a moment — or moments — we feel this way, but there can be entire seasons where we cannot see the purpose in healing. Hope vanquished, sight for light has dematerialised.
When we cannot see the purpose in healing, our motivation to continue on healing’s path is in grave danger of peril. We could easily backslide into a season of going the opposite way; many people do not make it back.
If only we could see how we could borrow some hope from a mentor or friend, but that takes faith — to believe upon another person’s belief that a thing is possible.
Here is an incredible paradox — how would we describe a person who has lost sight of the purpose in their healing but they continue along the healthy and right path of healing, anyway? That person is a standing, walking, abiding miracle of faith.
Recall Thomas encountering Jesus — believing He was “My Lord and my God” when Thomas had put his hand in Jesus’ side. Jesus decrees that, “... blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)
Maybe that’s you right now, at the end of your tether. Needing to keep moving forward despite the apparent folly of it, moving forward anyway in the faintest hope that all could work out after all.
Much as it’s the same for anyone who cannot hope because they see no hope, and yet they cannot let go of the hope they borrow from elsewhere. Many times we cannot let go of hope because of those who depend on us. Even a hope borne on the wings of the Spirit who intercedes with groans (Romans 8:26).
It’s never good news to lose heart, but it’s only when we do that verses like, “Do not lose heart,” make the most sense to us, because we NEED that encouragement to hang on right then and there!
We may insist on believing the truth
t h a t d o e s n o t f e e l r e a l
because that’s all we can hope for.
The purpose in healing is to reclaim our purpose — to trust that we will indeed, one day, see everything we cannot yet see, and that takes faith; a faith that does not feel strong, but that is tested in the fire.
Strongest faith believes in the storm
that stillness will soon be found.
Strong faith does not need to feel strong. It only needs to keep doing what faith does — to keep stepping forward into the tyranny of fear despite feeling scared.
Losing heart eventually necessitates a search to reclaim what’s lost, so suddenly wise sayings have their purpose in the lingering there.
With imagination captivated, with attention fixed on a prize that feels so inconceivably far away, faith is piqued, and the purpose to heal is born.
Purpose to heal is born where healing feels impossible.
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