Healing Like a Sequoia

When a redwood survives a fire - and they almost always survive - it heals giant slabs of wood over the scorched portion of the tree. Redwoods are strengthened by the tragedies they encounter and in fact need otherwise devastating forces like fires in order to survive as a species. Fires thin out the weaker trees that would take needed resources away from the redwoods, and the seeds of this giant tree race can only open up when subjected to the extreme heat of a forest fire.

When our hearts go through the fires of life we can choose to deal with them poorly, wrapping ourselves in darkness and defensive bandaging, never exposing the wound to the light of day. This will cause the wound to fester and create bitterness in your heart, as we discussed with yesterday's HURTS acrostic from Paul Tsika's book, "Sequoia-Size Success."

Today, let's look at how to handle those hurts properly so we - like the trees - can heal stronger than ever before, using another paraphrased Tsika acrostic: FORGIVE

F - Face up to your responsibility. Stop accusing other people for their part in the hurts you've sustained and instead take responsibility for your part in the hurt. Perhaps you could have reacted differently or perceived something differently, or perhaps you have locked yourself into the role of victim or mere survivor of your hurts. Whatever the case, admit your responsibility in the situation.

O - Open the unhealed wound and expose it to the light. Bring your pain, openly and honestly, to God and ask for healing and - where applicable - forgiveness.

R - Release total forgiveness toward those who have hurt you. Keeping someone "on the hook" actually keeps you hooked into the pain. It's natural to want the people who hurt you to meet justice, but the only way to really heal is to let go. You have to relinquish your desire to make them pay.

G - Guard what you receive. Remember when we talked about being careful with your association? This becomes especially important in terms of healing your hurts. You have to make sure to reject ideas like your right to revenge, and only accept the ideas that coincide with your goal of forgiveness and healing.

I - Invite God to love you through your pain and use you to extend that love to others. God wants to heal you, and only his perfect love can heal you perfectly. When you've experienced that kind of healing, you are then better equipped to reach out to others with the same kind of love and healing. Invite God to start this process in you.

V - View yourself the way God views you, not as the person your pain wants you to become. Pain wants to convince you that you are unloved, alone, and unique in your pain. If you let your pain dictate your response to situations, you will end up isolated. Instead, remind yourself that you are loved, wanted, and protected by God. You have been given great grace, freely and lovingly, and there is no reason to reject that grace.

E - Embrace your life as a healed person, a cracked pot through which God's light can shine. There's a practice in some Asian cultures of filling in the cracks in pottery with gold. This makes the otherwise useless pottery into something beautiful and more valuable than it could have been before the brokenness occurred. In the same way, God wants to fill the empty spaces left by your pain. Pain happens, fire happens, hurt is a part of life, but God wants to take that and make it into something truly beautiful and more valuable than ever before.

Healing is possible. Whatever pain you've been through, however long you've held on to it, healing is possible for you. It's a process, and sometimes a painful one, but the result is truly beautiful.