Healing Touch

From YouVersion Reading Plan: Fostering Hope

33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

Luke 10:33-34

HEALING TOUCH
People go the doctor to be healed. To get relief from their pain. But I don't always know how to heal. Don't always know what to say or what to do. She was 14, with thick auburn hair that fell in unruly layers around her face. She was beautiful, but rough. Even in her short years she had experienced her share of hardship, and it showed, in the stiffness of her posture and the edge in her voice. I found out that she was in 8th grade, and liked math but didn't want anyone to think she was a nerd. She had a brother but didn't get to see him much. She was not a stranger to foster care - had slept in other people's homes off and on for as long as she could remember. Said she'd learned how to fold towels 'correctly' 10 different ways.

As she talked, she waved her arms and I saw them. Words carved across her knuckles. Others over the back of her hands and up her forearms. HATE. WORTHLESS. CRAZY. Scabbed. Fresh. Evidence of pain that extended much deeper than the wounds that marked her skin. She seemed surprised when I touched her arms, gently massaging antibiotic ointment into each line, grieving with each stroke. How do I fix that kind of pain? How do I speak life to someone who has only known death? I don't always know how to heal. But I do know how to touch, how to provide the most basic of human contact. So do you. Are you willing?

I know I had some trouble figuring out how to blog onto this blog, I don’t know bible passages by heart, I don’t feel that I speak like I guess I thought someone should that is doing this, and then I realized…God gave me the gifts He did for a reason and all I had to do was share myself here…what a revelation!  So often we don’t know how to help, don’t know how to help someone heal, just don’t know what to do.  Sometimes it’s that smallest action though that truly can make a difference!  So often it’s not in the saying but in the doing and the actions that come out of it.

I used to cut, I know how deep pain can go, I know how it is to put a mask on so that the outside world would think you’re just fine while you are dying inside.  Reach out to your friends, to your Pastor, your teacher, your whoever!  Even if you can’t tell them you are hurting or in pain, spend time with them, the likely hood is they already know but don’t know how to help…