This weekend our family plunged head-first into the Belizean healthcare system with our son needing an appendectomy. We feel so blessed to have received a quick diagnosis and relatively quick surgery. We are blessed that the thing poisoning our son was quickly identified and removed. Now we are in the post-op healing phase. I saw "we" because as a family unit, we are all affected.
No one talks much about this part of the process, where the highest threat is over, but you are still in the throes of its aftermath. Yesterday was the first day post-op. Despite talking with AJ about what comes next, he didn't know how to manage expectations. The pain was significantly lower, but still achingly there. The horror and emotional exhaustion hit him for the first time; his body now well-enough to start processing the trauma. In many ways, day 1 of healing was harder than the day before.
Have you ever experienced this spiritually? Emotionally? Have you diagnosed something that was silently killing you and subsequently removed it, only to feel worse? Maybe it was a mind-set or a root of bitterness. Maybe it was a toxic relationship or addiction. You experienced the euphoria of cutting it off, expecting your life will be so much better once it's go, only for the painful realities of healing set in.
Through the tears of exhaustion, and fearful questions about what really went on, healing happens. In the midst of the shuffle of "two steps forward, one step back," healing happens. As weakness gives way to strength and sickness yields to health, healing happens. Despite the hurt, healing happens.
Comments