I've heard many well meaning people say, "You'll be okay, time heals all wounds." "Just give it some time and you'll be fine." The intentions of these words are good but the truth can be very misleading and even damaging. If you are one of those people who have waited and waited for time to heal your wounds STOP waiting! Time doesn't heal wounds! The only thing time does is go by. It passes. The clock ticks. The calendar turns. The sand falls. Time comes and goes, period.
If I broke my arm today and the doctor told me "you'll be okay, time heals all wounds" or "just give it time and it will heal" I wouldn't believe him. In fact I would fire him! Granted, if I did take his advice I would certainly grow more accustomed to my broken arm over time. I might learn to compensate for its limitations and pains but that does not equate with healing and we all know it. Why do we believe "time heals all wounds" when dealing with emotional hurts? Similarly we might grow more accustom to our pain, we might learn to compensate for it as we learn to live with it weighing on us. But this does not equate with healing anymore than a broken arm that never got set, treated and healed.
You want to heal from grief? Disappointment? Depression? Trauma? Betrayal? Loss? Heartbreak? Then don't let anymore time pass without doing something healing! You see, it's what we do with our time and how we address our wounds that produces healing. The trouble is we don't bleed from grief, we are not outwardly wounded from betrayal, we are not physically limited from disappointment and so we don't care for it in the same way we do a physical break. Depression and Anxiety don't cause a fever and therefore are not contagious so we just keep going to work or school in hopes that it will get better. We spend a lot of our time denying and ignoring our emotional wounds instead of treating and healing them.
The truth is our emotions need bandages, casts and surgery too. We need the healing ointment of support, love and kindness. We need the strength that can come from addressing our hurts face forward and head on. We need to know that there is education available to assist us in getting better answers, treatment and freedom from our pain. And we need to spend our time pursuing healing things in order for healing to take place. If we do not, then those wounds fester, grow, and cause infection in other areas of our life simply because they were not treated. It doesn't have to be that way. The emotional difficulty that gets addressed can go through a process of healing that if done correctly actually makes that spot in our lives stronger than it was before the break. Just like the broken arm that is treated and healed.
Much like seeking medical attention there are many different levels of therapeutic intervention. Which one do you need to do? Call that friend? Read that book? Join that support group? Say that prayer? Ask that question? Take that medication? Make that appointment? Go to that meeting? Forgive that injustice? Grieve that loss? Overcome that obstacle? Face that fear? Quit that habit? Change that thinking? Ask for help? Admit that denial? Confess that sin? Increase that esteem?
Healing is something we do, often even fight for. It is something we seek and participate in. It is not something that falls into our lap while we are allowing time to pass. Do something healing today, will you?