Healing
If we take a closer look at the events of creation, it’s impossible to miss a key difference in the way that God created us humans from the way He created the rest of the world. He spoke everything else into existence, but God got down into the dirt, and with His hands he formed a body, introducing us to the creative, healing power of touch. After the fall, the enemy perverted the power of touch, using it to inflict pain as well as to transmit feelings of hate, disgust and inappropriate desire.
Some years ago, I ran into an old friend from my grade school years. Let’s call her Nicole. It had been a long time since our last meeting, and the fun event that we were both attending made for a really nice reunion. I couldn’t help but notice how much we had both grown and changed since our childhood. She had matured into a beautiful young woman, but something wasn’t quite right: that ‘thing’ about her, that unsettled quality that often made her difficult to get along with had not changed, but rather intensified. Having come to terms with my own personal problems, and understanding how inner turmoil manifests itself in one’s social habits, I decided to engage my friend in a meaningful dialogue, hoping to get to the bottom of this. See, we had all grown up in a society that really didn’t give one time to catalogue one’s emotions, to acknowledge our feelings, the gravity of events suffered. For one to identify too much with their inner self would be seen as a sign of weakness. I imagine that this “emotional standard of living” had been passed on to us from our ancestors who worked the hillsides of the Caribbean, regarded to as “property”, suffering all sorts of unspeakable acts, yet expected to get up on their feet, and return to work.
In our conversation, I called Nicole’s attention to how our upbringing taught us to quickly mute our frustrations and pain, never giving ourselves a chance to understand why we feel the way we do, why we do the things we do. I spoke of how the small community in which we grew up, and the character assassins that abounded prohibited us from trusting each other sufficiently to find support during the most difficult times of our lives. I had been aware of some of the bad relationship choices she had made, the desperation that drove her from the arms of one lover to the next. Knowing the times in which we live, and also after having lost 3 friends to the fierce ravages of AIDS, I said to her, “Nicole, you need to slow down...better yet, stop. There are things that when you catch them, they play for keeps...and I don’t want to lose you that way...”
Her face fell. Her eyes welled up with tears. We were at the airport, and I was about to leave. I thought that she was crying over the fact that we’d be separated again. Honestly, I hadn’t thought that my previous words would have this sort of effect upon her; I guess I didn’t know the whole story. “I’m not going to be that far away,“ I whispered, trying to calm her down. “It won’t be this long before we see each other again”.
“No, it’s not that,” she replied. “It’s what you said...when I was little, my father molested me...maybe that’s why I am the way I am”
In that very moment, I saw 20 years flash before my eyes, and then everything made sense. Her fighting spirit. That element of “let me hurt you first, before you hurt me” in her personality. She was struggling to live after having been introduced to a whole new set of feelings without her choice. What was left of her self-esteem drove her to fiercely demand that you recognize her, but the void that the abuse brought caused sufficient depression which would lead to the self-loathing, promiscuity, and God forbid—
Honestly, the news hit me like a freight train. I had no clue that someone so close to me was going through all of this. Her words hit a familiar spot in me, because when I was a very young person, I had been inappropriately touched by someone my family trusted. I know from experience how it is to live in silence, protecting the perpetrator, fearing that I would be ostracized if I were to speak up. I know from experience how the lack of trust in others cuts you off from them, fearing that you might be grossly misunderstood; worse so in my case, because, being a boy, I did not want to be seen as weak. God gave me great strength to face each day, even though deprived of the chance to just be a kid, to live a carefree life. The depression, sleepless nights, the constant fighting to love myself, the hurtful words of others that I withstood were the price I had to pay in order to be able to tell Nicole at that moment, as well as the entire world, that there is healing in God’s hands. Not everyone responds to this sort of intrusion in the same way. There are a host of possible results that come from this sort of introduction to adult life at such an early point in one’s development. Many will find the supportive arms of parents and loved ones to bear them up and help them get through the tough times, and unfortunately, many more will not; some will be subject to insensitive remarks all around. Today, I tell you, not because I read this in a book; but rather, after having seen for myself—There is healing in God’s hands. Those hands that shaped the first human couple, restored sight to the blind beggar, restored life to the centurion’s daughter are just as effective today as they were back then. I wrote this song for Nicole, myself, and the host of others who were victimized by those who perverted the power of touch. There will never be a day that I don’t remember what happened, but my daily focus is fastened upon the power of God that has given me the choice to be whole. Try it! It’s a touch that has power to cancel pain, and return you to that carefree kid you once used to be.
Parents, please be careful and fully aware of who you allow your kids to be with...
How I long to make you whole,
Give you peace and self control!
Place your trust in Me,
There is healing in my hands...