The Divine Physician

As we continue our journey with Christ, He seems to reveal more places of pain in our story. It can seem like we go through season after season of healing and it never seems to end. The temptation can be to despair and hate the wounds and places of trauma in our own heart because we can’t seem to shake them. How can we finally get to a place in our journey with the Lord where we not only become peaceful with the difficult places in our own story, but we even thank Jesus for allowing us to experience them?

As a former college missionary and religious sister, I encountered people who courageously shared their heart with me. I have also spent several years wrestling with my own story and the places of pain the Lord has slowly uncovered in my heart. Talking to individuals who have gone through periods of healing is an extremely privileged place because they speak so tenderly about how the Lord came into those places of pain. Something I often hear others say is that they had an idea of how they thought Jesus would show up, but He completely surpassed their expectations, and it was precisely what they needed. It is a great gift to hear about these sacred places in the hearts of others where Jesus met them in a place of deep pain. Hearing the stories of others and wrestling with my own story has demonstrated to me the beauty of Jesus as the Divine Physician.

When you think of having surgery you think of the pain and that the surgeon needs to access something inside your body to heal it. Jesus does this exact thing as the Divine Physician of our hearts. These places of pain that are extremely deep in our hearts are the places where the Lord can work the most effectively and often where we experience Him the most profoundly.

With great patience we can watch these places of sorrow, pain, and despair in our hearts become a place of bliss. We can revisit these previously painful places and be with the Lord there because, as any good physician, He was able to respond to our desperate plea for help as we go through life trying to numb the pain. The process of healing might be painful but when we do it with Christ we’re not alone. Let Christ probe those painful places as you encounter Him in prayer because He knows it hurts but He loves us too much to not address the pain. Take courage because those who are well do not need a physician but those who are sick do (Matthew 2:17).