Tragic wounds

Most of us are aware of the tragedy that struck Haiti a few weeks ago. There have been many miracle stories of how people have been pulled alive from the rubble days or even weeks after the destructive earthquake. As i've been watching these reports, one account given by a Compassion International worker spoke deeply to me about the wounds we encounter in life..

As he described being pinned under the rubble of a hotel, with his leg was severely gashed, he said to himself "I could die of my wounds,.. I don't want to die from my wounds." Then to prevent infection, he attended to his wound as best as he could.

Our lives are full of hazards, and we do get wounded along our journey. Some wounds are physical, some are deep and need time to heal, others are light and heal easily, but some wounds are deeply emotional which also need care and attention.

Where is our attention focused when we are wounded? Are we focused on the wound or the one who wounded us? Do we seek help and healing, or do we guard and ignore the wound as if it did not exist? Be warned, denying our pain and focusing on the cause can bring tragic consequences...

I admit some wounds need little attention and heal on their own, but what I'm talking about are the severe gashes in life, events that leave us reeling inside. How do we deal with these wounds?

If we realized the fact "I could die from my wounds" we might respond differently, and be more inclined to seek help and healing. Yet we so often focus on the cause and who's to blame, ignore the pain and inevitably allow bitterness to infest us.

Bitterness never eases the pain. It does however cause us to develop mechanisms to guard and protect our infested wound. Bitterness can be subtle, slowly poisoning our spirit, eventually sapping all Life from us.

True healing begins with forgiveness, focusing on the wound and not the one who wounded us. True, we must guard ourselves from the potential sources of further injury, but there's a much greater risk from a potential infection from within.

So next time you're wounded, tell yourself: "I could die from my wounds... I don't want to die from my wounds..." Attend to the wound, don't let a bitter infection set in.

Dying from an infected wound would be the greatest tragedy.

Vital signs...

This has been an adventuresome week in Crested Butte. I'm here with some of my life long friends. Alot of unexpected things have happened this week, I won't get into all of them but they seem to have a deeper significance to me than i could initially see.

Yesterday we took one friend down to the local medical clinic. She hasn't felt well the last couple of days, we were wondering how much the altitude was effecting her. Having landed in the hospital myself last year due to altitude related blood pressure problems made me somewhat more concerned for her heath.

The doctor at the clinic discovered her vital signs were not good, with very low oxygen levels and possibly a collapsed lung, he sent her immediatly down to Gunnison hospital since the clinic was not equipped to give her proper treatment. She's currently at the hospital and they say she'll be fine. I'm praying she will recover quickly.

Sitting here I'm thinking how important our vital signs are. We usually don't know how to read our own vital signs, we just know when we're not feeling right. Seems to me that spiritually we sometimes experience the same, we feel something's not quite right, just can't see exactly what it is. I'm sitting here wondering what my spiritual vital signs look like at the moment, and how critical they are...

I have to admit that over the past couple of years I have felt spiritually about the same as my friend looked like physically yesterday. Completely tired and weary and sick. I realize this is mostly due to my life being overburdened by many factors (some factors i had no control over), which inevitably effected both my physical and spiritual health. Even as i've removed myself from theses factors to take time to recover, the progress is slow which sometimes makes me wonder if there's any way this path of recovery could be quicker?

As altitude in an unexplained way affected my friend's health, i can also see many of the factors that have in unexpected ways effected me. In both cases there is no question of what got us here, the critical question is why we responded the way we did and how best to restore our vital signs? What is the treatment we really need?

They will keep her in the hospital for a second night because they do not want her coming up to altitude until she's recovered. Hmm, i wonder how often do we get pushed on or run on burdening our lives again without properly recovering. I don't know the answer to that, but i'm sure many times we neglect our need for rest, and neglect to ask for help thinking we can manage our recovery on our own. But the truth is we often are too frail to recover properly on our own.

I'm beginning to understand how fragile beings we are. It seems The Creator has designed us to need help and be helped. I'm just sitting here picturing the complete beauty of what God has provided though friends and physicians, homes and hospitals. Caring friends, caring strangers, all helping us on our road to recovery.

Editing our lives..

For several days last week, i attended a personal contribution assessment workshop. At this workshop we assessed our gifts and abilities, tendencies and preferences, and tried to grasp a better understanding of how God has designed each one of us. There's certainly things i learned about myself that i didn't see clearly before, as well a confirmation of several gifts, abilities and traits i believed i had.

It almost seemed like i was 'editing life' at this workshop. As I reviewed the unfinished book of my life with all it's sucesses and failures, much of my calling, vision and experiences seemed to make more sense. In some chapters i clearly recognised where i've been in my element, though other chapters and paragraphs seemed very akward, as if i was writing with my left hand (and some of it is still hard to read).

With a sense of amazement i'm re-discovering how uniquely God has created each one of us. He has with divine measure given everyone special talents and gifts. However, doing things God has not created us for, or performing tasks we have not been designed to do can lead to frustration and discouragement. Perhaps there are tasks and functions we should 'edit' from our lives and leave to others who have more suitable talents. The better we understand our design, the more satisfaction we find in doing what we've been designed to do.

Discovering how God has designed us is a process of endless amazement. I am so intregued by our multilayered design, how we have been created with a specific purpose. What we see on the surface rarely reveals all the workings of our inner-being. And our inner workings can be so integral to how we act and perform.

A car with a wonderful design may not be equipped to drive off-road. That's not to say it cannot do it, it just will slip and slide and be more prone to damage or failure than a 4x4 truck. The car however will shine in performance and efficiency as it drives on the highway. Off road the 4x4 truck is in it's element, while it may not be as stable or efficient on the highway as the car.

The analogy above is too simplistic. We are much more complex and respond to situations and circumstances in the most unusual ways. How often do we tell others in difficulty to "get your act together", while we don't even try to understand their design. How often do we expect others to perform or respond as we do?

The better we understand our own design and the design of people we interact with, the more graceful we can be in our roles in life. Like the visionary boldness of one combined with the compassion of another. We have the ability compliment or cover one another's weaknesses, and can lift up and appreciate one another's strengths.

And perhaps this is a part of what grace is all about...