We all have vulnerable spots. I’m sensitive to bright lights, as everyone in my life will attest. I have never met a dimmer switch I didn’t love. We have two light switches in my bathroom. One goes to a lovely muted luminary that bathes the room in soft warm colors. The other activates three fluorescent lights that are equivalent to the white hot glow of an operating room. I never ever use that light. It feels like a direct switch to a headache. I don’t care if I have something in my eye or need to remove a sliver out of a child’s foot, it will be done in that low lighting. While the rest of my family uses this other light switch without a thought; they even seem to enjoy all the extra eye-popping brightness.

In the same way my eyes are sensitive to bight lights, my emotions also have weak spots. Things that have happened to me in the past have caused wounds. Like when people talk about sisters, it sometimes feels like a prick. I have to quietly deal with a wound that no one can see. I lost a sister. So, when someone starts causally talking about plans they have with their sister or how they talk everyday or even how annoying they might be, I can’t help but feel that loss. Time has healed much of that wound, but it’s still there. Nobody means to hurt me, of course. Some days it doesn’t even phase me, but other days it cuts; but I just keep smiling and nodding. I don’t want my friends to not mention their sisters.

Perhaps all your friends are getting married and you just experienced a terrible breakup. How do you get through those wedding showers and sit at a table with your parents pretending to be happy when inside you are hurting? You can’t ask people to not get married, you can’t not be happy for them. But there is a wound there that nobody can see. We have all had losses. A friend mentions how her dad fixed her car and you never even met your dad. A wound is touched. Your co-worker is buying a house when you are thinking you might have to move back home to save money. You started a ministry that can’t seem to get any funding while others seem to flourish. We try to hide our invisible hurts, so no one sees us flinch when when they talk about their spouse, their baby, their job . . .

The Enemy Hits Us Where it Hurts the Most

The places we feel like we aren’t enough are the places the enemy hits hardest, because it does the most damage—the quickest. If you were in a fight with a guy who had a broken arm, where are you going to punch him? In the place that will bring him to his knees. We are in a spiritual battle and our adversary does not play fair! You have a difficult child who is hard to parent, where will you get attacked? There! Someone will point out what you are doing wrong (when they don’t know anything about it). And bam! The enemy has you reeling. Your marriage is struggling and someone will go on about how great their marriage is and how it just gets better every year while yours seems to get harder. A hit in just the right spot. You feel stuck in your office job and are wondering about purpose when your roommate from college calls to announce they are opening their own business. You are glad this conversation is over the phone so they can’t see your face while you take the hit.

We do not feel the punches in our strong areas. If you rock at your job or have an easy marriage or are about to get a book published, comments can be made and they just roll off because you know they aren’t true. We are attacked in the vulnerable places. In the spots we worry about or the areas we carry a hurt or that secret fear. How do you recover when you are punched in a broken spot? Those comments can take your breath away, make you lose your footing. You want to just lay on the ground. It’s easy to be mad at that person or the situation, but we need to remember that it’s often the enemy at work and this is what he does. If you are in a knife fight, you can’t be surprised when you get cut. Yet, I find myself surprised. Like . . . “hey, that hurt!”

Don’t be Mistaken: We Are in A Battle

This life is a battle; it isn’t practice, it’s the real thing. We are in active combat. This is why the Bible instructs us to pray on the amour of God each day (Ephesians 6). Not because we are going to spar with a friend, but because we are in battle everyday—if we like it or not (1 Peter 4:12). So, when the enemy (through that guy at work or even your sweet grandma) says just the right thing, that speaks to your biggest hurts and fears you can know immediately you are in a fight for your emotions and your heart. The point is to take you down. To make you doubt God’s love (If God loved me, would I have lost my sister?). To make you doubt your calling (I’m not good at talking about my faith, maybe I should just be quiet). To make you doubt the hard things (someone else would be a better parent to this child). To make you doubt your purpose (Shouldn’t I find happiness in my family/job/ministry—maybe there is something more?).

As if the hard things shouldn’t be hard.

As if the struggles can and should be avoided.

As if the lies are true.

We must be ready for battle. We must suit up and pray up and read up. The Bible will instruct you; the prayers will empower you; the Holy Spirit will lead you. You have everything you need to fight the good fight. But you will get hurt. Nobody goes into war thinking they will emerge the same. They will be shot at, wounded and hardened by the blows of the enemy. From each battle we emerge with more experience (2 Tim 2:4). I know if I don’t start my day in prayer, I’m already set up for some blows. It’s not that prayer stops the blows; actually, I think it often “ups” them, but I’m ready to handle them.

If we are wounded, it is much harder to keep fighting. We often need others to drag us to safety. We need to go to the medic. Who is our Great Physician? Who is the Healer of our souls? The very One who created us, will also heal us. When we bring our soul wounds to Him, our Lord and Savior will do a great work in us. Sometimes it is major surgery (which could be preformed under the lights in my bathroom!). When we come to Christ, our loving Father lays us out and removes our hearts of stone and give us new hearts.

Ezekiel 36:26-27

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Nobody questions the major undertaking of a heart transplant. Getting a new spiritual heart is pretty major, also. It changes our life in dramatic ways. Things that used to bring us pleasure become dull, as we shift from a selfish worldly view to an eternal spiritual view. There are aspects of this change that happen suddenly. I once sat with a friend in my home and could see the heaviness of her past etched in her face; yet, a few moments later when she came to the Lord, it was instantly lifted. One of the first things she said after we prayed was, “The heaviness is gone!” She didn’t need to tell me. I could see it in her face. She met her Saviour and he removed her heavy heart and put in a living/beating heart that pushed blood through her soul into places that were formally crippled.

Other changes come on slowly, over years as our new hearts pump the oxygenated blood of new life to parts of our souls we thought were dead. Healing soul wounds that were caused by sin done to us, sin we fell into, perhaps, because of a family cycle of hurt or a temptation that we thought would soothe our wounds. But, in fact, it deepened the damage. I have been walking with the Lord several decades and just in the last few years, I have come to realize some of the places I carry wounds. Instead of letting air and light get to them where they can heal, I instinctively hide them, keeping them in the dark where they fester and spread into other aspects of my life.

Let the Healing Begin

I asked the Holy Spirit to expose them, so I could pray for the healing I didn’t even understand I needed. The wounds I had wrapped up in the loss of my sister were many and painful. There are ways I unknowingly respond to life—reacting in hurt or depression, never connecting it back to that vulnerable spot. God has removed much of that weight, just by exposing it. When something pricks me, I can say I know why this hurts. I don’t want to react in a way that brings me low. I can feel sad. I can feel the loss. But, I don’t want my reactions to be something that causes me to sin or causes me to pull back when I should be pushing in.

What soul wounds do you have in your life?

Can you connect some of your seemingly odd or extreme reactions to that hurt?

What if you asked the Lord to start healing those spots?

The Lord keeps showing me that He is enough. His grace is sufficient. The things I think I need to be okay are the very places He will fill. The hurts are a reminder that this world is not home. I have a promise that I will see my sister again (along with others gone ahead). Meanwhile, He has brought women into my life that I call sister . . .and my heart fills. I stand up in their weddings and the program says—sister to the bride. And that wound closes a little. I have a group of women in my life that are as dear to me as sisters. We have a depth in our relationships that I imagine is as deep as a blood sister (and perhaps deeper in some cases). That spot is very tender, but not as gut-wrenching as it was at one time. The term “soul sister” means more to me than most.

Ask the Lord to reveal your wounds so you can ask for healing in those areas

Have you already experienced some healing? Was it instant or slowly over time?

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