the healer

it seems like pain is a theme in the lives of some of the people i love this week. i wrote a short piece about healing a few years back during a difficult period. i think now is the right time to share it.

pain is not pleasant. we twist and run to escape it. but pain has its purpose. pain alerts me to the hurt I must address. pain requires some kind of response. i can choose to ignore it, or i can medicate it and somehow try and bury it. but it will not go away until i decide to seek healing. and healing may not be my immediate desire. the pain has become a familiar-something i have grown to live with and accept. it may be crippling, heavy and burdensome but it is my burden. and perhaps the ownership is something i don’t wish to give up.
but if and when i do, it will require submission. i must lay still and let the healer attend me. often anesthesia is unavailable on the battlefield. i might prefer to be asleep, but the healer tells me i must be awake. i am a part of this process. he forces me to confront the wound. i do not want to see it. it is ugly and it has disfigured me. i don’t like seeing what is inside of me opened up this way. i feel helpless-broken.
the healer’s hands are gentle yet firm and confident. and he attends to the work directly. i want to stop it. i want to get up and feel the pain no more, but the healer directs me softly to lay still. he tells me there will be some more pain as he tends to this wound but that it is necessary for the healing to have a lasting effect. he says that the wound has been treated many times before by someone who is unskilled and that it has become infected. only his treatment will cleanse and restore it.
his hand touches the wound. i scream and cry. he finishes his work and then holds me, my sobbing muffled against his strong shoulder. he waits for me to finish crying and then whispers in my ear. “it is done. you do not have to bear it any longer.”
the weight is gone. my burden has been lifted. i am free. how could i ever have lived like that? that was not life. the healer tells me however that i may experience the pain again. if i am not careful i may re-open the old wound or experience a new one. he says that he is the only one who can properly heal, and if i continue to try and take care of these wounds by myself they will never fully heal.
he gives me cool water and i drink. the water is refreshing and tastes good. i am restored. i want to stay here with the healer and be safe from futher harm. but he tells me it is time for me to go. there are others out there on the battlefield who require his attention. and as i am able, i must do what i can to help bring them to the healer.