Band-aids

Earlier this week, one of my girls fell on the sidewalk at church. I was chasing her because she was teasing me about seeing a possum, which I HATE and we were laughing and running. I guess her feet got away from her and she tripped. It left a huge bruise on her knee and a scrape on her hip. She insisted that she needed a band-aid for her hip so we dug around in the closet at church and found a cheap off-brand bandage and gently covered her scratch. No big deal, problem solved, all better, or so I thought, what I didn't know is that I just caused her more pain instead of fixing her up! That night in the bath we decided to go ahead and take the bandage off, but it was stuck so tight she was freaking out, so her daddy left it on. The next day it had to come off so my husband and I had to literally hold her down, kicking and screaming, to rip it off. I was so sad, because it left raw places where the sticky had been and the scratch was already gone. That dumb band-aid did more harm than good :(

Many people try to put band-aids, or worse cheap off-brand bandages on their problems in life, bandages like boyfriends/girlfriends, popularity, possessions, friends, money and maybe even going to church. The thing is none of those were meant to fix the problems we have or to help the emptiness we feel inside. And often times what we are using to cover up our hurt, family problems, failures, insecurities and shortcomings is only making matters worse and creating more of those negative feelings and thoughts.

We need to be healed. Jesus is the only One who can come into our lives and love us and heal us from the inside out! Psalms 30:2 says, "O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me." God wants so badly for us to stop covering things up and trying to fill our selves with stuff, people and experiences; He wants us to call out to Him so He can show us what He made us for and guide us to discover His plan for our lives. When we are living our lives for God we will experience healing. Please don't think that all the junk and pain or even sickness is going to disappear out of your life, that is not always what healing means, but you will have the promise that the Creator of the universe will never leave you and He will walk with you through every single heartache that you will experience. During Jesus' time on earth, "large crowds followed him, and He healed them there." (Matthew 19:2) He wants the same thing to happen today!

I pray that you will not keep digging around looking for cheap band-aids that will leave you even more hurt, but you will embrace Jesus and allow His love to heal you!!