Time Does Not Heal All Wounds - Treatment Does

You have probably heard it said, “Time heals all wounds. That saying has been around for so long that I cannot even find on Google who said it originally. Our culture wants to tell us that time is the only thing we need to be emotionally healed. Is it just me, or would we all actually love for that to be true? I mean, doing the hard work of healing doesn’t seem fair. When you are the one who has been wounded, shouldn’t you get to relinquish responsibility for the healing of a wound that someone else inflicted?! If we could simply give our heartaches some time and they would be magically healed… doesn’t that just work better for you? Yeah, me, too.

I remember literally begging God to let me go to sleep for a year in the throes of my most painful moments because I thought that if I could just have that much time pass over me, then the pain would not be so paralyzingly excruciating. I am so glad that He didn’t answer that prayer.

Because the unfortunate and painful truth is that time, in and of itself, just doesn’t do the trick. Sure, the visible signs of the wound and the initial impact lessen over time, but too often, there is still a festering wound deep beneath the surface that, left unchecked, has the potential to do great damage in every aspect of your life and in every relationship that you have. At minimum, there is still a soreness there that never goes away.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy has been quoted as saying:

“It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. Time - the mind, protecting its sanity - covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone.”

I think that Rose knew a little bit about pain. Look at all of the loss, tragedy, and scandal that she and her family endured. On one point, Rose is right, time alone does not heal the wounds in our lives. It will cover them up with scar tissue, but unless we treat the pain and all of the infection that can set in, we will always carry it with us.

But that is not the whole story. Unlike a flesh wound is covered by scar tissue is pretty well set that way for life, our hearts are different. Whether the pain is fresh or has already started to scar, we can dig in and start the true healing and recovery process. And our God promises to restore our hearts if we let Him.

So, then if time does not heals our wounds, what does? The simplest answer is treatment. Think about the last time you cut or scraped yourself pretty bad. I imagine you cleaned the wound to get out any impurities, applied some medication and then bandaged it up. The same principles apply to our hearts.

We have to clean out the dirt and impurities first. We do this so that we don’t get an infection which would travel throughout our entire system. What are those impurities for a heart wound? A few that come to mind are the desire for revenge, identifying with what happened to us as our fault or what we deserve, and harboring resentment and bitterness. The process of inspecting our hearts to find these things so that we can dig them out and keep them from infecting our whole system is the key first step.

Then, we need heart medicine. That can look like therapy, a support group, or any process that is designed to help you walk through the healing process. And although it seems unfair, healing is a process, not a quick or instantaneous event. This is the medicine that will work on all of the facets of heartbreak that need healing and stop them from also causing systemic infection. This means walking through all of the emotions and grief cycles that result from this wounding and working systematically on healing through each one. Everyone’s journey is unique to them in the order and severity of each of these, and can involve shock, denial, anger, bargaining, regret, sadness, acceptance, and relief.

Then, there is the application of the bandage. The purpose of the bandage is to cover the wound to protect it from new impurities and infection, hold in the medicine you applied, and help the wound heal with minimal or no scar tissue. The things that will cover and protect you in your times of healing are prayer and one-on-one time with God, insulation from the things that could re-wound you (here’s looking at you dating sites, late night texting with the ex, etc.), and even surrounding yourself with friends and family who are invested in your healing and not staying mired in the gossip or bitterness.

The key to a great treatment plan when our hearts are wounded is the commitment to go through the process of it. We can’t just stuff it and pretend to be OK, hoping that one day that will be true. We have to fully experience each stage of our grief cycle so that we can work through it and come out on the other side without the infections of bitterness, unforgiveness and perpetual anger or sadness.

A great tool in this treatment process is journaling. The benefits of journaling are vast and you can read more HERE. There is a lot of science and research backing how journaling can help you process your pain, emotion and grief. It will help your emotional and logical brains work together in your grief treatment plan to help bring about true healing.

If your heartbreak is because of a divorce, we do have a program that is specifically designed to help you walk through the divorce grief process, called the Life After Divorce Course. It is a self-paced program filled with guided journaling designed to help you dig out the dirt, salve your wounds and bandage them up to prevent the ugly scar tissue that divorce loves to leave behind. You can find more info on that program HERE.

God promises us that He is near to the brokenhearted, and that He will bind our wounds. We have to let Him, though, and we have to cooperate with Him in that process. As I look back on the hardest and most painful times of my life, the beauty from ashes there are that those have been some of my absolute sweetest times with the Lord. I have felt Him draw so near to me and comfort me in ways that are hard to describe. I got to know Him more. Now, I would not trade those times for anything in the world. He will do the same for you if you will let Him. That is a promise.