Finding healing in surrender

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. Malachi 4:2

We all need healing, at some point in our lives.  Relationships end, loved ones die, we experience rejection and loss and heartache.  But how do we heal?

The word healing is from the greek word marpay.  The defintion of marpay is curative, a medicine, deliverance, placidity, remedy, yielding.

That last word is especially important when it comes to healing.  Yielding.  Yielding ourselves to God and his will.  One of the Merriam-Webster definitions of the word yield is to give up and cease resistance or contention.  To surrender or submit oneself to another.

It is easy, when we hurt and life throws things at us that we don't expect, to fight, to worry, to give in to our anxieties and fear.  But God is asking us to yield ourselves to him.  To quit resisting him, and fighting against our circumstances.  He is asking us to surrender and submit ourselves to him and his will.  (Proverbs 3:5-6) His will is always perfect, and is always for our good.  When we surrender to him, and trust him, he will take every broken piece of your heart and life, and refashion it into something whole and beauiful.  He will heal every wound (Psalm 147:3), dry every tear (Revelation 21:4), allay every fear and give you strength, when you feel like you have none (Isaiah 40:29).  When we surrender, he will carry you, when you feel like you can't go on, and he will fill you with strength and purpose, when you feel as if you have nothing left to give.

When I felt so broken and so tired from all that had happened to me, I didn't want to submit at first.  I wanted to give more to my beautiful savior, who had always given me his best, than broken pieces and broken dreams.  But he did not look upon my brokenness with disdain.  He did not view my shattered heart and dreams as worthless.  He looked upon my brokenness and saw something that could be taken and turned into a beautiful masterpiece, that would bless me and glorify him.

He is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord our healer.  He is El Roi, The God who sees.  He is Jehovah Ezer, The Lord our helper.   He is Jehovah Shalom,  The Lord our peace.  Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there.  He is a hiding place, when we need to run to a place of safety, when storms rage and threaten everything we once knew (Psalm 32:7).  And in that place of hiding, he will come to you, he will draw near and hold you. And once you let go of all that is hurting you, and hold it out to him, just as a child holds out a broken toy, or a boo boo that needs kisses, he will take it from your hands and begin to heal it and mold it into something beautiful and priceless.  And restore it, not just to its former glory, but to a level of glory not yet seen or experienced (Zechariah 9:12).  He sees every intricate detail that needs repaired.  And as he fashions and molds and heals, he will take an empty, broken vessel, and give it form and fill it with his peace, and love and joy.

I have lived it.  My life turned upside down, over night.  Everything I had once known had been stolen or broken.  I was faced with challenges I had never before faced, and I didn't know how I was going to get through this, how I was ever going to heal.  But when I came to the point that I just wanted to give up and quit, he came and led me to a place where giving up would mean totally surrendering to him and letting go of all that was hurting me.  And once I let go and gave him all my broken pieces, he took them out of my hands and began repairing them as only he can.  And as he did, he held me, as the storm continued to rage within me, and said to that storm "Peace, be still."