I recently joined a book club that meets on Sunday nights. We're reading and work-booking through Steve Arterburn's Healing is a Choice. I'm loving it, which right off the bat, sets me apart from the vast majority of ten-week-Bible-study-work-book-working women who love them some Jesus. 

I love me some Jesus. I want to know Him better. But when I refuse to enter into personal suffering as I seek to know the One who according to Isaiah 53:3, was "a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," I short circuit the very relationship I desire. The very relationship in which I am to take my strength. 

Healing from something painful hurts. And yet, too often, it's a shocker to the body of Christ. It's is not something we hear a lot from the pulpit. We hear that  it]works out when we depend on the Lord. We hear that there is hope for our circumstances.

But let me break it to ya boldly: Sometimes the process of healing hurts more than what hurt us to begin with. So face it. Feel it. You cannot overcome what you deny.

This is why I'm a big fan of Healing Is A Choice.

"Healing is a choice. It is God's choice, but we can make choices that allow the healing he has for us to be manifested in our lives. Healing is a choice to let go of our past hurts by grieving them, and grieving is a choice to heal the future."

--Steve Arterburn 

What feelings do you avoid today that hinder the tomorrow you desire?

Face them. Feel them. If you need professional help, arrange for it. I'm so very grateful for my psychologist. God used her mightily when my marriage ended in 2013. I've said over and over, if it weren't for her, Jesus, and some really good friends who didn't judge my mental meltdowns, I'd be certifiably insane. 

You are not alone,

Wendy