When someone says “healing from the past,” usually emotional healing comes to our mind. Most every soul struggle has a past. Pinpointing the source of the wound is not nearly as hard as finding healing from it. And wounds that heal usually leave scars or lasting handicaps.
Jesus was talking about children when He said, “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)
But what if you were that child?
Jesus also said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16).
Healing starts when the wounded child inside an adult body comes to Jesus. He receives that person and gives them a future in His kingdom.
On another occasion four men brought a paralytic on a stretcher to Jesus. Before anyone could say anything, we read, “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you’” (Mark 2:5). He spoke to the paralytic as a child who’d come to Him. He forgave him his sins and He healed him from the paralysis.
Sometimes the past is something that happened to us. Sometimes it’s how we responded to what happened. Usually it’s a combination of the two. Healing is a process, and there’s only one Healer.
Paul said that God, “comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (II Corinthians 1:4). Another step in the healing process is helping someone else who’s been hurt like we have.
Anger as a response to hurt may be just, but it doesn’t bring healing. God says, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (Romans 12:19). He will settle the accounts. But once we’re forgiven and are received by Him, it becomes easier to want the same chance for the person who hurt us.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.