Lift your weary hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.
Hebrews 12:12-13

Dr Jennifer mentioned to me a child on the ward this week with a serious arm burn. As the muscle, tendon and skin heal from this burn he is in danger of losing full function of his arm. Skin that needs to stretch to accommodate the motion of his elbow may heal without doing so. In order to avoid this simple but oh-so-costly complication of his burn, Dr. Jennifer must straighten his arm each day; moving it so that the contracture of the skin, tendon and muscle don’t leave him permanently maimed.

You can imagine that this is painful. You can imagine how he cries and how unpleasant it is for Jennifer to be associated with a great deal of pain, fear and sorrow. But she continues to go to him each day and bring pain into his life because she loves him and wants “what is lame not to be put out of joint but to be healed.”

Someone prayed with me this week, “God is not disappointed with you.” I cry each time I hear or read those words. Disappointing those around us is painful, how much more painful when we think we’re disappointing our Daddy-God. How true those words are as I let them sink into my soul, as I rest in that assurance even as I more fully acknowledge that the brokenness of this world and the brokenness of our hearts does result in inevitable pain. When I look at myself I see someone who who is lame. I know that I am not whole, healthy and perfect. I have heart-pain and I cause heart-pain. I live within the suffering of this world and I add to the suffering of this world. At times this piles up in my soul. But when I feel condemned, when I feel worthless, when I feel that I hurt more than I help . .. . I am not hearing God’s voice but the voice of disbelief, doubt and fear that is spoken in the subtle way of our enemy.

God doesn’t want to leave me bound up in the contractures of my sin and others sin against me. He takes me through the painful process of lifting my drooping hands (that don’t want to be lifted but rather to stay in the stillness of their frustration and disappointment and fear), of strengthening my weak knees ( rather than allowing me to retire them early) and taking what is lame and making it not less lame, and not out of joint, but WHOLE.
Can I reiterate that this process is painful?! But as an adopted and well-loved daughter of the king I rejoice in knowing that He is committed to my becoming whole. That just as His kingdom is coming in the world around me it is coming in my heart as I learn to walk trusting his love.