Friday night I was outside trimming some bushes and cut my finger. (Yes, I was cutting them using the motion-sensor floodlights, and I was using my kitchen shears.)

The lights flicked off just as I snipped an out-of-control sprout, and the blades got my left middle finger by mistake. It took a divot right out of my fingertip that bled like crazy. Once the bleeding finally stopped I doused it in antibiotic ointment and wrapped it up in some kind of heavy-duty band-aid.
Apparently, I left the band-aid on too long, because now I have ZOMBIE FINGER.

Ew.
Typing without that finger is a challenge.

I've been typing and driving and exercising and everything else without hindrance ... with the bandage. I'm reminded that when I'm spiritually or emotionally injured, and I wrap up that wound and hide it away to avoid further pain, it's not going to heal properly. It's going to get really, really nasty. Even if I can use the wrappings to disguise the injury and keep working, the injury is still there, under the wrapper.

When we're emotionally hurt or offended or betrayed, there's a time to dress those wounds, until the bleeding stops, and there's a time to expose those emotional and spiritual wounds to the light and love of God, hopefully before the affected part goes into zombie mode like my finger!

We had a wonderful time of praise and prayer tonight at church, and God started unwrapping some of those old bandages... some I didn't even know I had. It hurts. But I know it's only through trusting Him with those wounds that they will be properly treated and able, at last, to heal.

Have you let any wounds sit under a bandage for too long?


.