Healing the Hurts

Some of you may have noticed that there was no blog post on Friday. I had planned to post something, but I spent my morning taking my oldest to the doctor and to get X-rays on her ankle. Last Thursday at soccer practice, she lost her footing and fell, twisting her ankle on the way down. Thankfully, it looks like nothing is broken; it's just badly sprained.

While we were driving to the doctor, my daughter asked me what I was going to write about on my blog that day. I told her I thought I would write about going to the doctor. You see, my family spends a lot of time at the doctor. In the past year, my children alone have sent us to either the doctor's office, the urgent care center or the hospital for surgery to remove a needle that was embedded in a knee, eight stitches in a chin split open by a fall on the ice, a broken finger that refused to heal, Sever's syndrome and a sprained ankle. This doesn't include the numerous other doctor's visits for well-checks, strep throat, and ear infections. My children's charts at the doctor's office are thick folders.

Yet, every time we go to the doctor, we go with the expectation that he can help us. We expect that he can heal our hurts. We want to teach our kids that God is the Great Physician. He can heal our hurts, both the physical and the emotional. So, the next time you head to the doctor's office with one of your children, use it as an object lesson to teach them to take their hurts to God.

• On your way to the doctor's office, ask your kids how a doctor is like God. Talk about how God is the ultimate healer. Talk about some of the people that Jesus healed when He was on earth. Let your kids know that sometimes God uses doctors to help us get better, but God is always able to heal us. Be honest with your kids and talk about how sometimes God doesn't heal us. Illness is a consequence of sin entering the world and sometimes we just have to deal with that consequence.
• Remind your children that not only can God heal our physical wounds. He can heal our emotional ones as well. Share Psalm 147:3 with your kids, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Ask them to think of a time when someone hurt their feelings really badly. Tell them that a doctor can't heal that kind of hurt, but God can. Show them how to ask God to heal their hurt feelings.
• While you're at the doctor see how many things you can identify that the doctor can use to help people feel better. Then, have your kids identify ways that God can make them feel better when they get their feelings hurt. For example, while a doctor might use a bandage or a cast to help heal a cut or a broken limb, God can use kind words from a friend or a hug from mom to heal the wound caused by a mean girl at school.

Take advantage of this everyday occurrence in your lives to pass on to your kids an important lesson about the nature of God. Encourage them to let Him heal their hurts.