There’s a devastating song in the Jerry Herman musical MACK AND MABEL that goes, “Time heals everything…but loving you”. The female lead who sings this song eventually dies a drug addict, never reunited with the lost love she’s still pining for.
So much for the term “musical comedy”!
We’re often reassured by well-meaning friends that no matter how bad the pain is now, the eventual passage of time will numb us. But Mabel’s song is more cynical than that platitude. Some wounds never heal, leaving us to limp through life. That’s just the harsh reality.
Except…
I’m discovering now with amazement, as my family returns again to a city we eagerly left three years ago, that time can indeed grant us new perspective, wisdom, and yes, healing…
…if we let it.
We’ve just returned to live in Naples, Florida where we were for 11 years. After struggling to start a church from the ground up and then getting caught in the gears of a foster care system we were trying to help, it’s not an exaggeration to say we finally limped out of town happy to still be in one piece and in our right minds (mostly).
But now we’re coming back because we choose to. I don’t even have a firm job commitment yet, just some strong possibilities. But we feel God has told us clearly Naples, the location for so much past pain, is where we indeed belong.
So what changed? Well, time actually changed us, I think.
We left town partly because the church I’d built for 5 years never could seem to become self-sufficient. But after leaving to reinvigorate a church that had been in decline for 30+ years, I realized my struggling little church here in SW Florida wasn’t the failure I’d thought it was. We’d seen many people come to know Jesus there who’d never known Him before. I made strong friendships that stayed intact even after I left town.
But the problem wasn’t as much my church but my attitude about my own success, or lack of it. Truth was, I felt like a failure and wanted to move on as quickly as possible. But it was really a problem of my perspective, and nothing much else. Now I realize the work I did in that scrappy little church was probably the best ministry I’d ever done in my life.
Also, we’d gone through a painful fight to try and help a little girl whose drug-dealing parents had put her at risk. When we mentioned we’d be willing to adopt her to get her out of harm’s way, the foster care workers told the child’s parents who petitioned to have us removed as foster parents. In the process, we were lied to and lied about by those workers, whom received financial bonuses if the children were reunited with the parents. We banged our fists against the system’s walls built not to protect the children, but to hide corruption.
So at the end of that losing battle, we just wanted to be somewhere else where we wouldn’t be reminded of our pain every day.
But now? We see clearly it was best for our family not to adopt. Our two little adopted girls are more than enough for us to keep up with now in our mid-50s. Adopting another would have been too much for us physically and emotionally, and would have taken our focus off the needs of our girls. So while I believe God loved our heart-motive, He was protecting us from challenges we weren’t prepared to handle.
Here’s what the Bible says about how God works through the passage of time:
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. – Ecclesiastes 3:11
So with time everything, even the ugly and painful things, can be made beautiful. Our God has the power to transform our wounds into weapons in our own hands. And like the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, God loves to take the stones people threw at us and use them as our stepping stones to our destiny.
The problem is, just like the last part of that verse says, we can’t “find out the work that God does” often until time has passed. But in the meantime, we have to trust He will make our scars beautiful.
As I joyfully drove back this week into a place I hoped I’d never see again, I learned one of the greatest gifts time can give is that you realize what someone meant to destroy you actually had no power over you in the end. You survived in spite of their worst efforts.
But it won’t happen that way automatically. Like the song mentioned above, time won’t always heal. The trick is, you have to let it heal. You must face your pain with trust in your heart that God is truly good and will make something beautiful from it in the end.
Your choice, though.
I remember seeing a man in public once who’d caused my family great pain and suffering. A couple of years had passed since then where God had blessed me immensely. So when I saw him walking past me at a mall, instead of anger my heart did a strange thing.
Seeing my abuser actually filled me with joy. I called out his name from across the way, which probably scared him to death. I’m sure he thought I was about to come over and hit him, and i probably would have been justified in doing just that. But instead, I walked quickly over to him and stuck out my hand, telling him how glad I was to see him again.
I’d give anything for a photo of the expression on his face.
Afterwards, I tried to analyze the feeling I’d experienced. Why was I filled with joy to see someone who’d treated me so harshly? Then I realized it was because, in spite of his best efforts, he hadn’t destroyed me. In fact, God had blessed me most likely in response to the ill treatment he’d given me. Seeing him reminded me how blessed I was, and how invincible I am when my God defends me.
That is the power of time. It transforms the ugly into beauty, and your pain into power.
…if you’ll let it.
