When something gets infected, sometimes instead of healing the right way, puss builds up in a pocket and as the pressure builds, the patient feels increasing amounts of pain. The area becomes red, hot, and can even ooze a little. Sometimes it will finally burst open.

This past winter when I was working the ER, there were multiple patients that I had to help perform an I&D on (incision and drainage- cutting it open and getting all the muck out).  The ER doctor said to me “THE definitive treatment of an abscess is an I&D. You can give them all the antibiotics you want, but unless you go in there and get that infection out, most will come back with it again.  And you can’t just cut it a little and push on it a little, you have to give it a good cut, use an instrument to break up the locules (little pockets), and really squeeze hard to make sure you get EVERYTHING out or else you’ve done nothing for them.”

When we are injured in life- be it from family, friends, people from church, or various circumstances- we either heal the right way (which can take some time), heal with deep scars, or even end up with a deep root of bitterness in our heart.  As the bitterness festers, the anger, hatred, and dark feelings grow and grow. It can overflow a little here and there but ultimately, when it is bad enough, God needs to go in and do surgery on our hearts.  He had to do so on me once before.  For those who have been following along with my journey, over a year and a half ago, my first boyfriend broke my heart to pieces and even though God did help me heal some, I had a root of bitterness that had grown in deep. The cut was so deep within my soul, and I hid it away for so long, that it took visiting my brother and sister in law in California with my parents and two guest preachers working in sync with the Spirit to get God to muck out much of it.  I wrote about the experience in a post but that was not the only time God has worked on me.

Sometimes it feels like we are being torn up from the inside out. It feels like our souls are being mucked out, pushed, prodded, and broken up in ways we never imagined. This process though, can be of God to help break up the walls that have been created that hide the infection of bitterness, anger, and hatred.  As time has gone on, God has continued to break down the walls I have against my ex and his friends.  I am MUCH improved but I know God is making me go to the city of our (and also my.. as in ever in my life) first kiss for residency to help make sure that the last walls are broken down.  I cannot be fully ready to accept my future “Isaac” unless every last wall and pocket of bitterness/anger/pain is broken down and cleaned out.

What do you have festering in your heart today? Is there anything that God needs to go in and muck out? Are there pockets hiding away in your heart built up to protect you from things in your past? Do you see that all those walls are doing only keeps pain/bitterness in your heart?  Let it go! Let God work on you! He will heal you more completely than you could ever imagine. He will bind you up with His love and give you a new heart. Just trust His process and see that He truly is the great physician!

Thank You Jesus. Thank You for Your amazing ways.  Help us be wiling to go through Your “I&Ds.” Help us trust that even if it hurts at the time, it is for our good.  I love You Jesus. 

Rebekah M. 

Related posts:

https://beingrebekah.com/2012/10/07/forgiveness-and-renewal-revisited/