Why does it sometimes feel like healing hurts even more than the initial pain of a traumatic event?
In an interview with Henry Fernandez Ministries, author Jonathan Miller described how a physical injury helped him understand the power of why addressing spiritual wounds appropriately is critical for our walk with God.
“When I was 19,” Miller says, “I was doing construction, manual labor, and I had a big saw in my hand, and I cut my hand open. I had about 15 stitches.”
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Instead of properly resting his hand, Miller went straight back to work. However, his injury was far from fixed.
“I woke up with my hand infected,” says Miller. “The swelling was so bad it went all the way up to my elbow. I had to go back to the emergency room. They took a scrub brush and scrubbed that wound.”
For Miller, this helped give him the concept for his upcoming book, Healing Hurts.
To order Jonathan Miller’s new book, Healing Hurts, visit Amazon.com.
“And that really is where the concept for the book title came from. Because it actually hurt more to have them clean that wound out than the original injury did. So, healing does hurt. If you don’t deal with the wound properly when it happens, it will become infected. And had I not caught the infection, that hand would have become disabled, possibly even amputated, which means I would be sabotaged to this day in my functionality.”
As Jonathan Miller’s story powerfully illustrates, untreated wounds fester, and the process of cleaning them out is uncomfortable, even agonizing. But that pain has purpose. It prevents long-term damage, restores true functionality and ultimately brings lasting wholeness. Healing may hurt, but it’s the only path to freedom.
Abby Trivett is content development editor for Charisma Media.
