Early in my career, I worked for a large orthopedic group near Los Angeles.  It was a great gig, as I was just getting my start in medical marketing, and it offered all the challenges and rewards that a young gal could ask for.  I became savvy in the terminology and references that go along with injuries from head to toe, and everything in between. 

Some problems are easy to fix.  A simple fracture is set and healed in a matter of weeks.  Backs, not so much.  A bulging or herniated disk means an extended recovery, and often rehabilitation or therapy of some sort.  It’s all pretty fascinating, really.

A bet you’re wondering where in the world I am going with this.

I’ve been thinking a lot about other kinds of hurts, the kind that don’t show up on x-rays or MRI’s, and why they take so darn long to heal.  When it comes to issues of the heart, you don’t need a cardiologist to tell you when it’s broken.  

I have had the good fortune to meet and speak to a lot of women since writing my book, When He Walks Away.  It’s a privilege for me, when someone trusts me enough to share about their suffering, and how they are surviving it all.

If only what we go though could be like a clean, simple break.  Easy to set, easy to heal.

If you have gone through a fractured relationship, or any kind of trauma, you now the truth.  You know that it takes a lot to pull yourself up by the bootstraps.  You do a lot of posturing, a lot of finding the least painful way to position yourself, your circumstances, so that you can carry on.

We all learn the art of adapting to new ways of being.  We plaster new expressions on our faces that pass for smiles.  We manage to make ends meet by some miraculous economy where God provides.  We experience adjusting our expectations to meet new and uncharted territories.

Sometimes, we have to master learning how to walk again so that others won’t notice our limp.  Everyone has one.  It comes with life.  Hard knocks always leave scars.

What I want to say here, is simple.  Sometimes, where we are broken, is the very place we rebuild our greatest strength.  We don’t ask for what happens to us.  No one would volunteer for hardship.  But I have learned something about fractures that is true for all that ails us.

A broken bone actually heals stronger than before it was injured.  Calcium, and all the natural healing capacities of our bodies, fuse and mold and reshape where we are hurt, protecting that place from ever being injured in the exact way again.

Seems God has a plan for everything.

The issue is, we have to deal with it.  We can’t sweep things under rugs.  We can’t pretend our way through our brokenness.  We can’t numb or bury our hurts.  We can’t blame others for what we don’t tend to or take care of for ourselves.  All of this is a prescription for disaster. 

It’s up to us.

We have to go through it.  Through the pain of having our broken places reset.  Through the difficulty that comes with examining where we are, how it happened, and what we can learn from it all.    

Sometimes, we have to break in order for things to be put in proper alignment again.

What I have come to understand, is that God is not in the breaking of us.  He doesn’t want bad things to happen.  Heartaches and misfortune are never a part of His doing.  But He is in the mending of us.  He is in the strengthening.

Where is your hurt?

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to healing.  It all takes time.  What hurts one person may be a quick turn around, while another may take years before they feel whole again.  We all get there eventually.

All I know, is that it involves a lot of putting one foot after the other, and daily giving it all to Him.  There is absolutely nothing else that can truly comfort and heal us.  We have to walk it out in faith. 

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger…?  Perhaps.

All I know, is that when we go through it, when we believe He is with us and that better days will come, they do.

We have to keep walking.

Even if we limp.