Scab. Isn’t that just an ugly word? Very descriptive of what it is. Dry, crusty, discolored skin. Yuck. And if you’re like me, we want to get rid of the scab. Get rid of the ickiness. So I pick and try to rush it through the process of healing. And by doing that I end up doing more damage. It bleeds. It scars. If I had just been patient and allowed the process, additional pain could have been avoided.
It’s been three weeks now since I fell while I was running. I got some pretty nasty cuts on my elbow and hand. But I expected that the healing process would be quick and relatively painless. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It seems that with each layer (they were deep) that needed to come back together, there was more pain. The scabs would change in appearance and you could tell by looking at them that the healing process was indeed happening, but the pain has been just as intense. There have been many nights in the past three weeks where it has hurt so much that it will wake me up and prevent me from falling back to sleep. And all day long they are tender and experience terrible pain when they are bumped inadvertently.
In addition to the pain, there is also a lot of itching that goes on. And I want to scratch the itch, but I can’t because then it will hurt more. On and on the cycle goes. I just want full mobility and rest back. And I know that eventually that will come, even though I haven’t experienced that yet.
Yeah, I’m gonna say it. Those ugly scabs are kind of like life sometimes. We get hurt, either by our own doing or someone else’s. And after we confess or forgive, or whatever the case may be, we want healing. And we want it fast. We begin to see signs of it, of the scab forming. But the pain still exists. There is still a stinging, a pain that lingers. It can keep us up at night. Certain triggers can “bump” it, irritating it so that the wound feels fresh again. But a scab is forming. A little bit more healing every day.
Sometimes if the process feels too slow, we are tempted to go back. To “pick the scab”. But that only slows down the healing process and you have to begin all over again. More pain. More scarring.
Healing takes time. And sometimes it takes some long, ugly scabbing to get there. But at some point, if we allow its process, healing will bring “new skin” – a fresh start. A new perspective. A changed heart.
And isn’t that worth the wait?
