Healing Wounds: Part Three

I believe that the ability to dream again can signify the process of healing. And to me, the opposite of dreaming is apathy.

Sometimes the answers that we don't want to hear are the ones that we need to hear.

And I can't pretend that the answer does not re-open the wounds that I had spent the past few months getting over.

Like bitterness and resentment, desensitization can seem to be the quickest fix to the process or possibility of future pain. It is as though desensitization is the point in which we build a tolerance to pain. We have become apathetically numb.

Show me hope.

I wanted her to tell me words of progress. Even just a glimmer of hope was all that I needed.

But all that I could hear was darkness. These girls that I had cared so much about seeing succeed had given up.

And it breaks my heart.

I can imagine that this is what God feels like when we choose paths that we know in our head will hurt us, but in our heart we still choose apathy. I wanted them to know that we can choose to not have the past dictate our future. That the past abuse and tragedies did not have to be an end for them.

It is kind of like the part in a movie when you know something bad is going to happen so you close your eyes because you not bear to fateful result. As I heard the stories of these girls that I counseled continuing to regress, I winced from the devastation that I felt.

The irony of running from pain is that we often find ourselves in situations that can cause us more pain. But even when we become desensitized, more drastic painful situations remind us that we are human. The deep wounds will eventually catch up with us.

Rather than running, I think that it is healthier to accept the pain. As counselors, we are trained to help those that we work with feel and process through the pain. And just as I want these girls to process through the pain, I acknowledge that it is painful for me to see failure.

Sometimes we need to give up apathy and choose to acknowledge the pain in order to dream again so that we can continue healing.