Hurt for Healing.

She’d carried around her guilt for a long time. Guilt over not giving me a chance to be her friend. Judging on outward appearance. And while it made her feel better to finally apologize, finally put it behind her, truthfully; it made me feel a little worse. Did she know what a friend would have meant to me?...  But His wounded hands held out to me had already felt the hurt I shared, already died for it. 

Could it be that some sin heals at the cost of another’s hurt? Could it be all sin has worked this way, as He has bled and died for a broken people?  A hurt for healing exchange? Why should it shock me that in living in community, exposing our sin to one another—it’s often others that pay the price alongside of Christ for our sin-- though only He can redeem it? 

How many times have others been wounded by the sin of my words, motives – actions?  Living in community with those I’ve hurt is an exchange of my sanctification— others paying the higher price of it. It’s hard for me to live with. To keep hurting those I love – when their exchange is like His, forgiveness

I would rather pay my own way with offenses, rather I hurt myself with them. But sin makes for a deceptive weapon. It can be in my hand before I recognize it. And it can be shamefully familiar. 

And His stripes have paid for it all. And the nails, driven in by my sin. His hurt for my healing. What an exchange. 

So if I am hurt by others sin—it seems just an echo of how this picture of Christ looks in our lives. It shouldn’t be as hard as I make it out to be at times: to offer what He has offered me. Forgiveness that heals.

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53

Together in Grace,

Amy