I stood heart level, bent down to touch her wound & feel its edges, healing, but still not yet perfected, at the side of her bed – her’s a wound born of trauma – a burn – beyond surface deep – to the 3rd degree – with skin levels deep, now journeying its fight to vitality restored.
And the spirit of God spoke to me minutes later, I, sitting to dictate her daily progress note…
just how similar her healing wound journey rubs close to our human pain story…
beginning with the layers underneath.
See, damaged skin tissue softens and strengthens but the deepest of cuts require chiseling out to rebuild new layers … its an upheaval of the traumatic, making their way from the inner of our slices to our out.
And I looked down at her knee that day…
noticing, atop her newly poised skin frames, a large piece of matter, we call it, “eschar”…
a muddy looking slap –
taught & capped –
– dead –
– dead as dead –
black, hardened tissue…
– sitting squat a-top her healing layers…
her black eschar being a remnant of the burn scorching what lay underneath… her blackened turf, a constant reminder of her deep insult & deeper injury… her burn a possessive piece of physical real-estate, overlaying her healing pieces below.
And then I’m reminded of Christ. His everyday affliction born of living a pain-filled life… where his earthly existence suffered with our deep tissue wounds… Him, bearing each day, our eschar-capped inflictions… He, the perfectly healed one, communicating continually with our not-yet-healed tissues…
…. and on that day, I stood,
bent down to heart level,
examining her blackly cracking eschar, which sat atop her viably new & healthy frames … and I peered at the fractions of healing layers underneath… testing them each, with a poke & a prod… noticing how they bled no more…
her fresh tissue, communicating with her burnt eschar …
and I wondered just how soon & just how ready would her healing come, to unroof the black eschar sitting up-top.
… but then, He uttered, in one final breath… “Father, forgive them” – and suddenly – the healing, our healing, faced its finality. His inwardly, fully perfect form, meeting His outwardly marred and scarred pieces … and reconciliation of heaven’s wholeness broke forth to release earth’s restoration.
“But don’t we have to separate the two?” I asked the nurse.
“In order to let the healing pieces breath, don’t we have to force-ably remove the up-top cover and expose the below-surface layers underneath?”.
“No, no…” the nurse then responded, pointing to explain…
“the healing lies within the deep tissue layers- for what was once dead, torched and twisted tissue pieces, have now strengthened themselves into new…
each, working themselves upward, outward…
each, pushing & pressing…
each, now reaching to meet their captive eschar resting on top…
and, soon, most assuredly only a few days away now, will her new skin layers rub up against her caked, black eschar to unroof the mark of her traumatic past”.
… and the earth shook, the curtain veil then tearing in two. His perfect healing launching one final swing against our sordid state… His completeness squarely facing off against the one who claimed earthly real estate to our every pains, sins and stains… and suddenly, Christ’s perfect process of deeply born pain, re-leased, presented us with new life… as His heavenly pieces touched our blackened earthly, eschar frames… and our healing was re-born… re-claiming us each, fresh, redeemed and whole…
See my inner-human pain & her physical trauma – Christ’s story,
left us with the parallel patterns of healing that go below our skin deep.
For wounds born of pain, heal – steadily, faithfully – by working through the layers beneath… and sliced to our bottom places, our bodies work their healing … layer by layer … inch by inch… flesh re-forming, tissues untwisting – upward and out – until…
our scabs meet our reclaimed scars and our final battle en guards.
And the beauty of today’s healing lesson, is found in the knowledge of peering at my patient’s steadily, near-ready scar… her scar, having been built new in its strength and reclaimed in its original function
– from its inwardly places to its out…
it, it then becoming rightfully positioned to square off at its communicating captor …
it, the scar, the new skin scar, meeting its stuffy old scab… and pregnant with healing…
it, the scar, her scar, lifts its one final swing at its black scab eschar …
and suddenly, the scar claims its healing as won, finished, final…
WHOLE
while the perturbing scab captor, overpowered by the strength of the scar laying beneath… falls off completely, unattached & gone, pain inflicting no more.
For the past three months, I’ve felt that friction. Where viable, scar-grown tissue presses against the captive hold of traumatic scabs. Where healing pain fights to claim for the fullness of air. And where deep tissue wounds wring themselves ready to re-surface & re-lease.
And the spirit of God then spoke to me, in the middle of her patient exam that same day,
(And in one final breath he exclaimed).
“Richelle, your healing near complete, let it release”.
(Father forgive them).
“Your deep tissue scar has overcome your scabbing eschar”.
(And the veil tore in two).
For this is the miraculous work of God.
