INJURY TIME

Hello there. 

How are you doing today? I hope you're doing fine and I pray that you continue to stay in God and walk with Him through this year. 

Welcome to today's gist. 

When I was younger, I was racing my sister down our street one day and I nicked my right big toe on a wayward piece of stone. I didn't bother about the injury because it seemed so little and inconsequential. Then one evening, I was walking into my house without light and I stubbed that same toe at the edge of a step. The wound immediately became significantly bigger, the skin covering the area peeled and only a little portion still stuck to my toe prevented it from completely falling off. 

Now when I was growing up, the first treatment administered to an injury is to 'press' it with hot water and if you've ever experienced that treatment, you can bear testimony to how painful that treatment can be, normally I go just dey shout like mad person. My mother will now go the extra mile to apply antiseptic, and some other medication that I honestly cannot remember their names, to the wound. Suffice to say, having an injury was one of my worst nightmares, more because of the treatment than the pain of the actual injury.  

Of course, as I'm sure you must have already guessed, i decided not to say anything about the wound to prevent myself from suffering the pain of treatment. This decision was further helped by the fact that my mum had travelled at the time. A few days later, after my mum came back from her journey, I fell asleep in the living room while watching a movie. 

One minute I was sleeping, the next minute a very hot slap was returning me very swiftly to consciousness; my mum had entered the living room and had been treated to the sight of my very sore injury, this is what I assume seeing as I was asleep at the time. If dem don slap you from sleep before, e get the way the slap dey skip all the stages of booting transfer you to painful consciousness; you no go even know which part of your body dey pain you, you go just dey twist the body to use your hand massage everywhere because you never too too sure where the pain dey come from. And while I was doing that, my mum told my sister to heat water for her, na then I come begin dey understand wetin don sup.

When my mother cut the little skin holding the peeled skin to my body, and the entire area became open, she discovered that a strong coat of sand has covered the entire surface of the wound! E shock me too! When the water was ready, my mum began to painstakingly, emphasis on the word 'pain', clean the sand from my wound before she began to introduce the water to the wound and eventually dressed it up. To call that experience painful really is putting it mildly but it'll suffice. 

And as my mum treated the wound, she kept telling me the danger of what I had done and how I had exposed the wound to the risk of infection which, she said with completely seriousness, could lead to amputation, "you want make dem cut this your leg (not toe oo, leg) ba? You no want get two legs again abi?" The kind fear of God wey catch me ba! I kept imagining myself growing up with only one leg, wondering if I'd have to be hopping on one leg from one place to another. Well to the glory of God, and thanks to my mother's careful ministrations, the wound healed really nicely but left a scar though (as I wrote this, I looked at my toe to examine the scar, it's gotten smaller over the years). 

Yesterday I was thinking about this incident and something stood out for me: in a bid to prevent the pain of the treatment process which would eventually bring about healing, I was willing to 'endure' the pain of the injury and open myself up to the risk of further damage. Now it's very easy to say "Oh! The foolishness of a child" and laugh about it but wait a quick minute, isn't that our typical behavior with God. 

We fall into a problem or temptation, or we come to the realization of certain weaknesses that we have, and instead of us to come to God and ask Him for healing and deliverance, we want to 'skip' the pain and vulnerability that we must experience in healing. So we decide that it would be better to walk about broken, crushed –in spirit and in body, denying ourselves the opportunity for salvation and healing, perpetuating our malady and giving the devil greater access to cause trouble and destruction in our lives. In a misguided bid to prevent pain, we put ourselves in even greater danger: we become so busy carrying heavy load because we have somehow deceived ourselves into believing that this load is better because it's a personal load, concealable though insurmountable –at least by own strength. And the result? We find ourselves falling deeper into the pit we've found ourselves, floundering in our attempts to pull ourselves out of the quicksand we've entered. 

And all the while, Jesus is standing there, extending His hands to you, willing you to take hold and enter into the healing and rest He has planned for you, if you would only just take His hand. He is willing to save and deliver you, all you need to do is to take hold of His hand and let Him bring you out of the quagmire you're in. 

Is it that straightforward? Yes. Will it be easy? No. Wil it become uncomfortable? Definitely! Will it hurt? Of course! But will healing come? Yes! And will it be worth it in the end? Definitely! So you see, to get to that point of healing, we must be willing to go through the heat and everything that the healing process entails. 

Because our journeys are different, as are our challenges, I cannot predict all that you'd have to go through to come out at the other side. All I can do is encourage you that on the days when the going becomes tough and incredibly difficult, please remember that the other end of this process is all the healing and deliverance you need so keep at it, and I pray that God will continue to give you the grace to go through the treatment process. 

See you next week.

Love,

Achenyo.