Little Big Wounds

I have a tiny pin-prick of a sore on my littlest toe. It’s been there for a couple of days, and I wouldn’t have even noticed it by looking at it if it didn’t hurt like the dickens. It’s that itty-bitty. However, it manages to catch on my socks, the bed sheets, my slippers -- in essence everything that it comes into contact with. Just a tiny bit of friction that really smarts.

I’m reading a book right now by Beth Moore called So Long Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us. I wanted to read the book because I thought it might be a good one for my summer book club. I didn’t really think I needed it. I was wrong. The book is showing me that some of the little wounds I’ve received in my life are still sore. As I have read this book, words and moments that I haven’t thought about for years have come flooding back. Wounds have been reopened, and wounds can only be reopened if they’ve never completely healed. Most of these wounds were small. Words from people, for the most part, that I don’t even know now or ones I’m not close to. Events that I’m surprised I even remember at all because they seem so itty-bitty and insignificant. But when my heart rubs up against these memories, it smarts. I become that young girl again that felt . . . rejected. Moments when I felt I wasn’t pretty enough, talented enough, popular enough or just plain good enough. And I realize that I’ve spent much of my life, not even realizing it, trying to avoid ever feeling that way again. I’ve just been sticking bandaids on, over and over again, wounds that keep resurfacing.

Today, I’m praying for God to open more wounds, because I want total healing. I want the Great Physician to clean me out and stitch me up, so that I can really live and give, instead of avoiding and covering. I want these little big wounds to finally stop smarting and start helping.

So long insecurity.

Little Big Wounds