First of all I need to apologise for falling behind in writing the Thought for the Week. Being over-busy and then a week’s illness are to blame, but hopefully things are sorted now!

For the past few weeks I have been running my own Fit For Life Forever group again, a luxury I don’t often have because of travelling commitments.  How precious it is to be once again able to draw alongside a small group of committed people who have recognised that their eating issues have very little to do with food and everything to do with what is going on in their lives at a deeper level. It is exciting to see God so obviously at work, touching and healing lives, setting them free from the chains of unresolved hurt. Over the years food had been used for self-medication to ease the pain and to bury those things which seemed too painful to face up to, but God has been gently revealing the truth and pouring in His healing balm bringing wholeness and peace. Now the seeds of a new, healthy relationship with food can begin to take root, without the ‘birds of the air’ snatching them away before they have time to get established.

I am reminded again, especially over the Easter period, of how Jesus identified with our pain when He went to the Cross.  In Isaiah 53:3-5 we read:

 “He was despised and forsaken (rejected) of man.  A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  And like one from whom men hid their face, He was despised and we did not esteem Him.  Surely our griefs (sickness) He Himself bore.  And our sorrows, He carried.  Yet, we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.  But He was pierced (wounded) through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities.  The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging (stripes) we are healed.”

What a powerful listing we have here of words associated with both inner and outer pain. Jesus, when He went to the Cross on our behalf, experienced it all.  There isn’t a human emotion that you and I have endured that Jesus isn’t familiar with and because He has stood in our shoes He is amply qualified to come to our aid.

I remember, as I write, an occasion when my son, as an infant, came to me nursing his throbbing finger which had a splinter.  He wanted me to remove the cause of the pain, which I was well-able to do, and yet he drew back from letting me near to do the job because he feared it would cause even more pain. We can be like that with God.  We take our pains to Him and ask Him to remove them, but when He draws close to remove the thorns which have entered our souls, we wince and want to defer hoping that the pain will go away on its own without intervention.  But it never does, it just gets worse – right?  And so I would say to you as we so often say to our children, “Be brave.” Allow God to do His work; allow Him to come close; allow Him to drench you in His love.  He is the healer of broken hearts.  Let Him heal yours.