In the verse Downs quotes at the start of today’s devotional (Matthew 9:12) Jesus is making an analogy to defend why he is hanging out with sinners: as doctors go to sick people rather than healthy ones who don’t need their services, so the saviour is necessarily going to hang out with those who need saving. Jesus is for the sick and the broken and the lost, but not just to leave us that way, he’s with us to reconcile us with our father in heaven and restore to us the identity we didn’t know we had. As Downs says, sometimes the process of healing or recovering includes some pain too.

I’m sure we all have anecdotes from our own lives or our friends, where surgery or physical therapy or medication caused pain but we knew the pain would pass while healing would remain. We do our exercises to regain complete mobility, even through the pain. We take the chemo meds even with the side effects. We spend time in pain and with reduced mobility while our body heals from surgery. We endure because we know the pain is temporary and we’ll be better off by the end of it.

When I invite Jesus to heal the broken parts of me, it can leave me with a decision to make: do I let him work, knowing I’ll have to endure some pain in the process, or do I quit? I need to be brave to look at the ugly parts of me. I need to be brave to deal with the parts of my story that I’d rather not admit to. Seven years ago Jesus brought to my attention an area of my life where I could be less selfish and more loving. I didn’t like what he showed me. I didn’t like it so much that I decided I wanted to work to change. Change didn’t happen overnight and knowing I needed to change was embarrassing to admit. I had some pretty ingrained habits and ways of behaving. When I’ve spoken to people about my revelations and choices that autumn in 2012, it’s often caused tension rather than encouragement. Even friends could get defensive as if me changing threatened them in some way. Surrender and change is not for the faint hearted.

I do thank God for showing me. I am grateful he loved me enough to lead me though change. I had to trust God knew best for me and had a good reason to be doing something in me that hurt to be revealed. I had to trust that his purposes in my life were good, rather than point my finger at other women God might like to talk to as well. I had to trust the process and trust the process-maker—and keep trusting as long as it took. I’m very grateful for the changes I see in myself, but it wasn’t without pain. Bits of me had to die in order that Christ living in me could be seen all the more clearly. If you listen hard, you might hear me sigh now.

God loves us. God is trustworthy. Let’s come to our healer. Let him do the work in us, whatever the pain, knowing his purposes are perfect.