On the Lip....

Have you ever noticed that the lip is a very sensitive place? Yesterday I started what I thought was a cold sore on my lip, man it hurts! I started to apply some medicine and went to bed. So this morning...the pain has increased, not the size just the pain. Looking in the mirror...it really is small. Actually, I don't think it is a cold sore after all, just a zit. Small, yet it feels like the size of a baseball...right on the lip! Goes to show you how big things come in small packages and they are not always "good" things!

So often the pain in our hearts can be the same way, something or someone hurts us and it's really not that big of a thing, but the pain? Feels like it's been inflicted by a baseball bat! Have you taken "one on the lip" this week? Is there a pain that shouldn't be "that bad" but it is? A pain when you look in the "mirror" it seems small or even different yet, you can't get past the pain? Do I have a point? Yes, I do.

I think it is very important to acknowledge our pain for what it is and acknowledge that some places in our lives are more sensitive than others. I also think it is so important not to diminish the fact that if something seems so small yet hurts so badly...that the Lord may have allowed a sensitive place to be "wounded" so that it may heal.

I have been in Hebrews 12 for quite some time, it is a great passage! I can get really messed up on what the "discipline" of the Lord looks like- at the root of one of the Greek words used here it means- "the sum total of child-rearing" and we learn that discipline-training heals. Catch that...the Lord trains/grows us up/disciplines to heal.

Hebrews 12:11-13 "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet those who have been trained by it, afterwards it (discipline/training up) yields peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, BUT rather be healed."

Have you taken one the the lip and it really hurts? Know that the Lord is doing good things...acknowledge the pain and rest in Him. He is working. He is growing you up. I'm almost 40 and still getting zits! They are painful, especially on the lip! We will never be "fully-grown" until we see Him face to face. Don't get so weary that you give up...know that the pain heals.