Last week I went on a business trip with my husband. We attended training in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte was where I lived from the age of six to eleven. It was a place that had always brought back painful memories whenever I thought of it, the place where all the abuse of my childhood took place, and I hadn't been back there in decades.
The Lord truly is the Master Healer, and He cleansed my heart of hurt, anger and fear long ago. Nevertheless, I know those scars will never completely fade in this life. There was still a residual tenderness whenever I thought of Charlotte. So, before this trip, I determined that I needed to revisit a few places from my childhood, and hopefully by doing this, the thought of the City would no longer taunt me.
Fortunately, the old house where the abuse started had burned down long ago. The movie theater where my mother would send my brother and I on Saturdays to watch 35-cents double features (Saturdays were the days her beatings by my stepfather were the worst) also burned to the ground and is now replaced by condos.
When we approached Grier Town, the housing project where we spent many years, I could feel myself growing a little tense. It looked almost the same, only smaller. My perspective as a child had been so different. My husband became concerned and asked me if I was okay as we passed by the apartment I once lived in. I told him I was.
The last place we went to was the home my stepfather had helped to build in the Firestone/Garden Park area. When we lived there, I was ten, and it was from there that we finally escaped with the help of my aunt and uncle who drove down from Asheville. It was a new subdivision when we lived there. Now it is old and looks completely different.
As we drove away from these places, I heaved a deep sigh of relief and felt the closure that had been sorely needed. I also found myself wondering about the people who now lived in these places, wondering if any of them sensed the crimes committed so long ago within the walls of their dwellings, and knowing that though those walls can't talk, the things they witnessed were recorded, and the Lord witnessed them as well.
It was an amazing trip for me in so many ways. It's as if my spirit said to my brain, "It's okay to let it go now. You've come and you've seen, and now it's done."
I've discovered from this trip that the Lord's healing comes in many ways - sometimes it comes all at once, and sometimes in layers. But no matter how it comes, it does come, as long as we open up and let the Master Healer in to do His work.
And His work is the best work. I know with absolute certainty that we can do nothing on our own, but with Christ, we can do all things, even heal from things that many consider impossible.
And what doesn't heal in this life will be in the next. This is His promise to us, and He NEVER breaks a promise:-)
