Past pain.

I woke up with piercing pain in my right thumb. It’s not a new pain and has visited often the past couple of years, making it difficult to do nearly everything from opening toothpaste tubes to writing.

I have received prayer for it and for a time it was healed. I’ll go for weeks not thinking about it but then out of nowhere it begins to hurt again.

I retrace my steps over the previous days. Did I eat too much sugar? Have my phone in my right hand for too long? Perhaps I have a gluten intolerance that is causing inflammation?

I went through all these motions this morning and I even googled arthritis.

Googling, of course, is never a good option and I shut that down quickly. I reached out to a couple of friends for prayer and reminded myself that I am strong and pain is mostly a mental game. If I do things a certain way without bending my thumb it doesn’t hurt, so I rely on my other 9 digits.

Something made me remember, the divine interruption of the Lord I suppose, that this was the finger that I severed as a child, crashing my bike on a steep hill.

Gosh, is that it? Is this an old injury coming back to haunt me?

God told me, “I want to heal you of your past wounds.”

This is a message for me, but I also believe it’s for others dealing with emotional scars. Past wounds can look healed, but are often underlying triggers for pain, hurt and anger.

We think back and wonder if it’s because we didn’t get enough sleep, watched the scary movie, or should have taken a bubble bath instead of mowing the lawn. We feel guilt because we thought we had finally overcome the negativity that was holding us back.

Even when we look healed on the outside, we can be bleeding on the inside.

God’s desire is for us to be free of all pain and to be healed of all wounds. In fact, he already died on the cross for that freedom.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 ESV

The enemy wants to hold us in a place where we think we are OK, but we just can’t place our finger on the rage that wells up, the sadness that grips, or the worry that gnaws. That is NOT the goodness that our God has promised us and it’s time we rise up and take back territory that the enemy thinks he has “claimed”. Good news, the enemy was ALREADY defeated when Jesus died on that cross.

We wait patiently for the day that we get to live in the new heaven and new earth that God has promised us, a place where there will be no more sadness, suffering or pain. But we’re not there yet and now must contend and fight for our freedom and joy.

He canceled out every legal violation we had on our record and the old arrest warrant that stood to indict us. He erased it all—our sins, our stained soul—he deleted it all and they cannot be retrieved! Everything we once were in Adam has been placed onto his cross and nailed permanently there as a public display of cancellation.

Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his! Colossians 2:14-15 TPT

There is abundant freedom that comes from stepping into the identity that God gives us. The powers of darkness can no longer accuse us there, the grips of evil can no longer hold us down. Life with Christ is evermore stepping into the power and authority that he gave us when he died. There is still evil in the world and bad things are still prevalent, but God in His abundant mercy has made a way for us to move through and around the powers of darkness by recognizing that Christ bore it all!