Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Prov 16:24. NIV

During grade school, about the 4^th grade, all we children were out for recess.  We were running and playing and just letting off a lot of steam.  After being cooped up in the class room for a couple of hours we needed to let off some steam.  As children will sometimes be we were as care free as we could possibly be.  We were playing tag, baseball, kickball, swinging on the swing and sliding on the slides and back and forth on the teeter totter. All of a sudden there was tragedy.  One of the boys fell down in the gravel and scuffed his knee and it began to bleed.  The boy was screaming because of the pain and the sight of blood.

The nurse was called and she came with her lunch box first aid kit and knelt down by the boy who was crying very loudly and had both hands covering the wound on his knee.  Blood came through his fingers and it looked like it was pretty bad.  The nurse tried to get the boy to let loose of his knee so she could put some healing ointment disinfectant and a bandage on it.  But, he refused instead he held it as tight as he could screaming that it was too painful for her to touch it. 

Finally, the teacher took hold of the boy and pulled his hands away so first aid could be performed.  What a sight.  I don’t think that I will ever forget how he stopped crying when the nurse put the ointment on the wound and it soothed the hurt and made it feel much better.

I wonder if that is the picture of us.  How many times have we been hurt and we hold on to the hurt instead of letting our Heavenly Father put on the healing ointment that will make it feel better.  Like all hurts, it takes time to heal, but there is one who can make the pain go away if we will just let go!

I’ve known people who held on to their hurts for many years, never giving God the opportunity to heal.  They become “deformed” in their spiritual lives because they refused to let God make them stronger and more mature.

If I were sitting in front of you, looking you squire in the eye, and I asked you what hurt are you holding, what would you reveal to me?  Would it be that someone had hurt you with an untruth?  Would it be that someone hurt your feelings a long time ago?  Would it be trouble between you and a family member?

Jesus hurt more that anyone of us ever will.  He did it just for you and for me.  But on the cross He let it go.  He said, “Father, forgive them they know not what they do!” 

Will you let go today?  God only wants to heal and make you stronger, but, He needs your co-operation!  Just let go.

Just a thought