How Great is His Love

The Lord your God is in your midst... He will create calm with His love. (Zephaniah 3:17)

In August 1979 I was admitted to hospital for what should have been a routine operation. Immediately after the operation, complications set in, some of which resulted in agonising pain. I had never known pain to that degree before, and thankfully never since. It was almost unbearable. On top of this, there was a danger I was developing  pneumonia. The doctors had a plan to help prevent this it. It was called ‘physiotherapy’!! Well, how bad could that be? VERY BAD, I can assure you. 

To add to my already excruciating pain, the physiotherapist, came to my bedside on a regular basis and inflicted more pain on top of what I was already experiencing. I dreaded her entrance. Every time she approached me, I wished her anywhere else in the world except at my bedside. I didn’t want her to pound my back. I certainly didn’t want to ‘cough’. I understand now that she wanted me to get well. She had my best interests at heart. The pain would bring healing. I just needed to trust her.

In Teen Challenge, men come to us who not only want freedom from addiction, but they want healing from other conditions that have plagued them, sometimes for decades. For some, there is deep seated emotional pain caused by traumatic childhood experiences. For others, there have been years of anxiety, stress and unhappiness caused by a multitude of circumstances.

Some of the healing can take place quite quickly and painlessly, but there are times where the healing involves a process which seems as painful as the condition itself. The men want healed, but they don’t like facing the pain that is sometimes necessary to bring healing.

​It’s at times like this that they have to trust these words;

Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Genesis 18:25)

My physiotherapist didn’t want to hurt me, she wanted to heal me. In all His dealings with us, God wants to do a work in us that will bring healing and bring us closer to Himself. When this is painful, more painful than we think we can bear, we must hold on to that wonderful verse, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. Jeremiah 31:3. Thank God for a love that loves us to this degree. 

Pauline Anderson