Wounded

            This week a friend wounded me.

            She surprised me. Although she’s done it before, still, I was taken aback.

            It had been a terrible day or three, and the phone rang late. How was I? I’d been crying. Things weren’t so good, and she could tell. So the call went on and on as I spilled out the problems, which didn’t have much to do with me, of course. How could they? I’m a relatively decent person.  Every once in a while I scan for imperfections, but I couldn’t find very many that night. In fact, from my perspective, I was innocent and on the suffering end. Self-pity was all over the place.

            She was kind, sympathetic, and encouraging. I stopped grabbing tissues. The call ended, and I got about four hours of sleep before the alarm buzzed.

            Then the phone rang the next evening. She was kind and gentle again. But now she wanted to talk, maybe get together. It wouldn’t work for me, so we continued to converse over the phone. She had ideas, ways to solve some of my problems, did I want to know? Does the sun rise every morning? Yes! I wanted to know. How do I change someone else?

            It wasn’t about that at all. It was about what I could do. Again? Really? Me? Again? But I listened. Sometimes people who are hurting and at the end of their ropes will actually listen. That I evening I did. She had some good ideas.

            Then she did it. Neat, quick. Just like a surgeon goes in to get a job done.

            The pain I was experiencing superseded the pain of her scalpel. By the time the incision was made I was already feeling the relief. Her scalpel was true to the mark. Her words were the instrument of truth piercing my life.

            She was right. I knew she was. I knew she addressed something in my life that I disliked, yet justified and excused. So true were her words that I couldn’t argue. I even admitted their veracity.

            They were faithful words. Their rebuke has humbled me this week but also made me face who I am so I can become someone else. Isn’t that what surgery is about? This is what you have, and if you undergo an operation, you can become better, whole, improved. That is the hope. Spiritually we have the same opportunity. This week God gave me one. This is what you have been doing. Would you like to live in a new way? Then face yourself and come to the surgeon.

            So this week I’ve been recovering from surgery extended by God through one of his faithful servants.  I’m feeling much better, much more alive, as if something lurking in my life has been exposed and challenged. I’m sure it won’t leave without a fight, but God is in the healing and restoration business. So I don’t think I’ll be the same; I will be better.

            Good friends are hard to find. Surgeon friends are more rare. That’s why I think Proverbs 27:6 states:  Faithful are the wounds of a friend. It takes courage and timing to wound faithfully. This week I was blessed with that experience.

            Do you have anyone in your life who will wound you faithfully?