I discovered it one day while washing her hands after playing in the dirt. Daddy noticed too, and we made note to show it to the doctor at our next appointment. A few months went by, and it grew. A wart began to rear it's ugly head right at the base of her sweet, painted nail. It was the kind that grows outward with columns that arrogantly boast their appearance, and she began to shield it.
We tried a few things to discourage it's growth, but grow it did. It often caught on things, so we bought Frozen bandaids, and she felt a little safer with it covered. The bandaid had to be just-so, and she developed little habits and preferences to protect her hurt finger.
Our doctor suggested squeezing lemon juice on it (who woulda thunk??), and that started to work. It began to shrink and come a little loose. She came crying into the kitchen a few times with it bleeding because it had caught and torn as she was playing. She had gotten so used to having a little owie to protect that the ripping and bleeding was almost a good thing- a reminder that it wouldn't always be this way, that healing would come.
We started praying that she would be free of it before her birthday.
As that day drew nearer, I reminded her that it would soon be gone, it would fall off and her little finger would be whole and free again. I saw the hope stir in her eyes. The pain and fear she felt in the ripping stage gave way to hope for change. It shook her loose from thinking that this little owie was part of her life now.
Pain was a reminder that change was possible.
Her birthday came and went with that Frozen Band-Aid still carefully wrapped around that dainty little finger. She didn't mind, it felt normal to her now.
A few days later she was playing outside, and came in, in a bit of a panic. Her eyes were teary, but her mouth was grinning, and her little body shook with the confusion of emotion. She felt a little scared and a little happy and a lot unsure. The owie had fallen off!
In her heart she knew the change was good, but it meant abandoning the familiar, and her emotions told her to be afraid like all the times she had bumped that finger before. But this time was different. This time the bump left her free!
She wanted a Band-Aid anyway for a few more days. Then she began to play doctor with her little sister, and asked me to wrap a pretend bandage on the finger (pictured). I could see she was processing through her play. She was accepting the change, and had moved from fear to adventure.
The healing had moved from the owie to her perception of her reality.
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I've been asking the Lord to unpack the meaning in this for me. This experience with our daughter was real, and I could feel the whole time that there was deep meaning in it. There always is with Him, and with her. I asked the Lord to finish the story for me, and waited for Him. I was waiting for Him to lead me someplace deep inside me, reveal a wound, set me free, and wrap a tidy little bow on this whole deal. I wanted Him to come full circle with me and finish it out. It felt incomplete.
I've been waiting, and He has just been still.
But now it makes sense: This IS the story. This IS the punch line. This IS the state of our lives.
We are in constant discovery that something has been healed!
We are to spend this post-resurrection life in constant discovery of healing (mostly inside!). We are that little girl stumbling into HIS presence with fear and joy and confusion all at once. It is Him that steers us to be excited in our freedom instead of fearful, it is HIM that releases permission to experience full range of motion where we haven't before.
14 Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for you are the one I praise.
Jeremiah 17:14
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