Today is the day that I go to the
hospital to sit with my friend while her husband has surgery. It will
be a brutal thing, in my opinion. It will be a shoulder replacement.
Yuck. Chisels on bone, screws and plates, muscles and tendons pulled
this way and that. He will be one sore cookie for a while.
And there will be bandages. Blood and
serum will ooze for a while. Bandages will need to be changed. It
will not be a job for the faint of heart. The wound will be exposed
for all to see. The cut mark, the stitches or staples that hold the
wound together will show where and to what extent the doctors had to
open the area to make the needed changes to make life ultimately less
painful, though now for a little while the pain will be even worse.
So what does this have to do with
fabric? The Lord brought the verses of Psalm 147:3 and Isaiah 61:1 to
mind. He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. To bind
up in those days meant to take strips and pieces of fabric and wrap
them around the area not only to absorb the ooze and keep out the
dirt, but to hold together the open areas. I doubt that there were
stitches then, and surgery was not too safe, but the cloth was needed
for all of these reasons.
Who gets bound up? The outcasts or
exiles who are brokenhearted. These people were sent from their home
in Jerusalem and He is gathering them back to Himself. Their hearts
were broken at being separated from their homeland and their God, so
He brings them back and treats the wounds that were afflicted on
them. He wanted to heal those who He had chastized to correct, or who
had been abused by the enemies that had driven them away.
Isaiah speaks similarly. These people
were coming back after war. They had been taken captive and prisoner,
and bore the wounds of losing the battle. The cities were desolate
and needed to be rebuilt. God was going to fight for them now and
sent the prophet to wrap them in the healing cloth of God's love and
protection. He would clean out the wound and anoint it with soothing
and healing oils, and wrap them to keep those healing oils in and the
filth of the world out. The wounds would be covered so the scars
would not be evident during the healing process, but the work of the
healing was still going on underneath the cloth. The wrap indicated
that the person was wounded, but the ugliness of the scars and extent
of the wounds would not be clearly seen by any but those closest to
them who would tend it...removing the cloth, cleansing
again...possibly causing temporary pain...but again binding it up in
clean cloth so that the healing could continue and infection not set
in and cause more trouble and possible death.
Who do you know that is bound up in the
cloth of healing? Do you belittle the pain they are in and the wounds
that are healing in their lives? Are you close enough that you may be
asked to help change those bandages and participate in the healing of
the hurt like Isaiah was? Can you stomach seeing the true pain that
is hiding underneath the cloths that are covering the raw and ugly
realities of the battles some people have to fight in their lives?
The White Cross is an organization that
still rolls bandages from 2”, 3”, and 4” strips of cotton and
flannel used fabric for use in healing in 3rd world
nations. Visit their website and click on the handbook for their
guidelines for what they need and how to package it, and where to
send it. Or ask at your local churches if they know of other
organizations that do these things. Bind up the brokenhearted with
your scraps of material sent in the love of our Lord.
This was initially written Jan 15, and the surgery went better than expected with him actually having little to no pain afterwards. He is still healing, but is doing well, praise God!
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