Dear Daughters,

One day last summer, Dad came home from kayaking around the lake, excited about what he’d found on an old wounded oak tree.  So I went back with him, interested to know what he had discovered on our otherwise quiet and not-so-exciting lake.

When we got to the tree, I saw the most gorgeous and amazing growths on the side of the tree.  From a distance they looked like beautiful yellow flowers, but going closer we could tell they were some kind of curious looking fungus.

We took some pictures, and after learning about these Chicken of the Woods mushrooms, Dad cut some off the tree and cooked them up.  He said they were quite the tasty gourmet treat. 

I, however, was more interested in why they were growing on a tree than in eating them.  I love mushrooms and will readily buy many different varieties from farm markets, but am always a little sketchy about mushrooms in the wild.

Anyway, as I was learning about these Chicken of the Woods, I found that they typically grow on oak trees, and usually on those having a wound.  Because I admire my Creator so much, I got thinking about the significance of these colorful intriguing mushrooms being attached on an injured tree.

Perhaps a storm caused a large branch to be broken off, leaving the tree to become vulnerable to the invading fungus.  Whatever the reason, I got pondering the parallels to humans who are wounded, maybe having a limb torn off in the wind and the branches of their heart scattered along the beach.

Let’s face it, all of us have been wounded.  Whether it is a wound caused by a person, an illness or accident, it hurts and leaves a scar.  But the greatest wounding comes from words, or lack of words we crave from people closest to us, which leave painful scarring on our hearts.  Someone may have been behind-the-scenes hurtful toward you, it may have been misunderstood, or there may have been outright belligerent harm done.

Whatever the case, we all have wounds.  The wounds may not show on the outside of our physical bodies, yet they are still very real and extremely painful.  Your wounds may come from words said to you as a child, and even though they were lies, they stick in your mind clamoring to be believed as the truth.  Lies like

You’re going to have to figure out life on your own

You can’t trust anyone

Life is never going to get better

Why try? I’m never good enough

Life is hopeless

Believing there’s no hope that life will ever change is a wound which will cause your heart to stay closed and scarred.  Hopelessness will turn into despair, to bitterness and a temptation to recoil from the world.  But those scars from past pain can be healed, and turned into beauty for others to enjoy.

How? 

By talking about those scars, entrusting others with your pain, acknowledging the hurt people have caused you.  Crying out in anguish to God about the unfairness of life, being honest to Him about your anger, the harm you have endured and thoughts of revenge which are rolling around in your mind.  They don’t have to be proper words or scrubbed-clean clichés, just simple authentic raw emotions.  He’s been there, He’s suffered immensely and desires to walk through your suffering as well.

And then….forgiving, which is some of the hardest work you will ever do.  Your whole being will cry out for justice and revenge against whoever caused you pain, but if you go that route your wound will not ever heal, it will only ooze and fester – growing rancid inside your heart.

Tim Keller tells a story of an amazing man in the Netherlands,

In 2004 the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed by a Muslim radical.  In the aftermath of his death, both churches and mosques in the Netherlands experienced retaliatory attacks, including the bombing of an Islamic school.  The outpouring of violent rage shook the Dutch nation that had prided itself on being a peaceful and open society.  At this incendiary moment, a Dutch Protestant minister, Reverend Kees Sybrandi, did something radical.  Sybrandi was a very conservative traditional Dutchman who lived in a community where poor Middle Eastern immigrants had brought much poverty and crime.  Yet that week, Sybrandi “walked into his neighborhood mosque.  He knocked firmly on the door, and to the shock of the Muslims huddled inside, he announced that he would stand guard outside the mosque every night until…the attacks ceased.  In the days and weeks that followed, the minister called on other churches in the area and they joined him, circling and guarding the mosques throughout the region for more than three months.”

When Sybrandi was asked why he would do such a thing, he simply replied “Jesus commanded me to love my neighbor – my enemy too.”

The act of forgiveness that Sybrandi showed was small but its effect was immense.  His was a public grace of forgiveness, but even my seemingly small insignificant forgiving of just one person will have unknown beautiful results which only time will reveal.

It’s easy to love those who love us, but far more difficult to love our enemies.  Yet that’s the only way healing comes.  I struggle with forgiving and I’m sure you do too.  There are baits of offenses everywhere to be taken every day. 

But through the slow and often arduously painful process of speaking your pain and moving toward forgiveness, beauty will grow on that wound and the beauty will outshine the wound.  How I urge you to be honest, speak your pain and allow God’s love to grow in you as you open your heart to be healed.

Love, Mom