Splinters

 "Come unto Me......." Matthew 11:28

I think a passing rite of childhood is getting splinters in our fingers or hands. They hurt. So much so that we ran to our mother with the pain. We wanted help, and she wanted to give it. However, the remedy almost always involved pain. In my case, a pair of "tweezers," where she would lay hold of the splinter and pull it out. That hurt too, and I didn't like it. I always hoped there would be another way. There never was. I "ached," literally to have relief, but I feared the recipe for it. Mom knew best. She knew to leave it there would cause a festering, leading to infection. That small splinter could be deadly. They still are.

Life in this fallen world has a way of causing many "splinters," some of them large and deadly, to impale us along our journey. Physical ones for sure, but even more deadly, emotional and spiritual ones. They can and do happen at any age, but instead of running to Him with them, we fear what might, indeed, be His remedy. So we hold back. We try many kinds of means of self-medicating them in an effort to remove them, or just live as best we can with them. We fear the pain that likely will be involved in bringing them to Him. He will for certain remove them, but it is also certain that His doing will hurt. Sometimes, many times, a great deal. Healing is rarely easy.

Sarah Hagerty says that most of us have years worth of splinters that we've never brought to Him. We fear the various "tweezers" that He might use to remove them. The splinter hurt going in and it will hurt, even resist being pulled out. Our facing the many types of splinters we've gathered in this life can be just as, even more painful than the event that brought it about. So we hold on to them, and instead of the spinter being removed and the cut left being cleansed and made whole, they fester in our mind, heart, and spirit. They become infected, and the infection spreads throughout our being. And all the while, the ache and longing for healing and relief remains and grows along with the infection. We can feel it a hopeless state, but there is always hope with Jesus.

In those childhood memories, I remember one of those splinter times, on this occasion, with my grandmother. I remember the pain, just as I remember her gently taking my hand, speaking soothingly as shed did so, and with her tweezers, pulling the splinter out. It did hurt, but somehow, her soothing words eased the pain a great deal. In the same way, the Lord Jesus stands before us and call us to Himself. Our splinters hurt, but if we will come, His grace, like my grandmother's soothing words, will comfort us and saturate us as He as gently as He can, removes the splinters that have caused us so much harm. The splinters are gone and His healing and wholeness come. Whatever pain may be involved in the coming is far outweighed by what is gained by it. We gain not only His healing. We gain Him.

As I said, we all accumulate splinters in this life. What have you done with yours? What will you do with them right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O