Continuing from post-surgery, post-fire recovery …
7. Recovery/Restoration may be a healing agent for something other than that which you think you are recovering.
Recovery and I have a love-hate relationship right now. Yet while I think the recovery has to do with my neck or home, it really could be something else completely from which God wants me to be in recovery. Recovery isn’t ever complete. We are always “in recovery,” so really the only thing this means is that once I discover I’m in recovery of something I’ve only added one more thing to which I’m in recovery. One might say that they break and knee and it heals and they are no longer in recovery, but my limited medical understanding is that even if you are well, the signs of the recovery are still on x-rays. It’s still there.
Remember the disciples? They seemed to remain in recovery, too. Thomas and his “doubt,” Peter & his “denial,” Paul & his “cross.” They weren’t all of a sudden healed from their doubt, fear, or ailment. And when Jesus confronted them, he often was not dealing directly with those issues. It was Thomas the skeptic to whom Jesus emphasized his being the way, Truth and life and later had him touch the piercings in his body. Both confronted his doubt. Jesus confronted Peter’s commitment to Jesus at the final campfire, but also gave him an opportunity to demonstrate his recovery in Acts 2. Paul was blinded when first confronted by the Lord. That “thorn in the flesh” seemed to remain as evidenced by 2 Corinthians 9 & Galatians when he writes “with his own hand.” Sight wasn’t his strength, it would seem. Yet Paul says what all experienced: it was in their weakness that God showed his strength and thereby put them in the best position.
All this being said, discovering new ways in which we are in recovery is not a bad thing. It’s part of sanctification; the pruning and growing in which God invites us. I may not know from what I am recovering, but I’ve learned that even if I think my recovery is from one thing, it may actually be something altogether different.