The Cracks Are Forming

I’ve struggled with cracked heels for my entire adult life. 

I remember my first trip to Africa when a colleague commented on how very painful my feet looked.  He wasn’t wrong.  My heels are a constant source of pain in my life.  A small pain, but nonetheless real.

Walking in bare feet or sandals makes them crack, opening up deep crevices.  They become incredibly painful and sometimes no amount of covering them up and slathering them in cream makes much difference.  Add a bit of heat, a bit of exposure, a bit of neglect and those weakened areas in my foot open up again and again.

With every heel strike in my stride, I feel the weak points.   They make me change how I walk. Right now, the cracks are forming again and the inner tenderness of my foot is being re-exposed.

This seems to be true also in my life.

There are weak points in me, areas of sensitivity that if I am not guarding and nourishing them, protecting and holding them out over and over to Jesus, will cause me to limp afresh.

For example, when I was a child, I found a lot of comfort and community with friends. Having few extended family members close by, friends were as family to me.  I think that’s why I always found any kind of abandonment, rejection, or exclusion to be so painful.

Fast forward to adulthood and it appears that those weaknesses remain.  When friends don’t want to be together because they are busy, when friends land in different comfortability zones with COVID, when they are simply choosing to be present with family, I can start to feel rejected.  I am uniquely sensitive in this area. 

The truth is, my friends were never meant to be enough for me.  This pain, these cracks, expose a deeper vulnerability.  The need to be fully known, accepted, and loved.

I need the unending, uninterrupted, unrelenting healing of Christ’s pursuing love for me - Always.  He is the healing balm to bind the cracks.  His is the true friendship my heart is forever seeking.

What area of weakness in your life needs the balm of Christ’s love?  Maybe you are bringing that area of brokenness to places, things, or people that will never heal them.