Now imagine the display case is brutally bumped. The jolt jars the apple from its position atop of all the other apples sending it tumbling aimlessly towards the edge of the stand, then over the edge where this precious fruit hits the floor with a loud “thud”. Now imagine the produce manager instinctively looks around to make sure no one saw, quickly positions the apple back on top of the fruit stand and then walks away to continue his day.
The apple has completely absorbed the blow. No harm, no foul. Everybody’s happy, life goes on; right?
Wrong. Because, while things appear as perfect as they once were on the surface, beneath the thin outer shell of this apple is a record of an incident that went unreported. An unlucky patron will purchase this apple based solely on its outer appearance and soon find that this apple has a deep, dark secret; this apple was hit by a cold, hard floor and is terribly flawed. It carries the worst of all types of wounds; it bares an internal scar which will mark the spot of the injury forever. The person who blindly buys this apple will discover it is damaged; blemished; defective; bruised and this person will no doubt be disappointed.
So you ask, “Gerard, why in the world are we talking about a bruised apple?” Well, any one familiar with human psychology recognized the analogy by the 3rd sentence.
Whenever you experience a traumatic incident which inflicts emotional pain, whether it happens while you are a young child, a teen, an adult or even in old age, your psychological mind has a record of the event. On the surface you appear to be unaffected by whatever happened. But underneath your psychological “skin” is a bruise that swells and throbs begging for your attention.
Now with fruit, the bruise will never go away. In the case of your psychological mind, however, your psyche has the ability to place a sort of “false skin” over the incident to shield you from the emotional pain of the impact at the site of the wound. You are blocked from the pain and shielded from further injury in that place. This “false skin” is the process of removing the incident from your recollection. You’re able to carry-on for years, even decades as if the event never took place because you are protected from the memory of the pain by this “covering”. Think of it as an emotional “scab”, if you will.
The trouble comes when your consciousness begins to detect the imminent pain of the concealed emotional bruise. This is when your “covering” fails allowing you to “remember” (not as in a full recollection, just a conscious realization of hidden pain). When this happens, it’s just like ripping off a scab too early; the wound begins to bleed all over again. Then you must deal with a larger portion of the painful occurrence than you are ready to realize.
The moment an emotional injury finds its way into your consciousness, you might do innocent little things to occupy your mind. Things such as read a book, do a word puzzle, do house work, play video games, watch soaps, watch sports, or perhaps write a 500 word narrative on the human psyche (this one is over 1,000). But, when those things don’t suffice, people have been known to do things that are drastic and much more harmful in an attempt to dispose of pain that has been inadvertently unearthed. Damaging things include stuffing your face with saturated fats, drinking alcohol, smoking weed, snorting cocaine, or having unprotected sex with strangers.
If you recognize any combination of the behaviors above to be your life, here’s what I want to say to you. You may not know this, but… Jesus was bruised. That’s right. Jesus was bruised. He was bruised in every place that we are bruised today as part of his fellowship with us. The bible says he was, “wounded for our transgressions” and “bruised for our iniquities” Isaiah 53:5. This passage goes on to say the “chastisement” or our punishment “of our peace was upon him”; meaning, in order to “know” us and give us peace, he had to go through the hell that awaited us.
Jesus, who was without sin, endured wounds and bruises for our sake. The bible says Jesus was despised and rejected. He experienced sorrow and became acquainted with grief. He he was whipped and carried stripes of open wounds on his back for the load of troubles that bruise our backs. He was made to wear a crown of thorns on his head which no doubt streamed blood into his face for the crown of emotional torment that we wear. They drove iron nails the size of railroad spikes through both of his feet for the punishment of the sinful places that our feet take us. And they pounded these iron stacks through both of his hands inbetween the ulna and radius bones, just below the wrests (the palm of the hands would never have supported the weight), for the iniquity that our hands are drenched in today.
But this passage in Isaiah goes on to say that “WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED!" meaning with the abuise that Jesus endured; by the blood that Jesus shed, He removed the requirement for us to suffer any longer due to our iniquity. This means you CAN find healing for your situation. You CAN find peace from physical and emotional bruise!
The truth is, none of us are perfect, we are all terribly flawed. We’re busied, disfigured, blemished, defective, we are all damaged goods. But because Jesus endured the pain of our bruises and even endured death; we have a new hope. We are broken vessels but God now has a new treasure invested in us. 2 Corinthians 4:7-9 says, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” We can face tomorrow because God has placed within us his power, his excellency. Our worth is not of ourselves, but it is “of” Him. We are broken vessels, but in Him we can be made strong. We are troubled on every side, but we do not have to have to be distressed. We are perplexed by our condition, but we do not have to find ourselves in despair. We’re persecuted everyday but God promised we will never be forsaken. We’re cast down, but the treasure that God placed with in us will never allow us to be destroyed.
So trust God. And by “trust God” I mean trust God’s plan for your life. God knows what your bruises are and He is the only one who can resolve the bruises. He knows what happened and even when it happened because He was there. Yes, He did allow it; however, what differentiates our God from the neglectful produce manger in my story is that God cares. He’s never once turned a blind eye to the cries of his children. You’ve got to trust that God has a process in place to rescue you from the corrupting, consuming, internal bruises that are rotting your life from the inside out. You’ve got to trust that you are in the hands of a master; in fact, you’re in the hand of THE master which means things WILL NOT remain the way they have been.
You can’t fix yourself. And you can’t keep covering the pain with some temporary emotional fix or vice. You can only trust God to orchestrate your repair and bring to your attention the help that you will need to finally resolve the hurt and bring you peace once and for all.
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