James 5:16 “…Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

While praying this morning for someone that has been wounded deeply by the church, family and various other people in his life, the Lord began to speak to me about healing of the soul. He began to show me that we have two paths we can take as it pertains to dealing with emotional pain. As a counselor, I was eager to sit at the feet of The Counselor, The Holy Spirit and learn, so this is what He said.

When we conceal the hurt, the wounds of our souls, we hinder our healing. Pain left in the dark will never be healed, rather it will become infected and over time will be effect the body. But when we reveal the hurt, the wounds of our soul, we will be healed. Hurt revealed is pain healed. As long as we allow the pain to stay in the dark, it can not be healed, but when we bring it out into the light, when we allow the Lord to touch it with His word, His presence, His power, that is where healing comes from. But pain concealed cannot be healed, because we are withholding it from the One who has the power to heal it.

Pastor Frank King, the Sr. Pastor of Refreshing Waters Worship Center in Kansas City, MO said on Wednesday at our weekly bible study, that we are a part of a wounded generation. That thought has been on my mind all week, so as I was praying for someone else, this wounded generation idea came back to me and then this revelation came.

What we see in our homes, our churches, our companies, our communities is a wounded generation. People who have chosen to conceal their pain, the wounds of their soul, because like the child who hurts himself, comes crying to their mom or dad, but then says, don’t touch it. We do this with God, we tell Him how much it hurts, but when He goes to touch it, we run away, we hide, we say, no don’t touch it. Knowing full well, unless we allow the Lord to touch it, it will never be healed.

Concealed pain, unhealed emotions, become infected and whether we realize it or not, that infection is affecting the whole body. The church is weak, because it is full of people who are living with internal infections that have gone unhealed, not because the Lord cannot or does not want to heal them, but because people would rather conceal their pain, instead of reveal their pain. Until we have the courage to reveal our pain to the one who can heal it, it will stay concealed and this will hinder our healing.

When we stop withholding ourselves from God in worship, in prayer, in giving, in every area of our lives, He will heal our wounds. One of His missions is to bind up the broken hearted, but He cannot do this unless we give Him permission to touch our pain. Now is the time to stop being concealed! Now is the time to be revealed, so we can be healed!