The Gentle Art Of Healing

prologue

            GENERALLY, AND SCIENTIFICALLY, ONCE a wound has closed, once it cannot be seen, it has healed. The tissues have regrown, the blood vessels have been repaired. All is well. At least, scientifically.

But there's another type of wound. One that you can never actually see, but it hurts just as much—sometimes even more. And so what happens then? You can't see it, so how do you know that it has closed? That it has healed?

The truth is, you'll never really know for sure. It's sad, but it's the truth. The blood won't just dry up, the tissues won't just grow back, the blood vessels won't just fix themselves. These kinds of wounds don't work this way. In fact, they're more cruel, more deadly. They don't aim for the flesh, no. They aim for the mind, for the heart. The main power station of your entire body.

This is how they work: First, the wound is made, of course. Then, it starts to hurt—and unlike regular wounds, it doesn't get better the more time passes. It actually gets worse. And they don't just disappear in a couple of days. In fact, sometimes years don't even do the trick. And here's the saddest, most depressing part of it all: for 99% of people, it ends here.

But how about that lucky 1%? How about that tiny group of people that actually got to experience stage three?

See, the thing about these wounds is that the healing is not a solo process. The tissues don't just replace themselves, the blood vessels don't just patch themselves up. They need a little push, something to give them the willpower, the purpose, to fix themselves.

And that is exactly what that fortunate 1% of people were blessed with, that the other 99% were not.

One way or another, they got their push.

But how exactly, did they obtain it?

Well, I guess they just had to have a whole lot of perseverance. Because that push is as hard to get as a rainbow in July. That push is a one in a million—your little flicker of hope. And you just have to wait until it reaches you.

It sounds so simple when I explain it like that. But really, it's probably the most painful thing in this world. Hours of crying, sleepless nights, dreadful mornings accompanied with pounding headaches and puffy eyes, when you feel like you have no reason to carry on at all.

But that's the thing about this 1%. They make themselves suppress their tears, they do everything they can not to think about what keeps them up at night, they muster up all their strength to get out of bed and face the world for another horrible day.

And after years of this torture, God handpicks them out from the millions of people like them, dragging themselves through every day, and then sends them their savior, their angel, to bridge the gap between their head and their heart. That is how the wound heals. It's the only way, which explains how limited edition it is.

I, for one, have never classified myself under the 1% category. Mostly because morning after morning, I wake up, and make the same vow to myself—that I will stop wallowing in self-pity, that regardless of how tough it gets, I will drag myself out of the hole I had fallen into.

But time and time again, I never keep that promise. It's the same vicious cycle, every single day, and somehow there's nothing I can do to stop it.

So that makes me wonder—what did God see in me that was different from everyone else? What made Him shift me to that 1%?

It's become the question that I ask myself every day without fail, and there has not been one time that I've been able to come up with an answer.

It doesn't really matter, though. What matters is that somehow, someway, I got to stage three. I wouldn't live the rest of my life with that 99%. Through what means, I didn't know—I would never know. And honestly, neither did I really care.

I got my bridge, my saviour, my angel, though I certainly don't deserve him.

But, still, I got him.

And that was just... everything.