Time Heals All Wounds?

There’s a popular saying about time healing all wounds. A few years ago, I began questioning the truth of that saying.

Why is it that my curious mind can’t just accept popular sayings, instead of always wondering about the truth of them?

As time moves forward, there is an element of healing that might happen as distance is placed between us and the wound… whether that wound is to our body, mind or spirit.

But for wounds to any part of ourselves to fully heal, they need proper care. We generally recognize this for our bodies. I would not be walking and running on my own two legs if the injuries I had would not have received proper medical care.

But too often wounds to the mind and spirit aren’t recognized and/or properly cared for. They cannot be shoved under a rug with the assumption that time will heal them. My rewrite of the saying is…

Time heals wounds …
if the wound receives proper care.

Many people are not living fully alive due to emotional wounds and the resulting brokenness. In reality, they die before they die. And time and time again, we see and hear of incidents where an individual hurts themselves or others and they give a reason of pain earlier in their life that led them to do it.

The shooter in the Amish School shootings wrote about the pain of losing a child nine years earlier. From wikipedia: One note Roberts left behind indicated his despondency over a daughter who died approximately twenty minutes after her birth nine years earlier. 

I read a tough story a few days ago about Bill Zellers … a young man who recently took his own life. He left a long suicide note describing pain he has carried since childhood.

The only reason I’m able to be hopeful and to live life to the fullest now is because I  received counseling which helped me process the trauma of the accident and its after effects and because I read widely and allowed some of my mindsets to change.

I’m not saying time isn’t important … time is a big factor in healing. Even with proper care, my injuries took months to heal … time and rest were a big part of their healing. Along with counseling, it took months, even years, for me to feel renewal and hope again.

All wounds need time … and all wounds need proper care.

Let’s be aware of our own brokenness… and also encourage the people around us to deal with their pain… using both time and proper care.

So your turn … do you think time heals wounds?

 

I write more about my discovery of needing more than time to heal in my memoir, Because I Can.