“Healing rain is falling down. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid” are some of the lyrics to a song sung by Michael W. Smith. When we listen to these types of songs we are encouraged and uplifted. We feel closer to God. We feel like we can go on. This made me think about the question: What makes us hunger for healing? What makes us hunger for the deep things of God that will take away the deep hurt in our lives?

Unfortunately, it’s not until the rug is pulled out from under us and we are left lying on the floor in disbelief that we call out to God for healing. There’s nothing wrong with wanting healing in our life, because that’s why Jesus died on the cross. He died so that when we have the rug pulled out from underneath us, we can call out to Him for relief.

Why do we wait until the rug is pulled out from under us before we call out in desperation? Well, maybe it’s because that’s how we are wired as fallen human beings. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, it solidified the fact that we are all born with a sinful nature, and that nature is naturally in opposition to God.

That’s why Jesus Christ died on the cross in the first place. He bridged the gap between God and us. It’s because of Jesus Christ that we can now approach God with full confidence, knowing that He hears us and wants to bring us as much healing as possible this side of Heaven.

Even though we won’t receive full healing and restoration until we reach Heaven, God still wants to meet us where we are at. God wants to reach down from Heaven and heal our hurts, whether this be physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental. This doesn’t mean that God will always heal us in these four categories, but we can rest assured that some form of healing will still come.

Someone once told me that it’s not what happens to you in life that matters. It’s how we react to the different circumstances we are constantly finding ourselves in.

When we wake up in the morning, we have no idea what awaits us, until it actually happens. If we knew the doctor was going to diagnose us with cancer on a particular day, we probably wouldn’t get up that day. If we knew that when we woke up that our daughter was going to die, we wouldn’t make it through the night. If we knew that when we woke up, one of our relatives would be physically abused, we would be filled with anger and hate long before it happened. We would never get anything done, if we knew what was awaiting us down the line.

The good news is that God knows that our lives are filled with one crisis after another. He created us and He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows that our lives are short and that we are prone to wander.

He knows that sin is our natural way to react to situations. He knows that we don’t (naturally) have the ability to forgive or to love unconditionally. He knows that we are quick to say “I forgive you, but I won’t forget.” God knows that we are weak and quick to complain.

This is why it takes a supernatural God to help us through this maze called life. This is why it takes a supernatural God to help us heal. Healing is what God specializes in. We will never be completely healed in every area of our life, but we can live in victory, in the midst of the situations we all face.

One of the ways I’ve dealt with healing is to cry when I need to cry.

When my daughter died of crib death when she was seven months old, I cried all the time. I went from crying once a day to once a week, to once a month, and now I have a good cry every couple of months. When I cry it brings out all the hurt and frustration. Every tear that is shed does not go unnoticed by God. God sees every tear and uses our tears to cleanse our emotions and spirit.

We can’t keep all the hurt and frustration of life bottled up inside forever. If we don’t learn how to cry as part of the healing process, we deprive ourselves of healing.

Just because we cry doesn’t mean everything will turn out the way we want it to, but it does help us to continue our journey. It helps us feel that the weight is a little bit lighter.

—Parry Stelter is orginally from Alexander First Nation with his wife Angeline and their two daughters.

They live in Edmonton, AB.