Time is No Healer

By Michael Q. Pink

“And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:32

When my first child died six days before Christmas in 1979 I was devastated. On the day we were taking her home from the hospital after recovering from open heart surgery a month earlier, her lungs filled with fluid and she died. She was 18 months old and I loved her as much as a father could love his baby girl and she adored me.
At the funeral, God visited us with a Word coming through a brother in Christ who said that God would multiply the fruit of my wife’s womb. In that moment for me, despair left, hope came and death lost its sting. Nine months later we had twins. My grief process was divinely circumvented.

In 1992, my 19 year old stepson was killed in a car accident. In the night season, God visited my wife with a Word of revelation, a Word of truth. And that Word, for me, circumvented the grief process.

In 1996, my father who I loved dearly passed away in Scotland. I was devastated, but God visited me in advance with a Word. He told me to accept an invitation to Mexico over Christmas to stay with a new client in their winter home because He intended to give them Jesus Christ as a Christmas present on December 25th. My father died December 24th while we were in Playa Del Carmen. The circumstances of his death and my being with my client instead of my father were used to lead our hosts to Christ on December 25th just like God told me. That night, the sting of death was nullified. The stinger had been pulled out. My grief process was divinely circumvented.

Now fast forward to February 17th, 2010, five weeks after losing my wife of 24 years to whom I had been joyfully married all those years. On that day, long before daybreak I was trying once again to find a way to let the pain of my loss escape. Rather than run from or medicate my pain, both of which were extremely tempting, I chose to face my pain. I expressed it in no uncertain terms to God and I suspect my neighbors could hear my anguish in the early predawn hours.

Then it came: A Word from God. He visited me in my home library directing me first to the promise in Scripture to be freed by the truth. So I sat down on my sofa, wiped the tears from eyes, tuned my heart to listen and simply asked God to tell me the truth. He did.

First of all, I had come to terms with the fact that Brenda was joyfully in heaven. Her new reality was quite different than the best of her former reality. She was fine, but what I was struggling with was not missing her person, but rather missing simply being loved and having someone to love. I celebrated the person she was and the person she is now, but I desperately missed the feeling of being loved. But God spoke.

He said that I was believing a lie. That I was loved. That even Brenda in her new state loved me more perfectly now than she was ever able to on earth. She loved me no longer as a wife, but as a sister with the purest of love and the highest of esteem. Furthermore, God loved me more deeply, more thoroughly, more completely than I could ever comprehend. The truth was that I was loved! That was a rhema word for me. In an instant, the stinger of death, the fourth one for me, was removed. In an instant, I was out of pain. In an instant, the knots in my stomach unraveled and peace filled my soul.

In an instant, my neediness to find love disappeared. In an instant, I was healed emotionally and the world looked much different to me. I was out of pain! Since sharing that great news, some folks still want me to grieve for some customary period of time. They want time to do its magic and complete the healing, but one thing I have learned in losing four loved ones, is that time does not heal. Jesus does!

I feel like the person healed of some physical malady that everyone still wants to take medicine, “just in case”. I feel like the cripple who was healed, but some still want me to use a walker, “just in case”. Make no mistake my friends, God healed me and took away my pain. That is not to say however that I am beyond feeling pain. When I visit those difficult memories, I feel them, but I am no longer broken by them. I can come and go at will whereas before I could only stay in pain and never escape.

So what does this mean? While some may not be ready for me to be healed because it hasn’t been long enough in their opinion, I am more than ready. In fact, believe it or not, when I was in Denver a man prayed for me and told me by the inspiration of the Lord that I would not go through the normal grieving process, that God would intervene and heal me supernaturally. I didn’t consider it again until it actually happened just as he said it would.

So now, how am I supposed to act? As the grieving widower or the healed man with a future? I choose the latter. As I step into my future, there are those who want me to honor Brenda by staying in the past, not moving on, etc. Guess what? Brenda moved on in a big way and it is not honoring to her to remain stuck in the past. I can and do honor her and the great deposit she made in my life over the years, not by staying in the past, but rather by stepping into my future as God enables.

Listen, God has done something incredible in me and He doesn’t want me to hide it. Furthermore, He has prepared a future for me and it is bright. For me, the new day has now broken. And it is sunny. There are those who wish me to stay in the darkness because it makes them feel comfortable or because perhaps they are still grieving and are not ready for me to step into the light. But the sun has risen in my life. It is unstoppable and I welcome that light. A new day has been ushered in and I choose to bask in its light.

The specifics of that I will share in the next blog. Some of you will share my joy while others may reject what God is doing in my life. Either way, the sun will still rise and I will continue to embrace it. Hope you can too!