When you suffer in any way, this adage comes to you from well-meaning people. When you, as the sufferer, are in the thick of it, time moves at a snail's pace. There's no molasses in January as slow as suffering, and healing doesn't move along any faster, when left to itself.
When a person suffers a physical wound, does she let it ride? Does she allow it to recover with time as its only healer? Not if she wants to heal without setbacks, possible infections, and a huge, ugly scar.
She tends her wounds, carefully washing them and removing foreign objects that will cause infection if left intact. She applies salve and bandages, and allows the wound some air to heal better, knowing that keeping air from the wound stops the healing and also damages surrounding tissue. She changes the bandages and checks the healing. If necessary, she finds additional help from someone with professional qualifications. She prays. The whole time. Her Go-To Guy is God.
So, your marriage has claimed you as a casualty. You have suffered some surface wounds and a few deep cuts. Or, has your marriage skidded into a complete wreck, and bits and pieces have flown everywhere?
Let it ride or take action? Do you need to call in a professional? Have you forgotten your Go-To Guy?
Time does not heal without some movement, some doing, some action on my part. I can incur a marital injury and sit like a bump on a log, hoping for healing and not get anything but complacency and bad feelings toward the initiator of the injury.
Actively using time, or making time heal your wounds, means investigating the injury and how it happened, praying for guidance in how to heal it best, and following up on that prayer often and in-depth. Marital injuries may cause physical ailments, so it makes sense to tend to the marriage issues to help alleviate stomach and headaches, other outward signs of stress, and sleep issues.
"LORD, help!" they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He spoke, and they were healed -- snatched from the door of death. Let them praise the LORD for his great love and for all his wonderful deeds to them. ~~Psalm 107:19-21
It may mean bringing in a professional (a pastor, a counselor, a trusted and godly friend who loves you both and has your healthy marriage in mind -- a good idea to avoid opposite-sex friends who do not make proper counselors for emotional temptation reasons) for an opinion, and then prayerfully deciding how much care you need from that outside source.
Actively use time by learning to communicate effectively with your husband. Learning to speak plainly and directly in love will open intimacy and help block the road that leads to continued injury. Discussion involving know-how in arguing a point does not mean the same as arguing to prove a point to achieve personal victory. Learn the difference, know the difference, make the difference. Improve your mental intimacy in varying depths of communication.
Use time actively to pursue interests together that unite you as friends, as a married couple, and as God's children. Pray together, attend church together, start a Bible study book for couples together. Small steps toward spiritual sharing lead to building intimacy ... leading to oneness.
To use time actively so that you may achieve emotional closeness after suffering injury seems one of the most difficult of the time management activities along this path to healing. It stands as the last thing many wounded spouses feel like trying, yet the most important one to master: sharing of feelings. Hurt spouses feel like hemming themselves in, putting up walls to protect themselves from further hits to already hurting places. Resentment, grudges, blame, self-pity, self-indulgence, and pride all form nice, cushy bumpers against the hurting places, and effectively keep away the one whom we believe causes all the trouble in the first place -- our husband. A big HOWEVER here -- knowing that trouble in marriage is a two-way street (suffering emotional or physical abuse does not belong here -- if you have these issues, seek professional help immediately) and that you have met your on-coming spouse without putting on the brakes in your own runaway vehicle, both parties usually own some guilt in the matter. Focusing on blame, demanding restitution, requiring penitence ... none of these do a thing in the way of using time actively. They, instead, put on the brakes, shift into reverse, and cause you to lose important ground. Avoid these easy-to-reach feelings at all costs. Don't surround yourself with people who support or encourage retaliation and/or venting without a dose of reality and positive, marriage-supporting assistance.
Time. Such a small word, yet a major contributor to everything in lives. In marriage, time will heal your wounds when you employ it full-time. Time should not act as your master, but you as its keeper. Use it wisely, with good, godly purpose toward the kind of marriage God has designed for you.
Marriage is a full-time job. It requires strict attention, strong boundaries, and trust built over time and experience. You can rebuild it, and time will help you.
Use it well.
Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results. ~~James 5:16
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