The other day my eight-year-old came into the room and asked, "Mommy have you seen the band-aids"? I answered, "Of course I have," but first, tell me what happened. He says I've hurt myself yet again, and now I'm bleeding. I'm thinking to myself; these kids are always doing something. I was like, Jo, you must be more careful and watch what you're doing because this has happened too often. We cleaned his wound and placed the band-aid on it so it could begin the healing process. I started thinking about how I've injured others or wounded myself due to bad decision-making. What stood out the most about the situations was how I kept returning to the very thing that hurt me and how I bled on the ones close to me during my healing process.
You must do a few things for a wound to heal correctly. First, stop it from bleeding further, clean it, put some ointment on it, and place a band-aid over it. The purpose of the band-aid is to act as a barrier so that infection doesn't occur during the healing process. The band-aid size will be based on the size of the wound. Sometimes, a band-aid will not help, and a doctor must be seen because the damage is so severe. Band-aids have to be changed often at the beginning of your healing because they become so saturated and will begin to bleed out on your clothes, furniture, or whatever it touches. As time progresses, the band-aid can be temporarily removed to allow breathing room to prevent suffocation. You will notice you are changing them less often as scabs begin forming.
Scabs and Scars
The scab forming indicates that your wound is healing. The scab is an additional barrier to the band-aid; however, you must be careful because it doesn't take much to rip it off. The thing you don't want to do is pick your scab because you will only delay the healing. My mama always would tell us, "If you keep touching your wound, it will never heal properly. Let me tell you, Myrtle B was right because when I did, an ugly scar would form. Scarring is the final stage of healing, and it will let you know the depth of the wound. The scar will also let you know if, while healing, the wound became infected or was picked at.
Many of us have wounds that are open and not healed. Why? Because we don't go through a cleansing phase and rid ourselves of the things that need to be removed. There are no barriers to hinder infections or being more infected than we already are. We keep going about our lives and not addressing that we are bleeding onto others. As we heal, we pick at the scabs, which sets us back even more. Trust me, your girl, know how that is because I did it and kept running back to the very thing that caused me to be wounded. We think our wounds will magically close without doing the work and return to the state before being injured. When we become completely healed, the scars remain and often remind us of the small or large injuries we experience. Remember that anytime you are faced with something that injures you, stop the bleeding, clean the wound, place a band-aid on it, let it air out, allow the scab to form, and rip it off once it's healed.
I challenge you to ask yourself these questions?
Are you in the process of healing from something that injured you?
What does your Band-Aids look like??
Are you bleeding out on the others as you heal?
Will you trust the process?
"In Order To Heal From It, You Have to Deal With It?