So David inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.” 1 Samuel 30:8 (NKJV)

The most surprising word in this verse is the word “all.” God told them they would recover all the enemy had taken and they did.

Often I hear people talking about past events with an attitude that says they’ll never recover, events such as abuse or suffering or great loss. The pain of these events has been so traumatic that complete recovery seems impossible. The enemy would reinforce this belief and tell us our lives are beyond repair.

We may have scars from past events but scars are painless. Scars are merely reminders they don’t stop us from performing in the future. If our scars are hindering us then we still need God to heal us. There’s more to be recovered.

Yet, recovery is difficult. First, we acknowledge the depth of our pain. It’s easy to miss this first step, often we want to ignore our pain, deny it or rationalise it, rather than face the truth of it.  Next, we consider what, if anything, we contributed to the event and finally we work through the process of forgiving those involved. There’s a lot more healing available in God than we generally take advantage of. Still, it’s a process and healing is gradual. Often we don’t want to do the hard work of working through the issues.

When Jesus taught us the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10) he gave us God’s prescription of the attitudes we adopt to experience his blessings, and therefore his healing. As we cultivate these attitudes, healing comes.