He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3 NASB

When we were small, it seemed that Daddy always had cedar or pine logs laid up somewhere in the back yard. Maybe he was saving the cedar for fence posts…or the pine to go to the sawmill for lumber. In any case, so much of the time when I was little, he had been cutting trees.

As a very small girl, I can remember my Pappy and Daddy using a crosscut saw to take down pine trees. Their choreographed movements back and forth amazed me. It did not take them long to notch a tree, then start sawing. It made me proud to watch them.

When Daddy got ready to add on to our house, he cut trees, had them sawmilled, brought them home and stacked the lumber in a specific way. He was particular about stacking “green” lumber correctly so it would not warp. I thought it was a beautiful sight.

I was not allowed to play on those stacks of unmilled logs. In hindsight, I guess Mama feared a snake being in the pile underneath the logs. It was not an unfounded fear. But those piles looked like mountains to climb or forts to protect. They were perfect for a child’s imagination. So I was disobedient. I played on those logs and had a grand old time.

One afternoon while playing, I fell. Daddy never completely cut the limbs on cedar trees flush with the trunk. There were always small projectiles all up and down the cedar. That day I fell, my left thumb landed directly on a really sharp stob. The joint where the thumb attaches to the hand was a bloody mess. A deep wound.

I guess Mama heard. She came out the kitchen door at top speed. She got me up. We went inside to clean and bandage the thumb. See if anything was broken. Should I get stitches? She decided no stitches.

When I read Psalm 147 last week, this story came to mind. How my mother rushed to her hurt child. Cleaned the wound…applied medicine…wrapped the wound carefully. Made me stay inside in a safe place. Isn’t that what the Psalm says our Abba God does? He heals broken hearts…He binds up wounds. Don’t we read right past that? The true and living God that spoke the Universe into being stoops down…washes our wounds…binds them up? Can you picture that in your mind?

It seems that so much of the time, I rush right past some of the most beautiful passages. This one stopped me cold. How ugly I am when I think the Father doesn’t see or hear or care when He has clearly inspired the Psalmists to give us this beautiful picture.

When life blows a strike, let’s remember…we have a Father…He binds up our wounds.