What does healing look like?

What does healing look like?

For so long it's been getting back to the way things should be- normalcy; normalcy and to have no more pain...That sounds an awful lot like heaven; that longing for the restoration of my humanity, the removal of pain, a sense that this is not how things should be. 

All of the sudden I feel far less removed from my humanity and far more joined to it. We all long for pain to be stripped away especially when we feel that pain has replaced our understanding of "normal". We all long for peace. And I know that such peace and restoration are available and are coming not just in this life, but the next.

Panic has made me desperate to never feel certain things again, but certain things demand to be felt in this life, pain being one of them. Pain demands to be felt- yes, but so does Love and Joy- those too demand to be felt. 

Have I truly believed that love and joy were available to me to be felt? Or have I, in my fear of feeling pain, believed pain was more available to me; have I believed more earnestly that pain overshadowed and dominated love, joy, and peace? Have I attributed more power to pain than those things for which I long?

So what does healing look like if pain demands to be felt and if feeling it is what joins us to humanity in the most sober union?

Perhaps pain is not to be feared, but expected- expected yet coupled with the firm hope and trust that this is not Love's intended story, nor is it this story's ending; one day pain will cease. Perhaps Love and Joy and Peace should be allowed the kingship today that they will one day hold for eternity. Perhaps healing looks like bringing this heaven to earth and adoring it as much as humanly possible. Perhaps heaven is where we make it.