Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the Lord made a decree and a law for them and there he tested them. He said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you. Exodus 15:25-27

Jehovah Rapha. The God who Heals.

Here in this passage, the Israelites are travelling through the desert, becoming established as God’s people and learning about his character along the way.

Here they come to a water source which they find is bitter. Too bitter to drink. And God heals the water. So he establishes Himself as a God who heals, starting with the water, healing the water first.

And it’s a slightly cheesy analogy, but I think it is true that God can do the same for us. There are plenty of things in life that can cause us to become bitter – whether spiritually or emotionally – and God is the God who heals.

God can actually work a wonder in us when we have been abused in any way, when we’ve been emotionally bruised or we’ve been attacked beyond that which we can stomach. God sees it and he has methods to heal us of that bitterness which is completely understandable. I know I’ve had times in my life when I’ve become bitter in response to events that have happened to me.

So I know that God can heal that bitterness. He can wash, cleanse, renew and restore for us: remove the bitterness. He can “Drain out all the poison” as either Elisabeth Elliot or Catherine Marshall phrased it.

We know God has His Holy Spirit power working in us to work this renewing, restoring in us. And we can also ask him to ensure that no further bitterness develops in us as a result of the process. And we can trust that, even if it doesn’t feel like it, we can know that God does actually want to heal us of our bitterness. And He will work in us as our good Father.

And we can pray and believe these things, even at times when we are so very bitter, and hurt and angry and perhaps rightly so. There are times when it is good and right to have an emotional response in this way. And if we didn’t have that kind of emotional response it would actually be quite strange. So it’s actually normal to be feeling these emotions.

And even when we are experiencing those emotions of bitterness and hurt in the extreme, we still, as it says in the passage, want to keep reading God’s word. Keep praying. Keep meditating on the word. Keep obeying Him. As it says in the passage, to keep follwing Him, because we are in covenant relationship with Him.

So even though, that is so very hard and very challenging, I know that God can help us do that, even when we are feeling so bitter and angry and hurt.

So as they say in mental health world “Trust the process.” Let it do what it will do. And trust the God that heals you. Because He will. Because He loves you.