Emotional Leprosy

The disease of leprosy was one in which the body ceased to feel pain. It was also a disease that repelled people. There are those who are lepers emotionally. They have shut off their hearts from feeling pain. One of the unintentional consequences of this decision is the distance that forms in relationships. We either push people away or our actions repel them….actions caused by our decision to not hurt again. Then, like lepers, we congregate with those who have a simililar form of leprosy which only serves to worsen the disease in us.What we need to do is to cry out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me! If You are willing, You can make me clean!”

Today, we can move about freely, live our lives with an appearnace of normalcy and do our best to hide our emotional leprosy. But, in Biblical times, lepers were forced to stay away from the public. They were outcasts, rejected by society, forced by law to cry out whenever anyone came near to warn them to stay away. While we don’t realize it, to the discerning we also have our ways of warning others to stay away when they get too close.

If a leper wanted to be healed, he needed to leave the safety of the colony, face the risk of rejection and expose himself. It was the only way to be healed. To my knowledge, Jesus never entered a leper colony to heal anyone. No, the lepers who were healed sought Him out. Think about the risk they face to do this. Jesus was often called “Rabbi” and “Teacher”. These were the very people who rejected them….forced them into isolating themselves. I am certain their risk and fear of rejection was at an all-time high as they walked up to Him, exposed themselves in their diseased condition, and asked to be cleansed..

We need to do the same thing. We need to be willing to seek Him out, expose our condition so that He can heal us. Sometimes, we feel like we will find Him in the form of the very ones who have rejected us. We need to leave the safety our our walls-our leper colony-remove the veil that hides us, exposing ourselves in all our weakness and vulnearbility….and allow Him to bring healing.

I have lived much of my life in a self-built leper colony. I have had walls around my heart that no one could penetrate. Allowing someone to draw close was not a possibility…it was to be feared above all else. So, I controlled who got close, when, and how close they got. And, my heart was always in the reverse position so I could retreat quickly at the slightest hint of pain.

But, that’s all changed now! He took down the walls that I had built to protect myself. He tore away the veil that not only hid myself from others, but hid Him from me!

“What would I have done if it wasn’t for Your love..the love that tore the veil inside my heart?”

I came to know and experience the passionate love He has for me…the love that I wasn’t able to experience because I had lived so much of my life in my own little leper colony. I realized more fully that He is NOT the One who wounded me…that He would never wound me. He is trustworthy even with my deepest hurts. So now,

“I go running home when I fall down…He picks me up when no one is around. I drop my sword and cry for just a while.”

I am His child. I am cleansed of the leprosy that controlled my every thought, action and reaction. I am free to live outside my leper colony…to reach out to people….draw close and have deep relationships without fear of rejection….because He has healed me!

Only in risking further pain can we free ourselves from emotional leprosy. Only in exposing those areas that we have kept hidden from nearly everyone will we find healing for those areas. Only by drawing near to the Lover of our souls will we find freedom to draw near to anyone else…and allow them to draw near to us.

You too can experience life outside your leper colony. You can be free from the fear of rejection. You can be rid of the ways in which you warn others to stay away and can fully experience deep relationships built on strength and health rather than weakness and disease.

He is here. He longs to heal those wounds so you will not need to continue to protect yourself by shutting off pain. Just cry out to Him, “Son of David, have mercy on me! If You are willing, You can make me clean!”

Then, my friend, you will see the delight in His eyes as He answers, “I am willing. Be clean.”