Old Life

From Abundant Life by Guthrie

2 Cor 5. 17-18 
¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[a] The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
 in your old life you lived for yourself---for what brought you pleasure, for what made sense in your worldly way of thinking and had value in your worldly way of measuring worth. I love you too much to let you linger in that old life. That life is gone for good. The old you is gone for good. I've made you into a completely new creation---fresh and new on the inside---blessing you with a fresh perspective about what really matters.


I was thinking of all the wounds I have dealt with as a nurse....how much time it can take to heal wounds, to get the dead tissue all out. 
Some wounds it is best if the doctor debrids them; or, in other words, pretty much does surgery to remove all the nasty that is there. And some wounds the doctor only takes some of the nasty out....the rest is slowly removed by day after day after day of dressing changes. 
Some of these are painless; the nerves are already destroyed. Some of these are painful; the nerves are very much there, and screaming in distress. 
How life is like this. I think that our salvation can vary between the painless and the painful. I do not remember NOT believing in God. I was always assured of His presence, watching my father, who rarely reads any book, read the Bible or listen to studies....and ditto for my mother, except she is an avid reader. God was just there, and I knew it. I guess that way my salvation was "painless"....while those who struggled and finally decided to believe had a "painful" salvation. 
I have many "painful" wounds that have had to heal over the years, hindered by my refusal to "change" the dressing by fuming and holding onto grudges. With a willing heart, the "painful" wounds can become "painless"; and take less time to heal. 
Now, quite literally, I have a "painful" wound---learning to deal with the limitations of a very uncontrolled, unpredictable chronic illness. A wound of a different color, you might say.