Is There No Balm In Gilead?

Apparently, there is balm in Gilead. I just read up about it!

Gilead was famous for its spices and medicinal herbs in ancient times. There was a special balm created by the spice merchants, herbalists and apothecaries who proclaimed healing to the body for all kinds of sicknesses and diseases.

Does this sound familiar to us today? Anti-aging serums and the like?

“Is there no balm in Gilead?” is a rhetorical question spoken by God through Jeremiah, a prophet in the Old Testament. Here is the full verse:

Since my people are crushed, I am crushed.

I mourn, and horror grips me. 

Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?  Jeremiah 8:21 & 22 (NIV)

The people in Gilead had turned away from God and were trying to heal themselves. Like them, we can’t heal ourselves. And it’s even more difficult to heal our hearts and our spirits. I tried to mend my shattered heart using all sorts of methods. I wanted the black emptiness to go away. And what better way than to stuff it with things of the world – booze, drugs, sex, shopping.

God is saying in these verses – Couldn’t you heal yourself? Think you don’t need me? So why aren’t you healed then?

With these questions, He’s opening our eyes to what we are doing. He wants us to see Him. And aren’t His questions even more stinging for us Marlboro women who think we can do it on our own? Got the power to heal yourself, have you? How’s that going for you? Are you healed yet?

I was in the new age movement. I went to all the seminars to train myself to grab hold of the power in my own life, to bash through my walls, walk on hot coals, smash through my giants and be like my very own little god. I was pigeonholed into their quadrants informing me who I am and what I was made for. I learned the buzz words and tried to live them out. I tried my darndest to get it right. Why, then, did I not feel accepted there either? Why did I still feel I wasn’t good enough? I couldn’t smash through those giant walls no matter how big my imaginary hammer was. I wanted to feel loved and accepted and live a life that mattered. I wanted to belong. But more than anything, I wanted to know the truth.

The self-help books and new age seminars helped in tying those knots just a little bit tighter. You see, none of it was working so I absorbed this –  “What’s wrong with me, why isn’t this working for me? Why can’t I heal my own shattered heart?” More lies were heaped on top of the ones already living there.

I don’t self-help anymore. Can you save yourself from the mess you’ve made of your life?  I certainly couldn’t.

I am grateful to God my Heavenly Father for healing my sick heart and troubled mind.

I couldn’t do it on my own, as much as I wanted. I was stubborn and had a hard heart full of steel knots and junk. Why and how did I tie those bloodied knots in my heart?

At a young age through certain events, I learned to tie knots so my heart wouldn’t bleed. Molestation. Death. Shame. Physical abuse. Being ignored. Unkind words spoken. Rejection. Abandonment. All these and more. What can be done to dissolve the knots and bring about healing? I needed more than a balm made by other people in the world.

I needed a divine balm.  One that lasts forever and one that didn’t make me feel more horrible than I already did.

Can you hear God’s question and see His offer as the solution to our earthly dilemma?

“With all you have on earth, can you heal yourself?” 

It takes God to do our healing. There is only One balm I know of – it’s the One He gives to us freely.

His Son Jesus.