One of the challenges of going through an event like Hurricane Katrina is determining what constitutes healing and restoration. How do you heal the deep wounds in a healthy way? How do you learn from the event? How do you praise God in the storm and after the storm? How do you retain all the lessons learned? These are the questions I have been asking myself for the past 19 years.
Perhaps it is the language of healing that leads to wrong conclusions. We commonly say, “Time heals all wounds.” Even with physical injuries, it takes more than time to heal the wound, but most physical wounds do heal.
When I cut my left index finger a few years back while working around the house, I expected it to heal. I expected a quick, easy, and full recovery with no changes to my life. Unfortunately, it took doctors two attempts to close the wound so it could begin to heal. They first tried to ‘glue’ the wound together. Later they had to close the wound again using silver nitrate (do your best to avoid this option if you can).
The healing process was painful. The silver nitrate fused the skin with a painful chemical burn. My finger hurt for months. The wound was always on my mind for a while. It needed intentional rest for a time. Even as the pain subsided, it did not completely heal for months. Even then, the spot remained sensitive for years. Fast forward to today … I have not thought about the wound in a long time. I still have a sizeable scar, and I notice a weird sensation in that finger every now and then. For the most part, the wound healed, and I have moved on. I don’t even think about it. That is one way to look at healing.
The wounds of Katrina were [and are] deep and painful. For years, the reminders could bring easy tears and an aching heart. I thought of the storm almost every single day for years. Like most New Orleanians, I spent the first five years after the storm pouring into the city’s recovery efforts gutting homes, and participating in cleanup projects. I coped with the storm by working to exhaustion on the recovery effort.
During these early recovery years, I stayed too busy and probably neglected my emotional and spiritual health at times. But I also learned much about loving my neighbor as myself. I saw the city in new ways. When I recognized the challenges facing inner-city kids in New Orleans, I got involved. I tutored, coached baseball, and worked to address food insecurity. I watch God change lives through the power of the gospel. God changed me as well.
Our city bridged racial, economic, and political divides and came together in beautiful ways. And WE won the Super Bowl. Okay, the Saints won the Super Bowl, but it felt like WE (the people who returned after the storm) played a role in that win.
But my Katrina wound numbed over time, and I saw this as healing. Some who moved into New Orleans after the storm didn’t understand the depths of the Katrina experience and grew tired of our Katrina stories, so we began to dial it back. We slowly got back to normal, and many gains were lost. The old divisions started to return. We all became less involved in the concerns of the city and returned to the worries of finances and our children’s schools and less concerned about the needs around us. My attitude deteriorated each time I received a 40-50% hike in my homeowner’s insurance (this has happened many times since Katrina).
So, what constitutes healing from something like Katrina? It certainly should look different than the healing of the cut on my finger. The only lesson I learned from the cut is to be more careful when using a utility knife–something I should have known already.
With Katrina, moving past the initial raw, debilitating pain and grief of loss was a must. You just cannot function properly in that emotional state. I am past all of that. But in the process of working past the raw initial pain, we tend to develop “calluses” to protect our hearts from feeling that type of pain again. While we work up ways to protect our hearts, we often forget the hard-won lessons of the storms.
Healing from Katrina does not require everything broken to be “set right.” It does not require everything lost to be restored. We will always bear the scars and memories of losses that have not been restored. However, healing and restoration must include the ability to look back at all the ugly and painful things we experienced and say, “God is good and worthy to be praised.”
Read Part Two
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