As I write this I am heading back to my hometown to visit my mother who was admitted to the ICU of the hospital. She fell and broke six ribs, puncturing her diaphragm. This puncture wound went undetected by the doctors for a week, causing extensive internal bleeding, shortness of breath, disorientation and weakness. On a scale of one to ten, when she could speak, she said her pain was a fourteen.

If you asked her, my mom would testify that any doctor who could bind up her wounds and heal her bleeding diaphragm would be worth everything right now. To her great blessing, a cardiac pulmonologist operated, binding up the puncture wound. She is finally on the road to healing.

“He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).  Is this scripture referring to a surgeon who repairs punctured diaphragms and the like? The author of this scripture lived almost 3,000 years ago. Yet he spoke of a person who could heal in ways that earthly physicians cannot, then or now.

The Psalmist spoke of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. In the Old Testament, the Messiah was something the Israelites hoped for, but who had not yet arrived.

Unlike the Israelistes of the Old Testament, we possess the blessing of  Jesus’ actual arrival and accomplishment of His purpose. We have the living hope that what the Psalmist prophesized Jesus would do is no longer just a future prospect–it happened.

Jesus said He came to heal us. He will heal us physically, true. But He primarily wants to heal our broken hearts. The brokenness that Jesus desires to fix is the brokenness of being separated from Him.

Apart from a relationship with our Savior, our hearts hurt. With Jesus, we can endure much suffering because Jesus offers to take our difficult times and give us a joy that gets us through our pain.

When we accept Jesus, He serves as the great physician to pull us into relationship with our Creator and heal the “bleeding” from willful separation.

Jesus does not promise a perfect, pain-free life. But He does offer to bind up the wounds and heal the broken hearts that result from a painful life apart from Him. By accepting Jesus’ forgiveness for our sin, our hearts are made whole; they are bound up and finally on the road to healing.