Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14 NIV)
Almost two years ago, we were driving into town on a blacktop road when we saw a raccoon lying dead in the lane. We swerved to avoid hitting it and didn’t think much more of it. Later that week, we drove into town again and noticed the raccoon was still there, now frozen by the winter weather. It had become what we dubbed the “raccoon bump.” The ice and snow persisted for several weeks, and by the time it melted, the bump had been run over countless times by cars unable to avoid it. At the time I assumed that once the weather cleared, the county road commission would come and clear away the remains of the bump. But that never happened. Now, more than eighteen months later, the “raccoon bump” is still there—though it’s no longer a bump at all. It’s become a “raccoon pothole,” where instead of just driving over a bump, you now drive into the bump, which has created a hole in the road.
At this risk of this being a really gross, “too much information” thought, let me connect it back to our spiritual lives.
I’ve been asking God to reveal the spiritual significance of this—how the raccoon and the “raccoon bump” might serve as a metaphor for life. For a while, I wasn’t sure where this was leading until I spoke with a retired scientist friend. When I explained the situation, he pointed out that blacktop roads are made of asphalt, a material that seems hard and durable enough to withstand hundreds of thousands of vehicles. But in reality, asphalt isn’t truly solid. He reminded me that if you’ve ever seen a freshly resurfaced road, you’ve probably noticed that after just a year, grooves start to form where the tire tracks have been, showing how even something that appears solid can wear down over time.
That raccoon bump is like the junk that gets into our lives that we don’t deal with promptly and it sticks around to cause trouble. The pain caused by unkind comment, rejection, injustice, humiliation, betrayal, abandonment, and a whole host of other things can lead to unforgiveness and other soul wounds. Just like the raccoon that wasn’t cleaned up, those soul wounds can be like bruises we hit over and over and over. But when we take those soul wounds to God and work them through with the Holy Spirit’s help, we are freed to live healed.
God of Peace,
Show us the ways in which we have allowed soul wounds to build up within us, and then by your Spirit heal us and free us, we ask in Jesus’s name. AMEN.