As I was changing clothes after church service on Mother’s Day, I noticed what I thought was a small fire ant bite on the inside of my knee. It was red and irritated but I didn’t think another thing about it until I woke up on Monday to discover that the bite had more than doubled in size and was an angry red. By the end of the work day the pain was getting pretty unbearable. At the clinic, they diagnosed me with an infection and put me on some antibiotics. They told me to watch the infected area and to go to the ER if it got worse. Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon… The infection was spreading around my knee and up and down my thigh, the pain was not subsiding, and my anxiety was through the roof. I didn’t hesitate, I drove straight to the ER where they cut me open, drained all that junk out, and shot me up with a high dose of medicine to knock out what was remaining inside me. The doctors told me I had made the right decision to come in and get it all taken care of. They told me that the damage would have been much greater had I waited even a few more hours. The consensus is that all of this probably began as a spider bite. At the end of the day, whether it was a bite or some sort of staph infection, I needed to be treated immediately and aggressively in order to put a stop to the damage the infection was wreaking on my body. Which got me thinking…

Inside of each of us emotional junk infects our hearts and minds each and everyday. What begins as a back-handed comment or a bit of self-consciousness or even self-doubt can begin attacking our hearts and spreading the negativity all over our lives. Left untreated, the virus grows and threatens to kill our joy and effectiveness. Over the course of dealing with this physical infection, I observed 3 things that I believe can help us deal with negative emotional infections in our lives.

1) Get Help
I quickly realized that whatever was happening to my leg was something that I couldn’t handle on my own. No OTC cream or medicine was able to treat the pain and heal me. I had to get someone who could help me to look at and diagnose my problem.

When it comes to emotional pain and hurts, we need to be able to go to family, friends, or mentors and tell them what’s happening inside of us and what kind of pain we are dealing with. It is also ok to take what’s bothering you to a professional counselor. If you are hurting emotionally or spiritually, the infection has taken root and it needs to be identified. Don’t believe the lie that all pain will eventually heal on its own. Don’t ignore the fact that you are hurt. Get some help, even professional help, if you are struggling with emotional pain in your life.

2) Cut It Out
This was the hardest part of dealing with my infection. On the first night that I went to the doctor, they attempted to cut open my infection. Without numbing my leg, the doc pulled out the meanest, ugliest Exacto-knife looking scalpel and pushed it into my leg. Yowza! Nothing came out. The infection was there but wasn’t ready to give up the fight just yet. Over the next 2 days, the infection grew and spread. When Wednesday came, I had one thing on my agenda. I wanted that junk out of my body. The ER doc gave it her best shot and with another mean scalpel, a lot of pressure, and her body weight on my leg we got that infection out of my body. It had to go!

Too often, when it comes to emotional pain and infection, we want to hang on to it rather than getting rid of it. May it never be!

Whatever is hurting you emotionally or spiritually, get it out and away from you. If it is a person whose spews their negativity all over you, remove that person from your life. If it is a hurt from years ago, find some way to forgive and let go. This process may hurt, it might take a few tries to make it work, or it just might take a whole lot of focus and pressure but you can’t get healthily unless you remove the infection from your life.

3) Take Your Medicine
After it was all said and down, I was on two sets of antibiotics. One I took 2 times a day and another I had to take 4 times a day. Every one I know who cares for me told me that same thing: Take ALL your antibiotics! If I heard that once, I heard it 50 times. This was a crucial step in regaining my health and working to prevent a recurrence of the infection in my leg.

When it comes to getting emotionally healthy and avoiding a recurrence of the infection you have to take all your medicine too. Surround yourself with those who love you and who lift you up. Avoid contact with whatever causes you emotional pains and hurts. Choose to believe the best about yourself and stop believing the worst that others say about you. Do these things and other things that bring you joy consistently and you can begin to stave off another infection that seeks to damage your heart and mind.

I am happy to say that one month out, my leg is almost completely healed. I followed my doctors advice, took all my meds, and rested well. Unfortunately, I know that emotional wounds don’t heal as fast as our physical ones do.

My prayer for you will be that God will guide you to seek help for what may be infecting you emotionally, that you will let go of and seek to remove the infection in your heart, and that over time He will send you positive and life affirming people to help you find emotional health.