Sometimes it hurts to heal...

There's a country song, I can't remember for the life of me who sang it, but it's called "Life's a dance". The one line that always makes me think is in the chorus and is as such: "Life's a dance you learn as you go, sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow".
You learn as you go...that's a scary thought for me. I'm the kind of person who just wants to know everything now and not have to learn as I go, learning scares me because it will likely mean I have to be somewhat vulnerable and admit that I don't know it all.
What's even worse is that sometimes that "learning" involves things you don't even want to deal with.
Lots of times I've put myself in that predicament, where I have to be hurt in order to move forward. It's like taking the flu shot and experiencing the temporary symptoms of the flu so that it doesn't hit you full on later.
Sometimes you have to become sick in order to stay healthy in the long run.
That's a lesson that's not the easiest to accept or even deal with while you're living it out.
Sometimes the things we think are the greatest things ever are the very things that hold us back from really moving ahead. Not that those things are bad in themselves, but the way we treat them or view them can throw things off quite a bit.
I've learned these things all too recently and all too deeply. The very things that brought me some kind of joy turned out to be the very things that were causing me to ignore some much larger issues that needed to be dealt with. Those things that brought me joy were incredible, but I did not view them properly because of the rest that wasn't being acknowledged.
The thing is that things would not have gotten better, I would have been completely stuck not being satisfied, not being fulfilled by those things because I was placing to much stock in them. They were good things, absolutely, no question about it, but for that reason I refused to deal with the pile of manure that sitting directly in front of me.
Unfortunately sometimes other people get caught having to deal with that pile of manure that we refuse to deal with.
I think that happened, but I think true forgiveness has been happening, and will continue to happen. In that the real healing process, the real growth can flourish.
Once you realize the need to be forgiven, I mean really realize it, that you've messed up, that you've been wrong, and you need someone to forgive you, that takes you down to your knees.
I read somewhere that true repentence comes from God and it's from that that we can be really made new. Forgiveness comes, but progress hesitates until humility occurs in us. And that true repentence is an incredible feeling. It hurts, so bad. But the healing that comes is like nothing else you could experience.
I'm only beginning to realizeso many incredible things from God. I'm only beginning this new learning process that is taking me places I never thought I would go, but it's one thing that I will jump into fully because God's showing me what true freedom is like, and I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.