Read the Wound

‘By His wounds we are healed.”– Is. 53:5b

I left my father in knots, an occasional but not unfamiliar experience in that season. I began to experience strong same-sex desires. A still small voice invited me to read the wound. Conflict. Stifled emotion. Rage. Contempt. Lust for ‘super’ man.

I may well have sinned in my struggle. That time I surrendered: to the One I can entrust all my entanglements without abdicating the man He made me to be.

Glorious. Instead of my wound defining me and driving bad behaviors, it alerts me to the wounded God who encourages my wholeness.

Failure to read our wounds accurately leaves us to wander in a cultural wilderness. Our disordered desires become an identity, a people group; we politicize undiscerned tensions then demand inclusion in all spheres, including the Church.

That is the deception threatening Pope Francis and the Synod on Synodality. In October, a core team of Church leaders will grapple with (among other topics) how to best assimilate ‘LGBTQ+’ persons in the Church. The language of ‘radical inclusion’, ‘acceptance not tolerance’ and ‘love without borders’ abounds. No word on the wound and its cure. Sexual identity disorders of all kinds are but symptoms of myriad non-sexual wounds that need to be read; rightfully understood, wounds invite the wounded God who heals us. No wound, no Savior. Politics not Passion.

The world is coming to its senses. Transgender phenomena are being challenged by researchers from mega-inclusive Sweden who have concluded that attempts at sexual ‘reassignment’ fail to curb the staggeringly high suicide rate among the dysphoric. As a result, Western Europe—forerunners of ‘gay’ marriage and all manner of state-funded ‘alternatives’—is slowing if not halting the legal right of minors to ‘transition.’

Sexual identity conflicts are symptoms of non-sexual wounds. When we fail to read the wound, we fail to heal. The Church must not misread Her wounded members and members-to-be by promoting the language, and protection, of a ‘people-group.’ More than a political disaster, it shields hurting people from their Cure. Pope Francis and friends, read the wound.