Wounds that Heal

During a recent prayer meeting, Andrew prayed for a hurting friend: ‘May what seems traumatizing now become a path for deeper healing.’ More than poetic, it was a prophetic exhortation; I felt it. Through our traumas, Jesus imparts healing and new life.

Consider a physical wound: an early broken bone didn’t heal properly, resulting in painful dysfunction. We live compromised by misalignment. Restoration demands the bone be broken and reset. Fresh trauma on top of old pain—ouch!

Maybe we’d rather walk with a limp than submit to a fresh break. Restoration may demand it. God is masterful at using difficult circumstances, sins, and weaknesses to reveal our misalignment. He reveals how we’ve settled for less than His best for us.

Some of us get lost in the ‘trauma’ of today. An old wound gets hit—provoked--by a new bruise. Do we react without reflecting? Could the Lord be allowing it for our healing? Does our vision for healing match up with His?

In a painful process over recent months, I see the Lord skillfully moving to reset some areas of my life. Sometimes I’m tempted to leave things broken and get off the operating table.

He reminded me in my weariness, ‘I am making you a saint.’ I’m not one yet! But I cry out like the Israelites: ‘He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has struck us, but He will bind our wounds’ (Hosea 6:1). ‘Wound me to heal me,’ I pray. Instead of dancing around my deficiencies, I surrender to His vision, His best way for my life.

Pope Francis invites the Church to be a field hospital where soldiers heal wounded souls. We have a place to go in our brokenness. But I’m grateful that a hospital is for healing, which demands more than tender feelings. The prophetic Church sees what obstructs us. Like a skilled physician, the Church helps us to break our misalignments and set us aright.

May we read our stories rightly. Brokenness, pain, and trauma are real. But they are never the end of the story. If we will submit to His breaking, He assures us that He will rebuild us. Let us be the Church who restores persons at core.