“You have a new power, Julie,” I said. “Now that you have been wounded by Ray’s death, there is healing in your wings.”
Through loving involvement in numerous Christian organizations, my friend Ray Christensen had cultivated a wide circle of friends. And already, many had gathered around his wife, Julie, to comfort her—only to come away comforted. They had in that emotional moment discovered the mystical balm of healing that can come only from the wounded.
From hurt there is healing. My wife, Arlie, and I learned this slowly five years ago. We had not consciously been healers, as some of our friends were. Then suddenly our oldest son was torn from us in an auto accident. We began to discover in succeeding months that we were healing other wounded people as we had never done before.
To become healers, we had to be wounded. And because our wound was deep, ugly, and painful, our balm of healing was more therapeutic than it would have been had life superficially scratched us.
We are wounded in many ways—the death of a loved one, divorce, rejection by a child or friend, bankruptcy, career reversals, our own inadequate self-image. (You surely have your own catalog of hurts.)
In our woundedness, our survival instinct cries out for healing. But too often we are satisfied if our own wounds are only salved. We fail to see that our healing is only the beginning, secondary to the new power of healing in our wings for family and friends.
In that power, we discover a new meaning of Christlikeness, beyond our traditional views. To be Christlike is to be humble, and holy, and redemptive; but it is also to be wounded—and not merely to be wounded, but to be wounded for someone. “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). The majesty of God’s plan of redemption is that our transgressions are washed away in Messiah’s wounds, our healing comes from Messiah’s stripes. To heal his people, God chose the process of wounding his Son.
Why did God not spare my wife and me the deep hurts of losing a son? There is no final answer to that. I do know that God did not spare himself the deep hurt of Calvary. If he had, there would have been no redemption, no healing for me, for you, for anyone.
Did God take our son, and Julie’s husband, Ray, and your loved one to make us healers? Did God send pain or suffering or hurt into your life or mine so we could heal others? Probably not, although there are times when God must wound us to heal us, and to make us healers.
Indeed, there are times when you and I must wound someone we love in order to heal. Have you ever dug a thorn from your child’s finger? You wounded your own to bring healing. Doctors must sometimes break a bone to reset it for proper healing, or inject us with a virus or bacteria to prevent us from being severely wounded by the same germ. We must expect God and faithful friends to wound us at times, but only for healing, and never for harm. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”
Thus, to be healed I must sometimes be hurt. And to be a healer, I must sometimes be hurt. I am enough of a human not to invite wounds or hurts, or to enjoy being wounded. But perhaps I can be enough of a Christian to accept my wounds as an opportunity to be healed, and as a mandate to participate in God’s healing of others.
