The Wounded Healer

Jesus is God's wounded healer: through his wounds we are healed.  Jesus' suffering and death brought joy and life.  His humiliation brought glory; his rejection brought a community of love.  As followers of Jesus we can also allow our wounds to bring healing to others.

Nobody escapes being wounded.  We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.  The main question is not "How can we hide our wounds?" so we don't have to be embarrassed, but "How can we put our woundedness into the service of others?"  When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

Our own experience with loneliness, depression, and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care. As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away. But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds, they no longer frighten us or others. When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing.  Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters.

To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering.  Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain.  A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds.  When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience.  Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person's attention to ourselves.  We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings.  That is healing.

- excerpts from Bread for the Journey by Henri J.M. Nouwen