Read this week’s excerpt from A Healing Walk with St. Ignatius, “Hoarding Our Gifts”:
It’s important to understand that healing involves more than the wound. A wound can usually get better; and most pain will eventually subside. Situations resolve, and life goes on. But the need for healing remains. Why?
The need for healing remains because of what happens to us when we are harmed. Perhaps you are critically injured in a car accident. After surgeries and painkillers and then weeks in rehabilitation, you get your life back. Only it’s not the life you had before. The life you return to has absorbed a whole new realm of fear and helplessness. The weeks of dealing with pain have changed the way you operate from day to day. The recurring memories of the crash have formed new, disturbing patterns inside you. Long after the scars fade, you will need healing.
We are shaped by what happens to us. Every wound—the death of a loved one, a lost friendship, a long illness, a disruption due to change in job or income, a dashed dream—each event and emotional season works on us at every level. If we do not allow God to infuse every day with fresh faith, life can devolve into a misshapen and fearful existence. If we do not cultivate trust in God’s constant care and the Holy Spirit’s ability to renew us constantly, our lives might become mere long memories of hurt and disappointment. If we do not walk with the compassionate Jesus, inviting his friendship to strengthen our hearts and minds, we could easily become more defined by our wounds than by our gifts.
It’s quite common to hear someone say, “Oh, I’m over it,” when referring to a difficult situation she’s come through. “I’m moving on now, but thanks for asking.” Our culture is so focused on action and productivity that we feel an obligation to recover quickly from whatever has hurt or discouraged us. But if we get quiet and sit with our deeper wisdom, we become aware of how profoundly we’ve been affected by events. We may need to cry or take a walk or stare absently out the window.
When we come to such a moment, it’s time to pray. It’s time to ask God for the healing that can reshape what the hurt distorted. I confess that ever since the accident I am much more fearful of driving. You admit that since that horrible break-up you have shut out nearly every person who’s tried to get close to you. We are living out patterns that owe their power to bad memories. God means for us to live out patterns energized by hopefulness and peace.
An Exercise for the Week
Does being wounded block your service to others or your ability to receive God’s gifts in any way? If so, describe how it does.
Set aside time this week to be quiet and in prayer. If necessary, do this with your spiritual companion. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the patterns in your life that indicate a need for continued healing.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
In a quiet moment the other day, I heard His voice. My immediate reaction, without any thinking, was ” Go away, I’m mad at you.” As soon as that thought was out, I broke into laughter. I guess you know you’ve reached friendship with Jesus,when you can respond with such a human reaction. It gave me pause to think about my own spiritual growth. How far I’ve come that I can recognize his voice and be so comfortable in my conversation that it flows naturally. We grow up thinking of prayer and conversation with the Lord as such a pious event. And who in their right mind would ever say to Jesus, “Go away.” But this is my humanness. I reacted like I would to my husband, whom I also love dearly and would never want to go away. I simply reacted. I rejoiced and gave thanks immediately for a faith that has allowed me to grow to this new level of friendship and stopped to examine why that was my response. That is a whole other comment! And the insight into that response a whole other gift.
Jean, I love this little story! What a great friendship with Jesus.
Yes, that’s a great story! And, so real. I, too, have had conversations with Jesus like that. But, now, I am in an entirely different place with healing and relationship – not the daily routine, but at the basics of life and love.
I have had brain surgery for a malignant tumor spread from lung cancer. I am recovering very well, am scheduled for whole brain radiation to get four more tumors and then the thoracic oncologist will evaluate what to do about the tumors in my lung and lymph nodes. My attitude is that it will be a ‘whack-a-mole’ procedure – when I develop symptoms, I will get treatment and be sick for a while, but then recover to live a normal life. My family is incredibly supportive (in spite of the fact that they have all been urging me to quit smoking for years). I had planned to change my lifestyle anyway to support my husband who has memory problems and that’s my one wish that I can do so as long as possible. My daughter and I were talking about what I had planned to do and she wants so much to help me with my ‘bucket’ list. But now, that I have hopes of being able to treat symptoms, I have decided I don’t want a ‘bucket’ list. I will continue to have projects – some higher priority than others, but if some of them aren’t done by the end, at least, I can say I didn’t die of boredom.
The incredible experience is the number of people who are praying for me – it has been the most real part of the whole experience. Knowing that Jesus is with the least of HIs sisters and that so many people are reaching out in love. All over the country I am connected to life and love! And, I always will be.
It is in God’s will, how much the cancer will be controlled. Cancer is, after all, a living thing. But, I am not one of those people who are willing to live with wasps or mosquitoes! I am putting my trust in the medical profession and doing what I can to be healthy (I was terribly out of shape before surgery). And, I have so much peace and joy as I connect with so many people! But, it is being to fade as I am coping with ‘things that now need to be done” – as always, the spirit runs into my emotions, my prejudices, my weaknesses as I try to do His Will in the physical world and the love I have chosen to do is obscured to others because I don’t listen as closely to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit on how to do it.
Lord Jesus, great physician, hold Betsy close to your heart, through every day, every emotion, every procedure, every conversation, every quiet moment. Amen.