By Our Wounds, We Are Healed

Let’s be honest—we all have shards of brokenness.

None of us are enlightened or perfectly whole in our humanity.

We’ve been broken by tough relationships that didn’t turn out how we hoped. We’ve been shaped—and sometimes scarred—by our own mistakes, which can also teach us valuable lessons if we’re open to it.

These painful experiences often lead us to build emotional walls to shield ourselves from further hurt.

Yet life is a sacred classroom where we learn the essence of unconditional love. 

Scripture says, “…by His wounds, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5), referring to Jesus.

But this truth also reveals something profound about our journey: through our wounds, we, too, can experience healing.

When we notice our wounds—the raw places within us that sting like a bee’s sharp jab—our first instinct is often to avoid them or pretend they don’t exist. I don’t want to go into the pain! we might cry out internally. 

Yet, if we summon the courage to acknowledge these wounds, name them, and surrender them to God, something miraculous can happen.

Once given over to God’s divine love and guidance, our wounds can become sources of deep healing, inner growth, and transformation.

When something is nagging at me, I’ve learned to pay attention to it. To ask myself, What is this bee sting trying to teach me?

The death of my father-in-law recently was one of those emotional pains that swelled up within me. I realized I needed to revisit his death and the death of my father when I was 16.

It’s funny because I’m 66 years old now, yet I still tend to say, I don’t want to go there.

But in my quiet time, I know I need to. I trust God’s invitation to open my wound so it can be healed.

Our wounds often feel dark, but when we’re willing to enter into that darkness and give it to God—when we offer our willingness to let the Holy Spirit lead us with divine grace—we discover something amazing.

The door opens. New people such as a spiritual friend arrive in our lives.

Maybe a counselor we’re now ready to meet shows up.

We might begin a new spiritual direction relationship to help us discern where God is calling us. 

We might have dreams that invite us to explore places we’d typically avoid during our waking hours.

It is true: by our wounds, we are healed.

This human journey is a classroom for learning unconditional love—for ourselves, for others, and for God. Jesus showed us this path.

And Jesus, in his humanity, wasn’t happy about it. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he said to the Father, If it be Your will, take this cup from me, and he sweated blood.

Yet, somehow—whether through a human gardener or a divine angel who appeared to him—God answered Jesus’s prayer and gave him the strength to walk up Mount Calvary.

Even in his dying, Jesus was honest in his humanity: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

But through God’s grace, he mustered up the courage and compassion to say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. 

And finally, with his last breath, he prayed, Father, into Your hands, I commend my spirit.

Spiritual Practice

This week, I invite you to take a sheet of paper and list your current wounds that need healing.

Name them.

Then, take some time—even if you resist—to offer them to God.

Ask God to bring the people, places, and experiences into your life that can let the Holy Spirit work through others and through your journey to bring healing.

Ask God for the courage to walk through the darkness so you can enter the light.

As you muster the courage to name your wounds, may God give you the grace to say:

Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. Into your hands, I commend this wound. Please heal me. Lead me into the paths I need to take so I can learn unconditional love for myself and let go of the walls I’ve built around my heart to protect me from where I need to go to heal and grow.

As Henri Nouwen wrote in his book, The Wounded Healer: “When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.”

—brian j plachta

brianplachta.com

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Discover Inner Calm on Spirituality on the Go ✨

On this episode of Spirituality on the Go, we explore how restlessness can guide you to inner stillness and balance. Through a calming guided meditation, you’ll learn to embrace restlessness as a sacred teacher, grounding yourself in the radiant light of God’s presence within you.

Take a pause. Breathe. Find clarity. Carry the light of divine love into your day.

? Tune in now and discover how to transform restlessness into your pathway to peace.

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I wrote Finding Flow: Spiritual Practices to Reclaim Inner Peace, Balance, and Wholeness to address the growing challenge many people face: feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from God and themselves in the busyness of life. 

Finding Flow offers practical tools and simple spiritual practices to help you step out of the chaos, reconnect with your True Self, and discover a deeper sense of purpose and joy.

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