We are the Wounded

“Just assume that everyone within the reach of your words is wounded.”

These were my words to the writers and speakers attending my seminar entitled “What Your Audience Desperately Needs.” Because it’s true.

We all carry soul wounds.

Scars from childhood family skirmishes. Scratches from professional rejection. Scabs from physical trauma we never saw coming. Limps from having fallen one time too many.

What are your souvenirs of suffering? And what do you do with them?

Here is Elisabeth Elliot’s suggestion: “There are two ways to receive wounds. One leads to larger life. The other leads straight to death, that is to destruction—of those we influence as well as of ourselves. No one has power to hurt us more deeply than somebody we loved and counted on to understand and support us. By grace we can receive the wounds of our friends in Christ’s strength and for His glory. Or we can use the world’s methods of anger, resentment and retaliation, which is natural but lethal. The choice is ours.”

Making this choice in the middle of woundedness is strategic: “Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets” 2 Corinthians 7:10.

Jesus knows we are the wounded.

That’s one reason He came and made the ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross: “he was wounded for the wrong we did; he was crushed for the evil we did. The punishment, which made us well, was given to him.” He submitted to the lashes and the nails so that we wouldn’t have to; “and we are healed because of his wounds.” Isaiah 53.5

Be assured that our Lord is in the “binding up” aspect of restoration and healing: “God heals the brokenhearted / and bandages their wounds” Psalm 147:3. He is doing that even now, in the midst of all this pandemic pain and suffering.

“Jesus mends. He sutures. He slathers salve on the injured area and wraps it in holy bandages presoaked in mercy. Then, under His divine touch, wounds heal. Even wounds that cut bone-deep or leave raised-welt scars. His mending is artistry. Restoring is His specialty. Renewing broken things is His heart. Reclaiming shattered souls—repairing tattered lives—His preoccupation.” (Cynthia Ruchti in “Tattered and Mended”)

Like Thomas, perhaps we need to touch His hands and feet. He understands.

under the mercy, Lucinda

“Helping You Choose a Life of Serenity and Strength”

©2020 Lucinda Secrest McDowell

Soul Strong just released! Order “SOUL STRONG” Today …. More about Soul Strong HERE.

Check out my new companion devotional book “Life-Giving Choices - 60 Days to What Matters Most” by Lucinda Secrest McDowell Order Today!