proverbs on Healing Wounds

Gracious God, how often we have withheld a word of kindness, of truth and of love. We have lifted our voices in quick criticism rather than gracious encouragement. Through our actions and inactions we...

My husband, Doug, is an athlete whose body is protesting. He has had numerous knee injuries and torn his Achilles tendon twice. Doctors have operated on him, put casts on him and sent him home, thereb...

The story is told (as in, it’s made up!) of a small dog that had been struck by a car and lay wounded by the side of the road. A doctor driving by noticed the dog was still alive, stopped his car, pic...

All-gracious God, you promise that your light drowns out darkness, yet the darkness is so persistent. We cannot see in front of us, so we look to our own knowledge and ways. Forgive us for turning to ...

The comedian Richard Pryor, who was critically injured in a severe accident, once shared on Johnny Carson’s show that when faced with life-threatening situations, worldly concerns lose their significa...

No one heals himself by wounding another.

Like the Good Samaritan, may we not be ashamed of touching the wounds of those who suffer, but try to heal them with concrete acts of love.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain an...

I know a woman who, after her diagnosis of cancer, prayed twice every day for God to heal her. A year later, as she entered her third round of chemotherapy, she said, “Well, it looks like once again, ...

There’s a story (probably apocryphal) about a small dog that had been hit by a car and left injured by the side of the road. A passing nurse noticed the wounded animal, saw it was still alive, and sto...

Famed Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe wrote in ‘The Art of Fiction No. 139’ for The Paris Review, ‘If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.’ I believe this is a call to uncover and recover f...

We repeat what we don’t repair.

The strangest thing happens when what we have most wanted to conceal is brought into the open. We don’t die. Instead, we often begin to heal.

Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and enobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

If you’ve decided your healing is dependent on other people acknowledging their faults you’ll still be waiting in your grave.

Only one in a thousand sits down in the midst of it all and says—I will watch my Father mend this. God must not be treated as a hospital for our broken “toys,” but as our Father.”

Walker Percy wrote six novels in which he made us insiders to the spiritual disease of alienation that he found pervasive in American culture. His name for the condition is “lost in the cosmos.” We do...

The conversations that stand out sharpest to me now are those in which Dr. Brand recalled individual patients, “nobodies” on whom he had lavished medical care. When he began his pioneering work, he wa...

The soul is healed by being with children.

There’s a story about a traveler making his way with a guide through the jungles of Burma. They came to a shallow but wide river and waded through it to the other side. When the traveler came out of t...

What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds

Love cures people: the ones who receive love and the ones who give it, too.

Leader: God says, "Trust in Me with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." People: If in all our ways we acknowledge You, Lord, You will make our paths straight. We ar...

I do not deny that medicine is a gift of God, nor do I refuse to acknowledge science in the skill of many physicians; but, take the best of them, how far are they from perfection? A sound regimen prod...

Preaching Commentary At the Turning Point Following Simon Peter’s climatic height of his faith, his confession that Jesus was the “Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Peter now exemplifies our hum...

Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence.

God of Grace and Power ... and our Friend, who sticks closer than a brother: You know when we stumble ... and You know when we manage to get it right. You know when we forget you, but You don’t forget...

I love the following story because it illustrates both our natural defensiveness when we are attacked and the potential for transformation. As the illustration demonstrates, this is only possible when...

After several years of engagement in justice work Warren says in reflection on the story of the Good Samaritan, “I realized it’s not okay to have a road that perpetuates the beating, robbing, and pote...

I can’t help but recall here a scene from The West Wing. White House chief of staff Leo McGarry reaches out to his deputy, Josh Lyman, who is struggling with PTSD. Leo tells him a parable: This guy’...