wounds on Self-Deception

At university, I knew a guy called Captain Scarlet (nicknamed after the lead puppet in a cult TV series to which he bore a striking resemblance). The Captain was the only nineteen-year-old I’ve ever k...

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light fo...

No one heals himself by wounding another.

Too often we are given a choice—emotions or faith and belief. Yet as Dan Allender and Tremper Longman observe,  Emotion links our internal and external worlds. To be aware of what we feel can open ...

Gracious God, we confess our sin to you, for we have denied your light in us; we have betrayed your Holy Spirit in us. For those sins which weigh upon us, and those we do not even know we ...

Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there...

Paradoxically…healing means moving from your pain to the pain…When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclin...

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Remember Miss Haversham in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations? Her entire life was defined by the fact that she was jilted on her wedding day. People can become very attached to their pain and i...

We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...

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...

One of the challenges, at least in the western church, is an inability to deal with our wounds in a healthy way. Our training as Christians has been focused on Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday ...

To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you...

Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o...

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

What often continues to shape our stories (interpretations) are the implicit emotional responses to our wounds. We must be willing to attend to our wounds and address the emotions embedded in our woun...

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...

Love keeps no record of wrongs. We keep to-do lists so we don’t forget We check them twice We carry them in our pockets Holding on to the pain The disappointment The failure Re-viewing the wrong Poi...

What is the shape of your pain? Is your pain a gaping wound? Is it stuffed into the back corner of a closet, or is it neatly categorized and filed away with annotations that no one but you understand?...

The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...

Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts."

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.

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 wounded gladiator forswears all fighting, but soon forgetting his former wound resumes his arms.

The renowned scholar and musician Albert Schweitzer’s life was turned upside down one summer morning in 1896 while reading his Bible. He came upon Matthew 16:25: “For whosoever will save his life shal...

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

Truly, it is allowed to weep. By weeping, we disperse our wrath; and tears go through the heart, even like a stream.

All the trials we endure cannot be compared to these interior battles.

How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

Context This Sunday’s passage takes place during Jesus’ long final journey to Jerusalem (which takes up over a third of Luke’s Gospel). In the preceding pericope the disciples have asked Jesus to in...