Wounded Healers

I heard an awesome interview this week with Don Miller on the Relevant Magazine Podcast. Of course he is the author of Blue Like Jazz , Across Painted Deserts, and several other awesome books. His new book is To Own a Dragon.

In the podcast he spoke so poetically about the modern church and our need for a more empathetic stance. He also spoke so well about the God of Peace who came as a Wounded Healer and our desire to often times as a church or as an individual to be Arrogant Victims instead of being Wounded Healers.

He had been reading Country of My Skull which recounts the formation and work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the African National Congress lost power. He says in To own a Dragon "It's a remarkable book(Country of My Skull) and gives me great hope that Christianity has something beautiful to offer the world. The Christians in that context were walking miracles, offering grace and forgiveness, an entire community of wounded healers."

This spoke to me personally. I have often acted as though Christians have the moral high ground. Because we have placed our faith in God we have somehow attained a higher level of morality and understanding while forgetting that we are saved by grace, not of our own doing, but by the grace that God has shown. His grace applies to us even when we don't deserve it and regardless of our actions.

We then have no right to not be Wounded healers. Wronged by the others but willing to forgive and show the same grace that we have been shown.

When we believe in Christ there is nothing that we attain that makes us any more special to God or Christianity than what we had when we were born. It is by His Grace and His love for us that we do attain a relationship with Him.