Wounded healers

I had the amazing opportunity this past week to travel to Leawood, Kansas, to Church of the Resurrection, the beautiful Methodist church pastored by Adam Hamilton, and spend Thursday and Friday learning best practices for congregational care. In addition to getting to spend time getting to know a new friend, spending life-giving time with two other precious friends, and standing in a sanctuary with a massive stained glass panel that both gave me chills and took my breath away simultaneously, I learned lots of things about the best ways of being a support to people hurting and in need.

And the truth is, despite two full days of information input, what I most took out of the two days of training wasn’t at all the practical tips for how to provide congregational care.

What I most took out of those two days was the deep and heartfelt understanding that God uses those who have been brutally broken in the worst of ways to provide love and care to others who are suffering.

Because those who have walked their own paths of loss, abuse, oppression, or grief, can walk beside those going through the same in ways others may want to understand but just cannot. As Pastor Hamilton shared at one point in the training, “People who have experienced hurt and pain make the most profound caregivers.”

The term “wounded healers” is often used to describe those who have walked hard roads and who have used the lessons learned on those roads to reach others in their pain. I have heard that term before, but it never sunk in quite like it did these past couple of days. One of the pastors in the training said something that I will never forget. As he talked about those wounded healers, he said this, “They will rise out of the ashes and God will propel them into ministry.” 

And God will, if we will just follow that call. I don’t mean that everyone who has suffered abuse or loss has to quit their job, go to seminary, and become an ordained pastor. That isn’t everyone’s call, and isn’t a requirement for ministry. Ministry is something we can all do, regardless of the job we do that pays our bills each month.

But for some people, that will be the call. And those are some amazing testimonies. I met one of the congregational care pastors at the church on Thursday evening after dinner. I could say I met him by happenstance, as this wasn’t a previously planned meeting, but literally occurred by a set of seemingly unrelated things happening in such a way that this introduction took place. But because I believe in the work of the Holy Spirit, I think it was a little more than that. 

His name is Daryl Burton, and he was wrongfully convicted for murder at age 22, and spent almost 25 years in prison before being exonerated when other evidence was discovered, proving his innocence. As he told us this story, I was so humbled, that this man who had been through so much and had so many reasons to be angry with society and angry with God, had chosen instead to serve God and to love people. 

As we were leaving, he asked the friend with me her name, as he had not remembered what she had said. She told him and I began to tell him my name again, and he said, oh I remember your name. My lawyer who got me released, her name was Cheryl. Your name is easy for me to remember. My friend told him that I too was a lawyer, and was also in seminary. 

As we started to walk away, I told him thank you for sharing his story. That he was such an inspiration because he could have allowed his life experiences to make him bitter but instead he had allowed God to use them to make something beautiful. 

As the words came out of my mouth, I had to choke back a sob. Because I realized that the same could be said of me and of every person I know who has suffered abuse, or loss, or harm, or grief, and has used those experiences as a drive to help others.

We could have allowed those life experiences to make us bitter.

But instead we have allowed God to use them to make something beautiful.

We are rising out of the ashes and following God’s call to minister to others.  

Through our experiences of hurt and pain, we will become profound caregivers.

Our most sacred calling in ministry just may be that of wounded healers. 

I had two of my family members tell me today at a family reunion how much they are touched by the things I publish on my blog, and as is usually my reaction when people tell me things like that, I was surprised and humbled.  

I pour out the words on the page that I do because they just won’t stay in my head and in my heart any longer. It amazes me that people take the time to read them and it amazes me even more that they receive benefit from them. Most of all, it amazes me that God uses them to touch people in ways beyond what I could ever imagine.

God uses the stories of my pain and hurt, and the pain and hurt of the children with whom I work, to touch and to heal people’s hearts. And at times to break them so that they can know what breaks God’s

To make something beautiful out of something that should be so bitter.

I do not believe that God cause bad things to happen to people so that good can come out of that harm. But I do believe that God brings beauty out of the pain all the same.

Through the wounded healers. 

And the rising from the ashes.