Wounded

The writing prompt is wounded and I debate on where to go with that. It's a word, more accurately an experience, that I'm far too familiar with. Words and actions have both wounded my heart. Violence has wounded my body. Yet with each wound has come the choice to stay wounded or to heal.

There have been times, even recently, when the wound was too big to allow me to focus on other things. Right at this moment though, I can look at some of the pain from the other side of the cavern, from the perspective of healing. I wouldn't fully grasp hope if I had not felt hopeless. While hope is something we all feel at times, feeling hope after hopelessness is like the first warm rays of springtime sun after a bitterly cold winter.

I've been wounded and hidden. I've feared more pain. I've lashed out in anger at God and at those who inflicted the wounds. I've pulled back. I've pretended I was strong while withering away inside. I've wounded in return and I've paid the wounds forward to innocent unsuspecting others simply because I didn't know how to cope with the pain in my heart.

In all of that, I've learned that there is something good that can come from being wounded. Healing can happen. Healing happens when I stop trying to fight the pain and simply accept it and feel it. It is when I accept that my heart hurts and I allow the feelings of pain to overtake me that I can bring the brokenness of my heart and my life to Jesus and let him so gently speak life into my brokenness.

I know brokenness. I know wounded. I also know healing and redemption. I know that my pain matters. I know that no one is too wounded or too broken. I know this because I know the Healer and I know what He has done in my life. I know this because I'm living a life of beauty that was once ashes.