How We All Can Be Instruments of Healing

About a month and a half ago, I attended a healing prayer service with a friend of mine. It was a beautiful evening of praying over the suffering in our midst and sharing time with them in the presence of the Eucharist. It made me think about how all of us play a role in helping to heal one another. 

We are "wounded healers" when our wounds become a source of serving and healing rather than a source of shame, as Henri Nouwen once said. In the Body of Christ, we are instruments of healing to one another in different ways. It might be through prayers, words or direct interaction.

I take a look in my own life and there are a few consistent voices that are reaching out and healing me. The encouragers. The affirmers. The ones healing my brokenness. The ones coaching, mentoring and guiding me. The ones stretching me to new levels of love and virtue. The ones giving me opportunities to serve in fruitful, life-giving ways.

These people are precious to me. They are my wounded healers. 

You have them too! Look around your life. Who is healing those broken, weary parts of yourself? Whose words light you up? Whose strength helps you day to day? Who is affirming the beloved, chosen child of God you are? Who is so obviously sent by God to you for a purpose? Who is guiding you? Who is stretching you outside of your comfort zone?

Those are your wounded healers.

Why do I call them wounded? Because all of us are wounded. None of us are perfect. All of us carry wounds in us and those wounds help make us effective instruments of healing. They give us compassion, empathy, experience and wisdom that we would otherwise not have. 

In the last year, God moved me to a role in corporate health and well-being, and i've also started a health and life coaching practice. Truly, this is the calling on my life, I have realized. In these roles, I'm amazed at how he's taken my own wounds and sufferings (physically and emotionally) and put my learnings to use for others' healing and benefit. It's remarkable! No, I'm not a miracle-worker, but He gives me the insights that help plant seeds of healing in others' lives and assist them as they grow in wholeness. 

But there have also been people with cancer and other serious sufferings who I can't necessarily heal with what I can offer as gifts, but I can contribute to their healing with my prayers - whether praying with them or praying for them. And it's precisely my own sufferings that help me empathize with theirs and help carry that weight for them in my prayers. This too is part of what being an instrument of healing is about. We are a community of people who can and should help support one another in their healing with our gifts and prayers.

God uses our wounds to gift and heal others. We are all wounded healers, so think about the healers in your own life and give thanks for them, and then think about how you can be an instrument of healing to others with your special gifts and prayers.