Wounded Healer Reflection

I recently finished The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen and was really convicted by much of what he had to say. The emphasis on the book is not so much trying to heal others as it is to get the reader to understand that without the mutual identification of wounds and entering into the hurt of another, healing cannot take place. I like what he says in the third chapter:

"Who can take away suffering without entering it?" The great illusion of leadership is to think that men can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there... we have forgotten that no God can save us except a suffering God, and that no man can lead his people except the man who is crushed by its sins.

He then quotes from Carl Rogers, who writes:

[W]hat is most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others. This has helped me to understand artists and poets who have dared to express the unique in themselves.

I tend to forget about my wounds, and move on to what I consider bigger things, while losing the memory of where I once was. I think this is one of the reasons you see the pattern in the Bible of telling stories over and over. It is to remind the person of where they came from, what God did in his or her life, and who he or she once was. God commanded the children of Israel to remember:

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. (Duet. 5:15, see 7:18, 8:2, 8:18, 15:15, 16:12, 24:18, 24:22)

My favorite scene in The Two Towers has Sam saying:

By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you.

Remember where you came from. Remember what He has done. Ministry to others depends on it!

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Is 53:5)