A few weeks ago men I called my allies and friends did something that caught me by complete surprise. It wasn’t so much what they did but how they chose to do it that really surprised me.
As I have meditated with Dad on the event I have come to understand that their actions touched a deep part of me that was wounded severely as a child and continued to be trampled upon over the years until the day I allowed Dad to get a hold of this part of my heart. Actions like the ones these men chose to take in the past would have caused me to react in an adverse way and my initial instinct would have always been to retaliate in order to somehow hurt them back.
Yet this time something strange happened. As I sat down to answer their email I chose to respond, not react, by showing grace and love that clearly originated from a source deeper and bigger than I am. As I sat there typing I felt a transcendent peace and stillness within me that came I believe from knowing that in spite of what has just happened I was still loved and affirmed by God himself.
You see this painful wound today is a tender scar. Over time it has become a soft spot within me that through Dad’s healing hands it is able to now resist great pressure upon it because it is no longer a hard and stiff place but instead a flexible one. It is a space that is able to bounce back to whomever puts pressure on it, not with an intent to hurt as in days past, but with love and grace. It gives back the best available version today of Jesus and Pablo together as One.
For years I wondered why Dad didn’t heal the wounds of Christ altogether. Why did he leave those scars on his body? And why did Jesus asked Tomas to touch them? Today I realize that he did this for our sake. He did it so we too could find hope that if we have been deeply wounded we too can one day, before we die, be healed so that when others touch those places whether with good or bad intentions, like Jesus, we are able to cause on others the same response he caused on Tomas – to believe that God is real and that through this love of His He truly does make all things new…if we allow him to.
-pablo-
Photo by Unknown
