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Touching our Wounds
on approaching our pain instead of avoiding it
The answer some give for doubt is simply “to believe”. The solution for many when they see someone in pain is to tell them “but it is OK now”.
Easter eggs. New life. Growth. Flowers. The images of spring coincide with those of Easter, of resurrection, of new life where death was assumed. And in a strange twist, that empty tomb, this emptiness is the sign that life has returned.
Yet … there was still death.
There was still pain and suffering.
There remain injury and brokenness.
“But it is all OK now!” someone well-meaning might say. And there is certainly a way in which they may be right, but there is also the risk that this runs roughshod over a real grief over what has been lost, whether that was a person, an idea, or a shift in reality that signals that life on the other side of that loss will not be the same.
Yes, even if there is a way in which life is “OK” that does not mean that the hurt is not still there.
This Sunday is typically one where the readings in many churches focus on Doubting Thomas. If you are not familiar, Thomas was one of Jesus’s disciples. As the gospel writer…
