Healing out of Hurt

Be grateful for your sins...they are carriers of grace.

~ Anthony de Mello, S.J.

Low self-esteem and glass-half-empty thinking runs in my family, as in so many, and I have been struggling with it my whole life.  Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.  The past couple months, thanks to the inclement weather, my impending graduation, and other factors, I seem to be losing this struggle more often than winning.  I can be hindered by self doubt when I am challenged to grow and move forward, and sometimes lose sight of my own goodness.  In those dark moments I sometimes feel alone, though I am surrounded by goodness and by good people who love me.  

Thankfully, amid these difficult feelings, I have found great consolation not only in my loving wife Joy as well as family and friends, but in a "holy conversation" I had today with the ever-affirming and wonderful Terry Devino, S.J. at BC.  In our conversation, I was reminded of the potential value of suffering, of how one's pain can be a source of grace for others.  For my part I think my pain has given me depth, made me more sensitive to the sufferings of others, and motivated me to affirm others.  For instance, I find meaning in telling others they are awesome precisely because I know what it's like to feel anything but awesome.  I want to help them dwell in their own goodness because I know how it feels to doubt or deny that goodness.  And I feel like I "get it" when others share their sufferings with me.  In a word, these experiences of "wounded healing" (to borrow from Henri Nouwen) have shown me that healing can come from suffering, and that my own healing is bound up with that of others. 

We all hurt in some way.  We all suffer somehow.  Some hide it better than others, but that does not change this human fact.  The only question is how to deal with it.  Do we curse it or use it?   Do we let it kill us, or move us to give life to others?  Do we let it imprison us in self, or do we let it impel us outward?  This is rarely a simple choice to make, and for my own part I very often choose wrongly.  Indeed, it is much more easily said than done, yet the more often we can choose the upside of the downside and find redemptive meaning and power in suffering, the better life is for ourselves and others.  

REM is right: "everybody hurts sometime," and therefore, everybody can heal sometime, too.  Here's hoping we make that choice more frequently in this world of hurt that can sure use our healing.