Living the steady course of a story that heals

​There are so many stories out there. Prevalent among them are stories of people who are wounding and stories of people who have been wounded.

Often, it's the wounded stories writing the wounding stories.

This week, I experienced an overflow of the other kind of story. The stories of people in the midst of those wounds who are committed to staying the steady course of living stories that heal.

As part of my job, I got to visit five different communities in southern and southwest Virginia this week. Visit after visit I heard stories of people working in communities full of brokenness. Yet, the people doing the work in these communities, they were far from defeated.

They were all doubling down on hope and healing.

There are days my life feels heavy. I feel like I live in the world of the wounded. My job is to help people better understand their wounds. To better understand the wounders. All with a desire to build empathy and compassion.

In the middle of that work, I often hear heavy stories. I often wrestle with my own heavy story.

Like I said, it can all get to feeling very heavy.

So what a gift it is to be reminded that there is a steady flow of hope pouring into our wounded communities out there.

Yesterday, a community told me how they started an initiative to bring the aging population together. (Side note, in this conversation, I discovered that by definition I AM the aging population 😮).

This community had identified that their aging population is often lonely and isolated. They have no one to bond with. No one from whom to seek healing, if they even know what healing is.

By bringing them together, and in the conversations that happened in togetherness, it was discovered one older man was living in a house overrun with bugs. Another older lady was living with very little to wear.

In response to those discoveries both situations were quickly healed, thanks largely to a loving response by the extended community.

It struck me after each of these visits, where I heard many stories like this one, we all have a choice, really.

Do I live out stories of healing or not?

It struck me that we never have any idea where a healing story might go when we live with the intent to heal. One moment we're bringing people together, the next moment we're giving a man his first night of sleep without bed bugs in months or maybe years.

Healing doesn't start with a healing outcome in mind. Healing starts with a commitment to go through the world with a healing heart.

We often have no idea who or what needs healed. Healing ideas don't often make the discovery, it's usually a curious and healing heart that does.

Yes, we are overwhelmed with wounds. There is no shortage of the wounded and the wounders. I'd like to remind us, though, there is also NO shortage of healers.

Thank you, God. They are everywhere.

And it's one of the most beautiful things about this circle of life. In an instant, our healing stories can turn a wounder into a healer in just one single experience of healing.

I pray this morning with Mr. McLaren, "that our lives would not be sucked into the stories that wound, but that we would live on a steady course of a story that heals."