Our wounds are not meant for death, but for life

​I did a lot of walking last week. Walking where the world meets the ocean. Because when I walk there, they do feel like very different things - the world and the ocean.

The world feels like me. The ocean feels like God.

There is a peace there. As if the ocean takes hold of my burdens and washes them away from me. Almost as if that is the ocean's job.

But then I walk away. And in time discover nothing has been washed away at all. It was simply a respite.

Or maybe a reminder, of sorts.

When I got home last night, I was listening to the story of Jesus showing his disciples his wounds shortly after he rose from the dead. Partly to prove to them - this is me. I am the one who was nailed to a cross.

I don't think it had ever occurred to me before when hearing that story - when Jesus rose from the dead, he chose to bring his wounds with him. A God who can rise from the dead is a God who can choose to leave his scars in the grave.

But he didn't.

Why?

When the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost, Jesus directed them to his scars. He said to them, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself."

Jesus could have found a thousand ways to prove that he was who he was claiming to be. He chose one way - his wounds.

I reflected on that last night, now far from where the ocean begins. The burdens washed away now swept back upon me. What if burdens aren't meant to be washed away? What if they are simply meant to be washed?

What if they are meant to be clearly seen for what they are - a part of our story. Not meant for the grave at all, but for life. What if they are meant to hold up and declare as proof - 'it is I myself.'

Maybe we don't go to the ocean to lose but to find.

To find proof.

And truth.

That our wounds aren't meant for a grave, they are meant for new life.

And maybe that new life is found in the ocean. Not the ocean we walk along, but the ocean we bring with us when we walk away.

I encourage you, maybe bring the ocean with you this week. Don't bury yourself beneath your wounds. Don't let anyone else bury you there. Hold them up.

Hold them up and proclaim, it is I myself.