It is a parking lot of a Safeway grocery store. It is the
image of the face of a college dropout and the barrel of a gun etched into her
mind. It is an event that occurred more than 2 years ago, despite the fact that
her body and mind feel as if it happened just last week. Through slowed speech
and holding her paralyzed arm, former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle
Giffords visited the spot in Tucson Arizona this week where she was shot by
Jared Loughner during the delivery of a Congress outreach speech in 2011.
The moment, captured by news outlets around the world, was
part of an effort to raise awareness about the need for new laws surrounding
gun control. But it was alsoan opportunity to reflect on the fact that
there is often a need for us to return to the place of our wounding.
In Wild at Heart John
Eldredge reminded his readers that God frequently “wounds us in our wounds.” At first glance the thought was offensive to
me, out of step with the God I had come to know over the years. But the longer I have walked with him in this
journey, the more the statement holds to be true. To put it another way, a
counselor once told me that in her journey of faith God has often “brought her
back by the same campfires.” Her point was that as an act of ultimate grace,
God frequently leads us to the places of unfinished business until we are
willing to finally sit for a spell by the flames and deal with it.
Undoubtedly, Giffords reflects often on that cold day in
January that changed the rest of her life. The day a crazed young man stepped
from a crowd and tried to kill her. But I would be willing to bet also that
there is no place that helps her, even forces her, to deal with the tragedy
like that parking lot in Tucson where the tragedy occurred. Ground zero.
And so it is for all of us who tare traveling with God; we
need to return frequently to the place we are wounded in order to heal. Like a real life portrayal of Bill Muarray's Groundhog Day, someone
with fears of being abandoned will often be left alone. A woman who fears being
unattractive will lose her beauty in the eyes of the lovers she chases. Those
looking for approval will be outcasts. Those desperate for success will be
overlooked for promotions. The same wound continues to rear its head over and over again in our lives until we stop our repeatedly failed attempts to heal ourselves. And honestly, could it really be any other way if God truly loved you?
As the wounded healer he alone is the one who can offer the
sort of ultimate and final healing our broken lives are searching for. When our story crosses paths with some familiar pain and we once again turn to idols made of wood or
stone for salvation, God graciously turns us back to those same wounds until we get it right.
“I alone” he says, “Only I can heal you.”
God is incredibly patient. If you find yourself in a familiar parking lot today, it could be that it is perhaps time to sit by the fire for a while until the work is complete. However, rest assured that if you choose not to this time around, it is just a matter of time until your Father leads you back to the same place. He simply loves you too much to leave you as you are.
