I am sure you have been wounded before. Being wounded is not something enjoyable, yet it happens to all of us. In most cases, it is unpredictable. But sometimes, it is predictable. In certain situations, you know you are likely to be wounded, yet you still continue doing what you are doing.
I am one of those fools.
During the recent snowstorm, I went outside to shovel snow. I could not find my good gloves, so I ventured out wearing plastic ones. I knew exactly what to expect when I returned inside—frozen hands! Please don’t try it. It hurts terribly. Ice burns are no joke.
As I placed my hands in warm water, I could not help but scold myself for being so foolish. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you? So why are you screaming now?” My wife laughed at me. At first, I was annoyed, but then I realized she was right. I had made a choice that led to my pain—why shouldn’t she laugh at my foolishness?
Yet it is tempting to assume that every wound is self-inflicted. This is a mistake we often make. When we see people in unfortunate situations, we are quick to assume they caused their own suffering. We do it with poverty as with illness—we blame people for their circumstances. In doing so, we wound them even further.
But God does not work that way.
Whether our wounds are self-inflicted or not, God is concerned first and foremost with healing us. God is like a compassionate nurse. How I injured myself matters less than the fact that I am wounded. What matters most is that I am healed. This is what makes God our healer. God heals our daily wounds, and God invites us to help heal one another.
In the Eastern Christian tradition, sin is understood as wounding oneself. When we sin, we inflict wounds upon ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly. This understanding allows us to enter Lent with new eyes. We begin to see that some wounds are self-inflicted, while others are not. Yet how the wound happened matters less to God than the healing itself.
All we need is healing—complete healing—for “by His wounds we are healed.”
May God heal us from all our wounds—those we caused, and those we did not—today and always.
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From the E-Crier of February 26, 2026. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter.