What we Owe the Wounded Healer

Doesn’t always apply, but so often it does. Those who, per Michael J Fox, live with the condition are the experts.

It was a topic of discussion on my lunch duty one day recently, “Why is it that counsellors and psychologists always seem to have had the most messed up of lives?” Well, I do know counsellors, psychologists, pastors, social workers, etc, who have not had messed up lives. Some of them are brilliant at what they do. But the majority of those who serve in the helping professions have had traumatic pasts from which they launch their ministry of service.

It reminds me of a trainee when I did my counselling studies who we’d gotten to know, who up and left at one point because it had dawned on her that she wasn’t ‘there’ yet. She couldn’t proceed and she knew it. So many of my compatriots in that year group had stuff they’d reconciled or were reconciling. I myself had a pivotal revelation that year; crucial for my actual ability to do pastoral work.

It’s like my two AA sponsors, one who guided me through The Steps, the other who took an interest in me, and pastored me back to the church and to Jesus; both from damaged hoods. And the pastor who had the vision to quickly put me into leadership so I could be around wiser men and women more often. And our marriage counsellor, who bore her own soul when it counted. Countless others who wore their brokenness and chose never again to deny it. What’s most transformational about the ministry of reconciliation is the honesty indwelt of a shared humanity.

I know I could not help those with depression without having had four bouts myself — two induced by grief.

I wouldn’t comprehend what helping someone with panic attacks would require if I’d not had at least seven salient experiences of having my momentary world implode.

I wouldn’t have any idea how to help someone whose identity has been ripped and torn in two by divorce if I hadn’t been divorced.

I couldn’t recoil with sympathy for a parent with a child with special needs had I not had my own.

Had I not been dashed against the rocks of my own rock bottom, I would not truly understand what it costs another to be smashed against their own.

Had I not experienced the guilt and shame of marital failure, I’d have no idea of the courage that’s forged for the simple fact that authenticity we gain as healing is God’s redeeming compensation. Incredibly, God glorifies us even as we glorify him.

And yet there are many experiences I haven’t had. But I’ve had enough gut-wrenching life experiences to serve me well in the area of care.

Oh, I praise the experience that wounded healers have. They can take another person into their healing having endured their own healing. They know it can be done. They know how it worked for them.

I’m not sure the wounded healer thinks we owe them anything — I’m sure they don’t. But how good is it that God actually uses this abysmal material for his glory. That is hope for the suffering, that they too will lead others through theirs, by the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Given time, God will use the pain you’re going through to help you lead others through theirs by the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and care. That’s not the purpose of you going through what you’re going through, but it’s a powerfully meaningful byproduct.