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In the early hours of the morning in the emergency department of the hospital, I was shivering with shock. But when the hot and heavy plaster was gently molded around my broken wrist, I relaxed.
Ah—I was safe in my protective casing. How grateful I was in the ensuing weeks, to have the broken bone immobilized and protected!
However, I eventually tired of my heavy shell. My hand was swollen and confined and longed to break free.
Finally, the day arrived, and the cast was cut off. My hand was mine again—free—but feeling very vulnerable.
In the following days, I almost wished to have my cast back. I still cradled my left wrist, wanting to protect it from use and hurt. But I knew that to be healed, I would have to suffer pain and vulnerability. And do my exercises!
Why am I giving you this blow-by-blow account of my healing process? Because it’s a perfect analogy of the journey to inner healing that we all must embrace.
In childhood, we don protective masks: sometimes it’s a matter of survival, other times a coping mechanism. At first, these measures are brilliant, but they eventually become constraining and sometimes destructive.
Unless we meet each other in transparency, there can be no authentic exchange of love. And the self begins to die.
The solution? Allow the hard crust to be cut open, exposing the vulnerable heart. This means being honest about our feelings and beliefs. It means accepting our limitations and weaknesses and not pretending to be other than we are. It means standing before God and allowing him to reveal our identity and worth, so that nothing can unmoor us.
It means admitting when we are in the wrong and asking for forgiveness … taking a risk to reach out to someone in need … being fully alive to the present moment and not living in the past or future.
Over and over again, we’re tempted to pull the shell back on, to be safe and hidden. But our deepest longing is to know and be known, to love and be loved. And that exchange can only take place in truth and authenticity.
So how can we find our way in this human and holy journey? Who could be a surer guide and protector than Jesus? He was born and died in naked vulnerability: first as a new born babe, enwrapped in swaddling bands, and then dying naked, pinned to a cross.
In his humanity, he loved without limits or barriers, but he shared in every last bit of weakness, temptation, fear and suffering that we experience.
Who better then, to gently peel away our plaster, to surround us with his protective shield of grace, to teach us how to truly love?
This new way often feels risky, uncomfortable, and sometimes downright painful. But with each decision to stand in truth and vulnerability, fear of rejection is melted by acceptance, weakness becomes an occasion of solidarity, loneliness gives way to communion. Our hearts gradually become transparent with radiant love.
Worth the risk?
