Wounded Healers

We started this blog almost two years ago. We had no idea what we were doing. One of my best friends told me we could help a lot of people find healing by talking about ours. So our journey began.

I read this quote from Brennan Manning last night that brought tears to my eyes:

Christians who remain in hiding continue to live the lie. We deny the reality of our sin. In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others. We cling to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with the past when what we should do is let it go. As Dietrich Bonhoffer said, “guilt is an idol.” But when we dare to live as forgiven men and women, we join the wounded healers and draw closer to Jesus.

That is the heartbeat of RefineUs. The story of two wounded healers overcoming fear and shame to bring light into the dark parts of our heart, and hopefully inspiring you to do the same.

For many of us the church hasn’t been the place we have gone for healing, but rather a place to conceal our wounds. We live with guilt as our identity instead of forgiveness. We’ve learned that living the lie is a lot more acceptable than coming out of hiding.

I don’t know where you are in your life today. Maybe you have realized that you can’t erase your past, so maybe you can outrun it…but you are tired and worn out. Maybe your life is filled with fear and shame and you can’t see past your own guilt to even begin to embrace the love of Christ. Maybe you have tried so hard to hide your woundedness that you’ve lost your belief that healing is possible.

Welcome. Welcome to this community.

This is a community of wounded healers. We are mess-ups and failures. We have lied and cheated and envied and hated.

But guilt is not our idol.

Shame does not define us.

Darkness doesn’t have the last word.

Redemption is our story.

Together we are drawing closer to Jesus.