Look up at the sky and count the stars--if indeed you can count them.

He heals the brokenhearted

and binds up their wounds.

He determines the number of the stars;

He gives to all of them their names.

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;

His understanding is beyond measure. Psalm 147:3-5

Slowly I have learned that it is actually “holding” things in their seemingly unreconciled state that widens and deepens the soul. We must allow things to be only partly resolved, without perfect closure or explanation. Christians have not been taught how to live in hope. The ego always wants to settle the dust quickly and have answers right now. But Paul rightly says, “In hope we are saved, yet hope is not hope if its object is seen” (Romans 8:24). The virtue of hope widens and deepens our foundation.

Forgiveness becomes central to Jesus’ teaching, because to receive reality is always to “bear it,” to bear with reality for not meeting all of our needs. To accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is, almost day by day and sometimes even hour by hour. Such a practice creates patient and humble people.

Forgiveness reveals three goodnesses simultaneously. When we forgive, we choose the goodness of the other over their faults, we experience God’s goodness flowing through ourselves, and we also experience our own capacity for goodness in a way that almost surprises us. We are finally in touch with a much Higher Power, and we slowly learn how to draw upon this Infinite Source. –Richard Rohr

So as I was making yet another pot of espresso to fill the endless stream of dark shots that ripple through our day, I somehow got entangled with a boiling over pot and a too-thin and damp potholder and burned myself royal.

So I get to observe the healing up process up close and reality all day, every day: the bubbling blisters, the ooze, the myriad kindly suggestions, the reopening of rawness again and again every time I wash a few dishes or swing a cute grandchild up to my shoulders, crusty scabs, the squeezed tight pain in so many unintentional handshakes, slight inflammation that affects surrounding healthy tissue and of course, a lovely scar that will be a reminder the rest of my life.

The world is a wounded place.

Each one of us.

And we try to deal with the wounds with all sorts of stuff, all sorts of man-made ointments, cover up bandages, and plans about what to and not to do.

But cha know? As I watch this wound on my hand do its thing, I am so totally aware that it is He who is doing it. Hands are amazing. I remember once, bouncing along in the back of a pick up truck on a dirty dusty road in Mexico, holding up my hand to someone who asked me why I believed in a God. I held up my hand, and said something along the lines of… every single day, my hand is right here in front of me so crazy powerful and inexplicable and amazing that it is harder for me to believe in random chance than a blazingly almighty Creator.

He who determines the number of the stars and gives them names, each of them, is the Healer, the only Way.

And He knows each of our names as well.

And it is a messy process. As much as I would like a presto cure, it is not going to happen.

And it doesn’t diminish His power and glory. The Healing is still awe-inspiring. Just not on Me, Myself and I’s neat and tidy schedule.

His understanding is beyond measure.

And if we are really in a place of repentance, broken and open before Him, it is totally not about the wrongs done to us by the wounded other, but only about by His wounds we have been healed.

It is He, not we ourselves, lest anyone of us should boast.

Create in me a clean heart, O God. And renew, day by day and sometimes even hour by hour, a right spirit within me.