During college, I first encountered The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen. My program director — Dr. Carl Strutt — put it on the reading list for one of his classes. At the time, I didn’t fully connect with it. Despite my relative poverty growing up in a broken family, I didn’t really understand “wounded-ness” per se. Other than the death of my grandfather when I was in Grade 3, I had never experienced anything that “grieved” me. But as the years went by, I found myself returning to the ideas in Nouwen’s book, especially as I experienced struggles of my own and walked alongside others in theirs. I began to understand the power in acknowledging our own pain and the way it allows us to empathize deeply with those who are hurting. Now, I have come to appreciate The Wounded Healer as a valuable perspective on how God’s love works through us, especially in our weaknesses.

In his account of Jesus’ suffering, John shows us how Christ embodied this idea of the wounded healer in its fullest form. Jesus wasn’t only a wounded healer; He became the very suffering that would ultimately redeem. On the cross, bearing the agony of the physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds inflicted on Him, He extended Himself entirely to meet our deepest needs for healing. The wounds of Christ were no minor affliction; they were wounds that reached to the depths of His being, and by them, we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus took on the ultimate brokenness to bring us wholeness.

In Nouwen’s language, we might say that Jesus embraced the full weight of human suffering, making His brokenness a bridge of healing for us. Just as Jesus bore the punishment we deserved, we can follow Him by recognizing that our own wounds, while painful, can also be avenues of compassion. Instead of masking our brokenness, we can choose to allow God to work through it to reach others.

So if today finds you carrying wounds — whether from past hurts, recent disappointments, or anything in between — consider how God might be inviting you to use those places of pain to bring comfort to others. Christ took on wounds for us, and He invites us to participate in His ministry by reaching out to others, not in spite of our wounds, but through them.