By Susan Miller Setiawan, associate professor of nursing
Scripture: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 (NRSV)
Time and again, as a health care professional and a nursing educator, I have observed that deep healing is rarely a quick or linear process. The patient with COVID-19 appears to make an initial recovery, only to be admitted to the ICU a few days later with respiratory distress. The child recovering from surgery begins to resume activity, but is sidelined by inflammation at the wound site. It’s true on an aggregate level as well: communities begin the process of healing after a tragedy, only to feel the wound reopened weeks, months, or even years down the road.
Three steps forward. Two steps back. Deep healing is slow.
We wish this wasn’t so. If only healing – and life itself – had an easy answer or an easy fix. I’ve certainly spun my wheels looking for the perfect algorithm to life: do this, and you will “get over” this wound; do that, and you will find the results you wish for.
But the truth of this world is that whether it is – our body, our mind or our spirit – healing is often both deep and slow, and there is no perfect algorithm. It takes time and energy, even when we wish that the whole process would hurry up a little.
This human condition of wounds and healing is where God meets us and walks with us. Look, says the Psalmist in today’s scripture, “they drew near to the gates of death… and (the Lord) saved them from their distress.” And in Ephesians we are reassured that “we are what (God) has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”
This past fall, our small church practiced the body prayer of Julian of Norwich. Through four words and four gestures, it felt as if slow and deep healing was being embodied. We awaited, trusting that God will be with us. We allowed God’s presence to be made known to us however God chooses. We accepted our experiences of the presence of God. And we attended to what God gives us to do. The words and gestures are:
Await (hands cupped, waist-high)
Allow (hand move out and up, ending overhead)
Accept (hands come down to be placed over the heart)
Attend (hands at waist level, palms up, move outward and apart)
This lent, let us be assured of God’s presence as await, allow, accept and attend to God’s deep healing.
Scripture: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 (NRSV)
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.
2Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble
3and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.
17Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured affliction;
18they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.
19Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress;
20he sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction.
21Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.
22And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.