Let me kiss it and make it all better…

As I watched my husband negotiate through a very challenging time this winter I was reminded very personally of a few realities. It is painful to watch someone we love struggle through a hard time—it just is. We want to soothe away their distress and calm their fear and worries, but we can’t kiss it and make it all better. We can offer support, reassurance and love but we don’t have the power to make the wound go away. And even if we did, the life lessons to be gained from the challenges they face would be lost.

The old saying no pain, no gain is really very true. I know I’ve learned so much from working through the really hard realities of my own inner turmoil’s. To give that struggle to those we love by simply hearing of it however, takes courage. It is painful to stand along side someone and simply offer support and comfort. Much easier said than done—as is true of most things in life!

I’ve also been struck by how I missed realizing some of my husband’s really soft emotional spots. I just didn’t know. You’d think after being together seemingly forever, some thirty six years now, one would know just about everything doesn’t it?

I am reminded how little we do really see into the lives, the inner lives of those around us. We think we can know others so well and in truth it is just that: our own thoughts about what others lives are like.

We are all protective of those wounded parts that we all have inside and it takes courage and strength to reveal those tender parts to others around us. And yet, to do our work in healing those very wounds it is exactly that which we all need to do. No one gets through life without having wounds to heal—we are all very human and we can’t do our healing work all alone.

What wounds do you carry deep inside? Who can you entrust in your life to share your burden with?