Vulnerability, Trust, and the Foundation of All Healing

(Phillip Goldsberry / Unsplash)

Healing is messy, uncomfortable, and at times excruciating. What I’ve discovered about the journey is that it’s even messier—and far more complicated—when healing is taking place with the person who did the wounding.

How can I trust again? How can I again give the precious gift of my vulnerability—a gift once so cruelly mocked and tossed aside—back to the one who did the betraying?

These are the questions I’ve grappled with, and the one thing I’ve learned is that there are no solid answers. On my own, I am weak. I can accomplish nothing. I am she who is not.

In a mystical vision Saint Catherine of Siena heard Jesus ask her, “Do you know, daughter, who you are and who I am? If you know these two things you have beatitude in your grasp. You are she who is not, and I Am He Who Is.”

(from The Life of Catherine of Siena, written by her confessor and friend, Fr. Raymond of Capua)

How would Jesus have reacted if, instead of giving up in despair and compounding his sin by committing suicide, Judas had fully repented and asked his Savior to welcome him back into the apostolic family? Since Jesus is God—Divine Mercy embodied—we know He would have forgiven. We see this in the stories of Peter’s betrayal of our Lord, as well as in the betrayal of Saul, who killed Christians yet later became the great apostle Paul.

But, in His humanity, would Jesus have felt vulnerable and unsafe trusting Judas again? Would He, too, have grappled with a swirling mix of emotion—wanting to trust and draw close, yet not able? Was His heart also shattered?

Jesus, fully human and fully divine, experienced human emotion. He knows every struggle and trauma, and that’s why He can walk this journey with me.

The betrayal of an intimate friend is devastating, the pain is excruciating.

Yet I’m ready to trust again. I’m ready to be vulnerable because I know that even if my vulnerability is misused, rejected or manipulated by others, I’ll be okay. I know this because I know my Lord, because He stepped into the void in my heart and poured His fragrance into my soul. And all it took was that first step, a little step on my part. I simply let Him (Song of Songs 1:2), and He came leaping and bounding toward me, eager to reach my heart (Song of Songs 2:8-9).

All I had to do was let Him touch me, to kiss me with His healing love.

Yet even that was difficult, even that felt vulnerable. I took baby steps—no, not even that. At first all I could do was hide, curled up within myself like a dove in the clefts of the rock (Song of Songs 2:14). Yet when my Bridegroom called, when He sang to me words of safety and comfort, I began to awaken.

To awaken, and to truly listen.

For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land.

(Song of Songs 2:12)

Recently I asked the person who had betrayed me how he had finally come to a place of healing, a place that enabled him to release the scales from his eyes and to see the truth of how damaging his actions had been. With soft tears in those now-clear eyes, he responded:

“Because now there’s no more denying God’s love for me, and there’s no more denying your love for me. Everything else just washes away. That’s what’s happening right now—finally. But I just need to keep myself in check. Like my coach says: ‘Check in with yourself, every day.’ And keep on doing it.”

That’s what it takes: Christ as the foundation of the healing journey. From head knowledge to heart knowledge, we must let the love of our Lord take full possession of our innermost selves. We must let Him fully enter. Then, once we do, we must take His hand, follow in his footsteps (Song of Songs 1:4), and allow His healing fragrance to wash everything else away.

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If you’re interested in seeking Christ-centered healing, I highly recommend the retreats, workshops, courses, and community at Hope’s Garden — a sanctuary in which the spousal love of Christ the Bridegroom heals hearts, marriages and families.