The Grace and the Wound . . .

Once there was a wound

It was no ordinary wound

It was my wound

We had lived together long.

 

I yearned to be free of this wound

I wanted the bleeding to stop

Yet if the truth be known

I felt a strange kind of gratitude

          for this wound.

 

It had made me

tremendously open to grace

vulnerable to God’s mercy.

 

A beautiful believing in me

          that I have named Faith

kept growing, daring me

to reach for what I could not see.

This wound had made me open.

I was ready for grace

And so one day, I reached.

 

There I was thick in the crowd

          Bleeding and believing

and I reached.

 

 At first I reached for what I could see

the fringe of a garment.

 But my reaching didn’t stop there

for Someone reached back into

me.

A grace I couldn’t see

flowed through me.

 A power I didn’t understand

began to fill the depths of me.

 Trembling I was called forth

to claim my wholeness.

The bleeding had left me.

The believing remained

And strange as this may sound

I have never lost my gratitude

for the wound

that made me so open

to grace.

Bleeding and Believing by Macrina Wiederkehr (Seasons of Your Heart)

https://macrinawiederkehr.com/

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062721.cfm