Accepting the wounded ones... wounds and all

Have you noticed how some people want  to fix everything and everybody? Sometimes you just want them to listen to your gripe of the day so you can get it out of the system, not for them to tell you how to solve the problem.

Amongst Christians this tendency to fix things/people can get spiritualised. Today I have had one of those encounters where acknowledging that I am still affected by my depression and other conditions led to the suggestion I should recieve prayer for healing.

Why do you think I need fixing? When I have been at my worst and in pain then yes, please pray for me in my pain, but I don't feel in need of fixing right now. Yes depression is still part of my life, but it is managed and although I have my moments my life is not generally impaired by it.  Removing something that has been part of my whole adult life would be like trying to take away part of my personality, part of what makes me who I am.

I realise that this is hard for you to understand, you care and want me to be free of trouble - but we don't live protected from the strains of life, we all have vulnerabilities.  Depression is one of mine, and I have come to accept myself as I am, your desire that I be fixed suggests that you don't accept me as I am, or that my vulnerability is somehow a failure. Does my ongoing situation challenge your neat faith that God brings us through all struggles so that we can sing of victory and joy, that bad times happen but get fixed. Sorry that this chipped plate is likely to stay chipped, it still works fine.

I know you would reach out in love to the wounded ones, offer love and care, but we need to be accepted wounds and all.  Even after his resurrection, with a changed and restored body, Jesus still had his wounds. He was not ashamed of them, and we should not be ashamed of ours either.

(Now I believe that God has an interest in our lives, and I believe that at times this can be expressed in ways that defy explanation (the definition of a miracle) but I also live with the tension that these times are rare and we are left wrestling with the question of suffering in this world. It may be neater to either deny that God can/will do anything personal or to believe that he will always intervene to fix things, if we can work out the right way to ask.  But the experience of people as I have observed it over the years doesn't allow for either of these, so the unknowing of the middle option is the only place left for me despite its discomfort.)