Day 30 Healing

Day 30 “I have heard your prayers, I have seen your tears. Behold I will heal you.” 2 Kings 20:5

It seems to me that there is a lot of healing that takes place on the Camino. Oh to be sure there’s a lot of pain too. There are blisters, and sunburn, tendinitis and knee pain, sore muscles and back aches to name a few. There is also the pain of saying goodbye to new friends made but with the hope of staying in touch.

But there is a lot of healing that takes place in the midst of the pain. People find hope in the midst of hopelessness. People find friendship where they had known loneliness. People find love where they had known hurt.

There is a lot of grace that happens because when people hurt they reach out to others in their pain and help others. It’s what Henri Nouwen described as The Wounded Healer. With words such as “Compassion is born when we discover in the center of our own existence not only that God is God and man is man, but also that our neighbor is really our fellow man.” People on the Camino don’t necessarily know this but they act this out.

Also i believe that healing takes place also in this way, “experience tells us that we can only love because we are born out of love, that we can only give because our life is a gift, and that we can only make others free because we are set free by Him whose heart is greater than ours. When we haven’t seen him yet you found the anchor places for our lives in our own center, we can be free to let others enter into the space created for them and allow them to dance their own dance, sing their own song and speak their own language without fear.” This is a grace and and a healing that is so needed in life not just on the Camino.

On the Camino you begin to let others in and you help and heal. You laugh, you cry, you begin the process of healing…it would be wonderful if we would do this more in day to day life…take care of each other more…