Your Wounds Are Sad to Behold, But...

There is a line in the novel and movie, “Jane Eyre,” by Charlotte Bronte, which is so exceptionally poignant, in which the heroine of the story, Jane, a governess, addresses her master, Mr. Rochester, after he has been badly burned in a house fire.

“Mr. Rochester, your wounds are sad to behold, but you ARE NOT your wounds.”

That is, our wounds ought not characterize us, or speak for who we are. Granted, they inflict and scar us, but they should not define us.

Amy Carmichael wrote one of my favorite poems of all time, and it speaks of the inevitability, and even benefit of suffering.

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?

None of us are going to get out of here alive, and none of us will get out of here without some degree of pain and suffering. God give us the ability to endure and take away some benefit from the not so rare experiences which come our way.

 

By William McDonald, PhD. "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 1