As some of you already know, I had my own bout with Covid last week. I felt miserable for a full two days, and I am still sleeping more than usual. Even in this double-vaccinated-boosted-45-year-old body, healing takes time.
In our fast-paced, instant-gratification, microwavable society, I don’t like this reality. But if I resist it, if I try to push through, to rush back to “normal”, I will thwart the healing process. I have to deliberately slow down and rest in order to heal.
I think back to those words of St. Paul, “Love is patient.” And I think of the embodied life of Jesus, who reflects the truth of those words in his day-to-day ministry. When Jesus walked this earth, he walked at approximately three miles per hour, with frequent interruptions.
Love moves slowly. Healing takes time.
So for those of us who are hurting in all sorts of ways right now—whether recovering from sickness or injury, or aware of emotional or spiritual wounds that still pierce us with grief or smother us with rage or drown us with loneliness—I’m hoping we can choose rest and slowness and waiting. I’m hoping that we can settle into the deep and wide and endless, steadfast love of God who holds all our aches and soothes all our wounds and gently tends to our bodies and souls like a mother with a child in the middle of a feverish night.
I am praying—for myself, for you—that this slowness might be a gift. A reminder that we don’t have to rush, but rather to receive. That we don’t have to work, but rather to wait. That we don’t have to labor, but rather are invited to linger in love. Instead of fighting the slowness, may we receive it as a reminder that God cares enough about us to give whatever time it takes in order for us to heal.
More with Amy Julia:
- Time to Heal
- My Recurrent Problem With Time
- TIME: How Disability Changed What Easter Means to My Family
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