As we pay attention to pain and ask for help, we are already taking the third step toward healing. The third step is to, in Father Gregory Boyle’s words, “surrender to healing.”
I recently read a book called The Whole Language by Father Gregory Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries out in Los Angeles, California. Homeboy Industries is an organization that welcomes gang members—“homies”—into a job, and that also offers therapy and tattoo removal and all sorts of other supports for young men and women who want to get off the streets. Boyle writes, “We never say to the homies, ‘We believe you can change,’ but rather, ‘We know you can heal.’” Boyle goes on to say that the only requirement for them to participate is that they surrender to their own healing.
The same is true for us. As we pay attention to pain and ask for help, we are surrendering to healing. We are surrendering to love.
Let go of thinking your pain isn’t important enough or is too big. Let go of thinking you can’t be changed. Let go of the pride that keeps you from asking for help. Let go of the shame that thinks you aren’t worthy of healing.
Like the blind man, we can pay attention to our pain, ask for help, and surrender to the healing God wants to give us.
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