The Body of Christ provides healing through the healing of her wounds. That's how the Great Physician worked.
"...and by his wounds we are healed." -Isaiah 53:5
The body of Christ is a community of wounded healers, all in different stages of their awareness of their own journey.
When I first came to the Rahab Society and to my first Unveiling Retreat in Moonshadow Lodge in the rolling hills of Tennessee, I was very wounded and sick. But I had no idea how deeply wounded and sick I truly was. My most successful charade was the one I pulled off with myself. I thought I was pretty solid based on my theological beliefs and the lifestyle I operated out of based on those beliefs. I'm a good example of practicing spiritual bypassing only to be caught off guard by a crises of my own making (of which I blamed others). That isn't to say others had no part in the crises, but my lack of self-awareness regarding my wounds became a blindspot I was no longer willing to live with - simply because I couldn't afford it.
My Ruth I had at the retreat back in fall of 2011 was the first woman I had confessed certain things to. It felt freeing. It was fairly low risk though. I could easily walk away from her and these women without loosing much. I wasn't dwelling in my neighborhood while I confessed things from my past. I was dwelling in theirs as a temporary visitor for only 2 days, then took my airplane back home, which was several states and a time-zone away. But God knew that's where He needed to meet me to start drawing me out.
I had met a woman there that kinda freaked me out. I was initially pretty intimidated by her. I stared at her feeling like she was me, uninhibited. She was me, if I only felt more comfortable in my own skin. I watched her closely, from a far.
She is the one I asked to be my Ruth after having a short conversation with her towards the very end of the retreat. She became my Ruth, who helped nurse me back to health...back to sanity.
As of today, I have been to 3 Unveiling Retreats, many Rahab meetings, have had hundreds of hours of contact with women, re-learning how to relate to them in very different and various ways of authenticity, some as a Ruth, some as my Ruth, and am in the process of building my own team (safe-group of women) and the view here is incredible. I have not arrived though, far from it.. that happens after death. I'm still alive, so I'm still in progress. But I can honestly say, that through the relationships and experiences I've encountered in the Rahab Society, which all began at my first Unveiling Retreat over a year ago, I am a whole lot healthier and more whole than I was. I still get infections and viruses, just like any other "healthy" person. And I'm still vulnerable to complete catastrophic wounds being inflicted, but I have gained ground being amongst the women in the Rahab Society that I didn't know I even needed. God has been in the midst.
I have other women I can go to for the medicine and nutrients my heart needs when the doses I'm learning to self-administer aren't quite enough or when I'm feeling too weak to self-administer. The antidote consists of truth and grace, coming from myself and others when I admit the need and allow it. I'm not as offended when I acknowledge the need, because this is how God designed it...the body of Christ, ministering to one another...showing the world His love through the body of Christ, which is made of up wounded healers, all in different stages of their own path towards authentic Christ-likeness, assisting others along theirs, one day at a time.
I am honored and thankful to be apart of this thing God is doing in the Rahab Society.
More to come later...maybe
