When Woundedness Stands in the Way of Love

I am beginning to see that my wife is able to love more than I do. That, I believe, is true spiritual maturity.

Perhaps this is also part of the feminine genius: the ability to love not merely as a response to what is given, but to continue giving oneself for the sake of the good of the other. I see this in the way a mother continues to make herself available to a rebellious child, even when there is little or nothing in return. I have seen my wife do this with our adolescent children too.

I struggle with this. When my children rebel, ignore my words, or show me no respect, I find it difficult to respond with charity. I now realise that my woundedness has often stood in the way of my maturing in love.

Perhaps, in His wisdom and love, God allowed me to go through this dark night—a period of abandonment, addiction and purposelessness—so that He could gently expose the places within me that had become twisted and needed careful healing.

In my woundedness, my neurological responses would instinctively try to protect and defend me whenever I perceived an attack on my dignity or value. A word, a gaze or even a gesture could signal to me that I was being belittled or made to feel insignificant.

When I experienced something she said or did as rejecting—sometimes even a clear difference of opinion—I could feel deeply wounded. And that wound did not simply disappear when the moment passed.

Even when she later came back and asked me to come and eat dinner, instead of receiving that gesture of care, I might burst out, “I don’t want a cook.”

What was happening within me was much deeper than the words I spoke. I was still reacting to the earlier experience of rejection. What I really wanted was someone who understood me, who would sit beside me and care for my brokenness. Without realising it, I was placing upon her the impossible burden of being the healing balm for my wounded self. Yet I knew, deep down, that this was something only God could do.

What I needed was not to control the situation or demand that another person heal what was broken in me. I needed to allow Grace to do its work—to be freed from the bitterness that kept pushing me deeper into abandonment.

My wife’s generosity and faithful love became a mirror. They reflected back to me my own inner brokenness and poverty. Instead of receiving that revelation with humility and allowing God to heal me, my lack of inner security and freedom often made me hold on to the hurt and try to resolve it myself.

And that is where I would fall into empty, useless pleasure-seeking acts. They temporarily distracted me from the pain, but ultimately left me feeling even more worthless and guilty.

I am beginning to understand my addiction differently. It was my ego-centric, selfish attempt to resolve the abandonment I felt within. I was trying to numb the pain of rejection, divert my attention from it, and protect myself from what I was experiencing.

But it was never a true attempt at healing. It only temporarily protected me from the wound and hid it from my awareness.

Then the pattern would return.

My conscience had become extremely alert to anything that could signal rejection—a word, a gesture, a look, a tone. Even something insignificant could feel like another confirmation that I was unwanted or unvalued.

As we say in Malayalam, “monganirunna moongayude thalel thenga veenapole”—like a coconut falling on the head of an owl that was already about to cry. When we are already wounded and expecting rejection, even a small incident can feel like confirmation that we are being rejected again. The wound makes us anticipate another wound, and every new experience seems to confirm what we already fear.

And perhaps this is where my healing truly begins: in focused prayer, where I consciously enter into the presence of Jesus and allow myself to remain there with the very poverty I feel within me.

Not trying to overcome it by myself. Not trying to prove my worth. Not trying to make another person fill what feels empty in me. Simply bringing that poverty before Him and allowing Him to speak the truth that I so easily forget: I am loved.

In those moments, I am beginning to realise that my identity has never actually changed. From the beginning, I have remained a beloved child of God. The rejection I felt, the insecurity, the shame, the disconnectedness—all of these came later. They are not my identity.

Perhaps much of this is the baggage of wounded humanity—the disorder that entered human experience through that original separation from God. We inherited a humanity no longer living in the original harmony for which we were created: a humanity that doubts love, hides from God, protects itself, seeks its worth elsewhere, and struggles to trust that it is truly loved.

Prayer, then, is not merely asking God to take away my pain. It is allowing Jesus to enter into the very place where I feel most poor and abandoned and to remain there with me until I can believe again what has always been true.

I am loved. I have always been loved. My wound did not change my identity. My sin did not erase it. My brokenness did not make me less worthy of love.

And perhaps healing is, in part, the slow recovery of this truth—not merely knowing it intellectually, but allowing it to descend into the deepest places of my woundedness until I can live from it.

This dark night I am going through is painful and deeply uncomfortable. But I am beginning to see it as something like a necessary precision surgery.

God is gently exposing what is wounded, twisted and disordered—not to condemn me, but to heal me.

And like any serious surgery, this divine intervention requires patience and a long recovery. I cannot rush the healing. I cannot perform the surgery on myself. I can only surrender, cooperate with Grace, and allow God to do in me what I have never been able to do for myself.

Lord, be it unto me according to Thy will.