One January morning I woke as I had every other morning that January, only this time I could not remember how to make my limbs move. I lay in bed watching the clock creep closer to the time I needed to get up. I tried to remember how I’d done it in the past; it had always seemed so simple. Maybe if I spoke to my body: “Arm, move!” That wasn’t it.
Somehow, I knew it wasn’t physical paralysis. And it wasn’t that I was unusually depressed or tired—I felt that way on days I did get out of bed. But whatever had previously connected my body to my brain seemed to have gone on strike, and I didn’t know its terms.
I watched the clock pass the start of class, imagined my peers gathering in the lecture hall, then dispersing to the café or chapel. I decided to try for my second class, with the same results; I was still in bed when my classmates headed home that afternoon, and I stayed there for two days.
I don’t remember much of those days. I remember sleeping and waking, and the faded blue quilt, and being face down in my pillow, and the clock holding vigil over me, reminding me what I ought to be doing. I remember I didn’t have the slightest clue what to do about it.
My friends Tim and Claire came over the first evening, and I managed to get up and sit on the red plaid couch with them, one on either side, while we read for class—we were in grad school, and there was always a mountain of reading. Their presences, warm and comforting, were exactly what I needed. I am still deeply grateful for the friends who will come and sit, happy just to be there with me.
Now, I understand this: it was time to tend some old things I had never dealt with, and my body was informing me it wasn’t going anywhere else until I did. Period.
At some point during those sluggish, confusing days, Jesus appeared.
In my mind, I saw him lying in the bed next to me. Only it wasn’t the Jesus I’d always pictured—the one shining in heaven or strolling about on earth with his disciples, with rosy cheeks and windswept hair. This was crucifixion-Jesus: covered in wounds, bleeding everywhere, as gross as you imagine. I’d never considered this Jesus before, not having spent much time around crucifixes. He didn’t say anything or even look at me; he was just lying next to me, hurting. I felt guilty for the state I was in, but when I saw him, I knew he wasn’t judging me. The wounds he bore on his outsides matched the ones I carried on my insides. My not being able to see them didn’t mean they weren’t very real.
The vision wasn’t repulsive or frightening; it was immediately comforting. Jesus wasn’t trying to heal me. He wasn’t telling me how my wounds got there or what to do about them. He just lay there beside me, bleeding, knowing what it feels like to hurt an awful lot. Knowing what it’s like to have horrifying things done to you, and to feel utterly alone. What I needed most wasn’t for Jesus to come and fix it. I needed someone to see me and identify with me and acknowledge the pain.
Jesus knows about wounds. They are part of what it is to be human. If he didn’t escape them, there’s not much hope for us. He isn’t judging you for yours, and he maybe isn’t even trying to heal them. It’s possible he’s just sitting next to you, like my friends on the couch, just glad to be there with you.