Does Time Heal All Wounds?

Does time really heal all wounds?

The jury may still be out on that one. But I do know this: when we love someone, that connection doesn’t simply disappear with time.

We may eventually learn to live with the loss. The sharpness of the grief may lessen. But underneath it all, there’s a kind of knowing that love has connected us – and that connection can’t simply be severed.

It’s easy to feel that connection when we’re thinking about someone we love.

It gets a lot harder when we’re dealing with someone we don’t like.

We can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to convince ourselves that we’re not like them. That they’re different. That they’re on the other side.

But if love connects us, then separation is something that pulls us apart.

Think about it on a personal level. There are parts of ourselves we don’t especially like. Maybe we wish we could get rid of them. But we can’t. They’re still part of us.

And the only way to update those parts is to acknowledge them – not pretend they don’t exist.

Maybe the same thing is true of our relationships with other people.

There may be people whose actions we reject, whose company we avoid, and whose behavior we find completely unacceptable. We can disagree with them. We can keep our distance. We can even hold them accountable.

But we don’t have to hate them.

Because hatred keeps the wound open.

There’s an old saying, “There is no I in team.” But maybe there’s another one that haters use:

There is no me in them.

“Us” and “them” might work during a basketball game. That’s part of the competition. But when the final horn sounds, we shake hands with the people who just spent the last hour trying to beat us into the dust.

Why?

Because underneath the competition, there’s still a connection.

And maybe life works the same way.

We’re going to be tested by people. We’re going to disagree with people. Some people will hurt us.

But there is no growth without being tested – and there is no healing while we’re holding on to hatred.

Rodney King once asked, “Can we all get along?”

Maybe the answer is no.

But perhaps we don’t have to get along with everyone to recognize that we’re all connected.

And maybe that recognition is where healing begins.

All the best,

John