The beginning of June saw the second annual ‘Every Woman’s Hope Conference’ which was on the topic of wholeness which has had me thinking ever since what do we mean when we talk about being whole.
 
Often we talk about having a ‘gap’ in our lives.
 
I read often how losing a loved one feels like we have a ‘gap’, how the breakdown in a relationship leaves a ‘hole’ or even how injury from a sport can leave an athlete with a space that needs to be filled.
 
But what do we mean by wholeness?

What do we consider whole and how can we be whole when we are surrounded by so much brokenness.
 
Just a few weeks ago I encountered a lady who, for whatever reason, was of the option that my husband and I not having children was not a whole life. The words she used were of defeat, giving in, not having enough faith and not being whole if we did not have children.
The details of the rest of the conversation are not important as the underlying idea of what makes us whole.
 
She could not see that in (her conceived idea of) my brokenness of not being able to have children I could still be whole and live out a live fulfilled to God’s glory. After all, the bible never tells us that being childless is bad, wrong, broken or otherwise. Yes, there are stories where God allows ‘barren’ women to conceive but there is nothing ever mentioned about them being broken in this aspect of their life. It is purely a world view that you are somehow lacking if this is your lot.
 
The bible tells us ‘with God all things are possible’ (Matt 19:26) which I truly believe. God is greater than my imagination, my will, my desire and my ability to grasp what he is saying, to name but a few.
 
He is also able to make us whole in whatever brokenness.
 
The bible also talks about peace which passes all understanding. The kind of peace that in the midst of all the things life can throw at us we still feel. It makes no sense. It is not of this world. The world reaction is of fight or flight but God can give us the peace which we cannot understand.
 
If can give us that then the God of all possibilities can make us whole in our brokenness.
 
But what do I mean?
 
I mean that in our ‘broken’ bodies, however that might manifest, for me it is a combination of medication conditions that makes life hard and children impossible (medically at least) but in that I can still be whole in Christ.
 
I can still life a life that brings Glory to him.
 
I might not live a life that world thinks of as successful, as in a fulltime well paid job that allows me to own a big house, fast car and 3 holidays a year and 2.4 children, but the bible also tells me ‘Do not conform to the pattern of this world’ (Romans 12:2) and ‘Do not store up treasures on earth’ (Matt 6:19).
 
Our wholeness should not come from what the world tells us we need, how we should look, what we should strive to be, but from God.
 
A God who wanted to heal our broken world so much he sent his only Son to pay the price to bring us a different kind of wholeness. A wholeness that is another level of peace we can never ever understand.
 
We can be broken, the world can be broken, yet we are made whole in Christ.

This months article was written by Mrs Lydia Remick (Licensed Lay Minister)

 Genesis 32:22-32 | Acts 9:1-9 | John 20:19-23

We are now in the season of the resurrection (I'm not talking about  the Church calendar!). A post-Easter world, in which the curtain has been torn, the stone has been rolled away and the gates have been lifted. So why is it that we still live in a world that is so evidently broken by sin, and why are there still imperfections that have not been overcome by this awesome Gospel truth? 

I invite you to look at the three passages that I’ve suggested for reading. These for me sum up the paradox. Jacob meets with God, wrestles with him and comes away with a broken hip. Saul witnesses the resurrected Christ and comes away from it blinded by the experience. And Thomas, like Paul, encounters the resurrected Jesus and recognises him by his wounds. 

At Easter we are told of the new creation that is waiting for us, and with it a wholeness that only Jesus can bring. But salvation is not about being saved from the world, it is about being saved for the world, since we are called to follow the God who became humanity for the world. So how can we reconcile a world that is still at odds with itself, and with this Easter faith?

It shouldn’t surprise us that in our desire to follow Christ, whose ministry led directly to Calvary, we are likely to first experience a breach before we encounter healing. For Jacob, the injury to his hip from wrestling with God, was preparation for the healing and reconciliation he would later find with his brother, and with God. For Saul, the loss of sight was a counter to the healing and reconciliation he would later find for himself, without this, he would otherwise be held back by his history. And the passage from John’s gospel reminds us that Christ’s resurrected body still exhibited the scars of his crucifixion. Which might teach us that in our own resurrection, all that we have suffered will aid us in our partaking in Christ’s glory.

These passages teach us that ‘wholeness and healing’ in a Christlike sense is not the same as wholeness and healing in a worldly sense. Christ did not setup a trauma centre or an accident and emergency tent outside Jerusalem. Rather he met the reality of our brokenness by joining us in our brokenness. You’ll remember that he said “I am the resurrection and the life” after weeping over the death of Lazarus. You’ll remember that he sweated blood, whilst agonizing over his path to the cross. Christ’s way is not the easy way. 

So, does that mean we shouldn’t ask for healing in prayer for human ailments, does this mean we shouldn’t request cures for all that harms or deters us from life? No, of course not. Jesus healed the sick, and through his faith we can find wholeness despite being confronted by things that we would otherwise have no control over. But what these passages teach us is that God can still be found in the hurt, the pain, the injury and the ache. Leonard Cohen wrote: 
​                                                    
                                                    Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring, 
                                                    Forget your perfect offering
                                                   There is a crack in everything
                                                   That's how the light gets in.

​In the pain and the hurt of the world, in which we will all feel and share at some point in our lives, we pray that a new perspective of God is found, and our faith is made more real in the knowledge that Jesus suffered with us, and our prayer for wholeness might ultimately honour his suffering, and the suffering of the world he loves.   

May the life and blessing of this Easter season be with you. 
Revd Jeremy Putnam.