Just Put a Band-aid on It: How Wounds Heal
The inner and outer healing process after Katherine’s leg injury in November 2020
Despite saying for years that they wouldn’t put a bumper sticker on a Bentley, my sons recently got tattoos together. Knowing I would worry about the hygiene of the techniques used, the permanency of the choice, and the meaning of the design, they chose to surprise me. The family crest spreads across a forearm of the older and a thigh of the younger. After the boys endured a few days of swelling, redness, and mild pain, the images became background art instead of acute injuries. They are delighted with their choices, and I am still thrilled to be their mom.
Actually, I frequently find tattoos during the physical exams I do every Tuesday in an adolescent clinic. Sometimes the images are just flowers or abstract designs. Other times they are pop culture icons or the names of loved ones. Often when a patient shares their meaning, I get a lump in my throat.
Elijah’s exam is one I particularly recall. He greeted me with a broad smile and an open expression. I could see a block letter tattoo on his neck as I shook his hand but couldn’t decipher the words. Eagerly, he shared how he was going to study nursing after completing his high school requirements. This program was a new start, he said, a chance to better his opportunities.
As I spoke with Elijah about any past hospitalizations, he told me of two. One was for facial reconstruction. I glanced more closely at his face, amazed that I could see no trace of a scar. He grinned, saying he had an awesome surgeon. Why did he need reconstruction? I wondered. Elijah replied with two words—brass knuckle. Then he balled up his fist and put it over his left eye.
Talking on, Elijah said he was so fortunate to have full sight and a symmetrical face after his left orbital bones were fractured in a gang-related fight. He moved away from that crowd after his surgeries, but his hospitalizations weren’t over. When he started seeing and hearing things that others didn’t and became frightened of going anywhere in public, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Another month of his life was spent in a medical ward, and now he was left with a problem that couldn’t be fixed in an operating room. His medicines helped him feel functional again, but he said he still saw and heard things. He had learned, so far anyway, to cope with them as background noise.
Elijah’s physical body seemed to be in great shape. He was slender with a muscular frame; I checked all the boxes “Normal” on the physical form. At the conclusion of the visit, I asked Elijah what the tattoo on his neck said.
“Resilient,” he replied.
As a physician, I’m an expert on the bodies I encounter in the exam room. But even there, I’m often struck by how ill-equipped I am to remedy life’s complex wounds, like the distressing emotional ones suffered by Elijah.
Just like the human body that I know so well from medical training, the corporate bodies I inhabit—whether my church, my family, or my workplace—are sometimes healthy and sometimes injured. We all want our collective bodies to stay well, but many times those wounds also appear too complicated to heal.
Family strains, workplace stress, church policy disagreements, and world politics have all taken a toll on my well-being. And the problem isn’t just “them”—it is me as well. How do I respond as my authentic self in times of stress, crisis, and deep hurt? When should I let go of a conflict and when should I hang on, pushing for a better resolution? Am I hurting or helping? These problems are harder for me to solve than most of my pediatric cases.
Our physical bodies are designed to heal, even when faced with extraordinary circumstances. Our healing tendencies are integrated into every system of the body, responsive down to the most basic microcellular level.
As humans, we will all experience hurt; indeed, woundedness is part of what it means to be alive. But due to the amazing design of our bodies, our injuries don’t have to have the last word. Repair, restoration, and even regeneration are built into our very cells.
In fact, the actual healing process is complex, involving distinct stages and many cell types that contribute to the overall work in an orderly, patient progression.
What if our corporate bodies were oriented to healing the way our physical bodies are? People of Abrahamic faiths see our bodies as made in the image of God. That image can extend down to the holistic engagement of our microcellular properties toward restoration and renewal. Likewise, Christians call ourselves the body of Christ. That term is a collective one—literally, a corporate one—encompassing all of us in a mysterious unbreakable bond of unity in diversity. And so we may draw on the analogy between the human body’s natural wound-healing system and the ways we can mirror those processes as we strive to heal communal wounds, whether in the church, the family, the workplace, or the wider community.
This fresh portrayal of how we heal is written from the context of what C. S. Lewis termed mere Christianity. It is grounded in traditional understandings of faith with a generosity toward interpretations of doctrine and expression.
As our physical healing depends upon a diverse array of actors, so this representation acknowledges the helpful roles of a variety of healers, including some outside the confines of the church or faith communities.
Let’s look a little closer at wound healing, whether of a tattoo or a major trauma. We all know at least a bit of the science of wound healing just by our life experiences. Our knees get scraped and blood oozes out. Soon it is sticky and a bit darker red. We might put on a Band-Aid. Later, we look to see if a scab has formed, but so far there is some pink tissue at the edges and yellow gummy stuff in the middle. We put on a new bandage and wait a few days. By then there is a hard scab. We try to leave it alone until it unroofs to reveal bright pink, tender new skin. Later, we may have a faint scar if the wound was deep or if we kept annoying the scab. Those observations are the macro level stories of wound healing.
While it may seem wonderful enough that our body stops bleeding and makes a scab, seeing the world of wound healing at the micro level is more captivating than any Pixar film could portray. Through four separate stages, the wounds of our physical bodies are replaced by new structures—blood vessels, skin, and nerves—a truly transformational process. It is one of the most studied and highly orchestrated biological processes known in science. Over and over again, scientists refer to it as a beautifully choreographed system. Its precision coupled with complexity fascinates both students and experts.
Attending to healing, in all aspects of our gathered lives, is not just for those with special gifts, but is a call that encompasses everyone.
Through exploring the science of wound healing, we see in more depth what it means to be a body, how fully formed we are toward collaboration and wholeness, and how much we depend on processes designed to protect our health. This reflection gives us new ways of seeing how emotional and spiritual wounds with our neighbors can be more fully healed.
Adapted from Designed to Heal: What the Body Shows Us about Healing Wounds, Repairing Relationships, and Restoring Community by Jennie A. McLaurin and Cymbeline Tancongco Culiat. Copyright ©2021. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.
