Mends Up Her Wounded: Words
Due to a series of unfortunate events, I found my spring largely spent mending up my husband’s wounds. Not actual cuts and bruises, but wounds in his mind and soul. These are some of the hardest wounds for us homemakers to tend because we can’t see them. There is no herb to put on them. We can’t send people to bed to heal a wounded soul. We can send them out into nature. We can send them to church. And we can gather them in close. Not only are they some of the hardest wounds to tend, they’re also typically the most prevalent. Yes, our children will get concussions, gashes, and burns. Yes, our husbands will get sick or, depending on their work, injured. But most often, in all the little bits and pieces of the day, in the nooks and crannies of life, we are tending mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds. And most often, we’re doing that with words. Single homemakers may find that this is the form of mending they most often engage in, word-mending.
Let’s explore (meaning I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I think it’s important enough to explore. Please join me in pondering on this) how not to do this and then ways we can help ourselves do a better job.
How Not to Word-Mend
Brutal Honesty: Honesty can sometimes be wielded like a warhammer. As long as what I’m saying is true, I can say whatever I want. This mentality pummels everyone around them with truth, truth, truth, without any care or consideration for the person receiving the truth. It never takes into account the ability of the person to handle all the truth you’re pouring down on them. It doesn’t take into account that you might be beating them up about something they already know they need to work on. You can be adding even more injury to an already broken person.
It should go without saying that I’m not suggesting that we lie to our people to make them feel better. Honesty is good. Brutality is not. Being brutal gets a certain twisted joy from pounding another person. It sees the door open to address a problem and it charges in, ready to finally get to say its piece. We must speak truth to our people, but always with kindness, gentleness, and love. We will never heal a troubled teen, a broken man, a frightened toddler, or a burdened friend if we’re only seeing their wounds as an opportunity to finally point out all the things wrong with them, under the guise of being honest.
Pride: Another thing we must not do is think we have all the answers. Dealing with mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds takes a long time. Some of our people are private and don’t open up down into their deepest layers. Others are intuitive and will struggle to put into words what the wounds are. We must not start bandaging with our words as if we have been endowed with infinite wisdom. I really struggle in this area. I struggle to leap to a trite solution instead of listening. Sometimes this is because I’m not leaving room for a long conversation and sometimes this is my pride thinking I have all the solutions, if only everyone would listen to me.
It has taken many hard knocks in life to realize I’m not that wise. I don’t have all the answers and solutions. I don’t see nearly as clearly as I think I do. Coming to our people with pride will ultimately drive them away. No one wants to keep talking to someone who doesn’t listen. No one wants to talk to someone who thinks they’re always right.
Nagging: We women tend to be extremely verbal. Having recently gotten chickens, I am tickled to no end at their constant “talking.” If they’re awake they're peeping. I understand why women are always compared to a flock of chickens. We don’t stop talking. This verbal avalanche has to be controlled. Nothing will stop our people from talking with us like the feeling that they can’t get a word in edgewise. Have you ever found yourself in conversation with someone who won’t stop talking? You slowly realize that you haven’t said anything in a good long while. Even when they ask a question, you only get a sentence in before they start talking again. This is not the way to mend our wounded with our words. We don’t need to drown our people.
A big way this comes out is nagging. We have someone come to us wrestling with something, we see the solution, and we tell them. And we tell them. And we tell them. And we tell them. Nagging isn’t just the Honey Do list. Nagging is when one of our people comes to talk to us and we see it as an opportunity to pester them about some character trait that annoys us. This is repeated soapboxing. This isn’t mending wounds, this is focusing on ourselves.
How to Word-Mend
Stories: If we want to be good word-menders, we need to prepare ourselves. We don’t train soldiers as the battle starts, we put them through basic long before we put them in the field. We don’t just hand anyone a gun without first giving them some gun safety guidelines. Mending internal wounds with our words is as dangerous as a loaded gun. It’s very easy to make the wounds worse or create new ones if we’re not being extremely careful. I know all of you with kids feel this deeply, but it’s also true for our husbands and friends. One of the ways we can better equip ourselves to heal is to fill our minds with good stories, poetry, and history.
We should avoid being the kind of women who unthinkingly imbibe media. Watch for realistic human interaction, watch the good, the bad, the raising up, and the knocking down. Actively look for hope in the face of despair. Fortify yourself with good poetry. Understand what elements of the human condition are being exposed. Stories often exaggerate things to make them more visible; they pull things out of the shadows. Your husband may not be a soldier returning from war outwardly, but he might be inwardly. Nothing has served me better as a pastor’s wife than all the boots-on-the-ground military history I’ve read.
Read/watch/listen to stories together so that when your people are struggling, you can point to shared illustrations. This makes communication, and word-mending easier. It helps us connect emotionally to the truth before us.
Making stories a part of the pillars of our homes will also strengthen people before problems arise. Stories let us practice being brave before we have to be. We don’t feed our families nourishing meals only after they get sick. We feed them nourishing meals all the time. Stories allow us to get ahead of the coming wounds so our people are stronger. They equip us and them for the blows that will strike us.
The other side of this coin is that no amount of preparation can make up for experience, and we only grow experience by failure. You will fail to mend your peoples’ wounds correctly in one way or another. You may add more damage to an already damaged soul. All you can do when that happens is ask for forgiveness, pray for wisdom, and strive to do better. Don't give up. That's the worst thing you can do. Have the fortitude to keep seeking to maintain the health of your people.
Virtues: When our people come with gaping wounds in their souls, a wonderful way to counteract foolishness is to cling to the four cardinal virtues and encourage the wounded to do the same. We can check what we’re about to say against Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Courage. If our words aren’t prudent, we shouldn’t say them. If our words aren’t just, we shouldn’t say them. If they aren’t self-controlled, we shouldn’t say them. If they aren’t courageous, we shouldn’t say them. If we’re not encouraging our people to be prudent, just, temperate, and courageous, how can we consider what we’re telling them to be healing at all? How are we helping them if we’re not applying good salves over the cut in their soul? The virtues can help a world of foolishness come to a halt before more wounds are inflicted and they can help healing to begin.
Calm: Nothing is as damaging to an already broken soul as a lack of approachable calm. Ladies, I’m saying this to myself because I know from seeing the wounded look in my husband’s eye that my anxiety or stress about the chores makes me unapproachable when he needs me. Yes, bathrooms must be cleaned and dinner must be made. Sometimes that has to be part of the communication, sometimes friends, kids, and husbands will need to stand in the doorway of the kitchen while we cook. Sometimes we order pizza. The point is, our ability to be calm facilitates healing or further wounding.
You can’t hold a baby animal if you are frantic. They will sense your lack of calm and be terrified. The same goes for our people. When someone is hurting, our stress and chronic franticness will only further hurt them. They’re looking for a safe harbor to dock in, but we’re a tumult of worry. Go back and read the Leaving Room series. Start practicing this with your closest people. Check your housekeeping and productivity to make sure you haven’t gotten your priorities out of sync. The work has to be done, but it’s always being done for the people, so if our people can’t come to us and find a calm refuge, we’re probably doing it wrong. This is an area where our knitting circle can help us come up with boundaries and ideas to foster this word-mending. Sometimes another woman will see something we’re blind to, so it helps to talk as long as we’re not turning our talking into gossiping about the wounds we’re tending.
Homemakers, just like healing doesn’t start in the hospitals but in our homes, therapy doesn’t start in a psychologist's office but in our kitchens. The mental health of our people is part of our work. It’s a big, scary, overwhelming part of our work. (Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels this.) Just because it is fraught with danger and must be approached with the utmost humility and self-doubt, doesn’t mean we’re free from the responsibility. Let’s help each other, let’s share failures and wins, and let’s not let our people go out into the world looking hale and healthy but filled with open sores on their souls. This starts with us, our calm and self-control.
Also, never underestimate the healing powers of a tight hug and a cup of tea.
