“Healing Physician”
The peripheral loss of feeling—gripping, constraining—drains with the blood out of my face, fingers and feet, the strength coursing in my hands is slipping away with the flood of doubt, but love holds the breadth of the embrace at length. My heart, with eyes to see and ears to hear, to ask—faith enough to be healed from death, from form and fears— casting the mountain into the sea. By His stripes for us, we exist— to life, the ransom I cannot resist.
Reading the Poem
Ananias Restoring the Sight of Saint Paul by Pietro da Cortona, circa 1631, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Inspiration
One thing to keep in mind when reading poetry written in the first person is that it is often fiction—even if inspired by real life elements of the poet’s life.
In the case of this poem, it is inspired by my real-life neuropathy-like symptoms, but dramatized up to 11. (I was diagnosed with “Mild Guillain-Barré Syndrome” a few years ago.)
The poem uses imagery of both neuropathy and several Scripture references to Jesus’ sacrifice, faith, salvation, and healing.
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)