A Multitude of Invalids: Helping the Wounded, Part One

Hi friends, 

I just had the honor of completing a training experience with the Trauma Healing Institute under the gentle and joyful teaching of Diana Spann, Steve Moses, and Susan Ryan. My goal was to gain training and certification to lead trauma healing groups. What I encountered was the healing of my own heart wounds, help processing trauma and burnout in my life, and the incredible gift of a new community of comrades who now will help me help others. In the coming weeks, I will be processing what I learned through my writing. I pray it helps you heal, too. That is the heart of the Wounded Healer for all of us.

 

 

 

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. -John 5:1-8

The man lay unconscious on the road, his limbs askew like a discarded marionette. Blood pulsed from his skull.

Throngs of people, cars, mopeds, and donkeys clustered around him, mostly immobilized. Except for the one old man who, hiking up his long white thobe, grabbed the injured man’s arm and began to tug.

I leaped out of my car and grabbed the first responder kit I kept in the trunk, shouting,

Waqf! Waqf! Tabiba! Khuli! Ana jaia! Stop! I’m a doctor! Don’t touch him! I’m coming!

I’m not an MD, but I am a hospital-based speech-language pathologist and trained First Responder. In Arabic, however, the common word for my role is the same word for the surgeon I work beside in the OR: tabiba, translated simply, doctor. In emergencies like this one, the title came in handy. The crowd made a wide path, every anxious eye now on me.

As I put pressure on the wound and assessed breathing, I shouted to an onlooker to call the nearest hospital. The injured man appeared to have at least two broken limbs. Distressed witnesses talked all at once, explaining he had been hit by a car and flew through the air before landing where he now lay. 

My job was to do my best to keep him alive until more qualified personnel arrived to take him to the closest emergency center.

After what seemed like an age, they finally arrived and took over. The wounded man was still unconscious when they drove away, but he was alive. I don’t know the rest of his story, but I know the part I was able to do.

In a country without the luxury of trained First Responders and Emergency Medical Technicians, sights like this one were common. Unnecessary deaths were often caused by two things: onlookers who had no idea what to do with the injured, or those who thought they did and caused more harm.

It is striking to me how similar physical trauma is to mental and emotional trauma. I recently learned to call this kind of trauma heart wounds.

A Multitude of Invalids

In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed (v. 3).

Like the pedestrian accidents I once so often encountered, heart wounds are a common sight today.

A multitude of invalids lie all around us, knocked unconscious by trauma and grief so deep they bleed onto our streets. 

Some of us stand immobilized, forgetting to breathe, unsure how to help, our own pain triggered by the trauma we witness. Others shout and tug, trying to move the injured person out of the way, imploring them to wake up and get up with a smack to the face.

We talk among ourselves, assessing what happened and why, as the wounded lie helpless.

How many people could be healed of trama and grief if we just took time to learn how to respond? #mentalhealth #healing #traumahealinginstitute Share on X

Jesus walked among a multitude of invalids too. Join me next week as we learn from Him how to help.

Lord, open my eyes to the wounded and give me the courage to walk among them. Amen. 

If you are interested in learning how to help those with heart wounds, visit www.thetraumahealinginstitute.org.

@audreycfrank