Even when you have pain, you can respond in love

Some holy pictures show Jesus with a wounded heart. The image can be so familiar that we do not notice that we too have wounded hearts. When you come to know any adult well, you nearly always discover a wound, a sense of having been badly and unjustly hurt at some stage. People live with their wounds, and keep up a good front. Behind that front are all sorts of sorrows, and different ways of living with a wounded heart.
Often the most useful thing for yourself and everybody is to do nothing. It is also the most painful. We have a strong urge to act out, to deal with the anger that engulfs us by working it out in action. That can be destructive. The other destructive response is to turn the anger against oneself, and slump into depression. Those who have a streak of depression in the family may go this way. You may be facing an insoluble problem - as in the case of a person wrongly accused, or a mother suffering at her child's pain - but by turning it in on yourself you are only adding to the trouble. It is in such a crisis that Jesus' heart can save our sanity and peace of soul. He showed the possibility of enduring the cruellest injustice, yet responding with love. This vision of a warm personal relationship with Jesus can sustain all Christians.