“Amazing grace” is not a way to avoid honest human relationships. Rather, it’s a way to redo them—but now, gracefully—for the liberation of both sides. Nothing just goes away in the spiritual world; all must be reconciled and accounted for. All healers are wounded healers, as Henri Nouwen said so well. There is no other kind. In fact, we are often most gifted to heal others precisely where we ourselves were wounded, or wounded others. “We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such overwhelming [healing] power comes from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Each of us is being prepared to be a healer
—from the book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr