Originally created for a First Friday service at Christ Cathedral in Nashville. The theme of the service was Reconciliation. The recent picture was taken at Second Presbyterian Church Nashville where it was included in the stations of the cross that are displayed each year. It was used as the fourteenth and final station "Jesus is Resurrected".

As I began to think about creating a visual meaning for the word, Reconciliation, my first thoughts were of broken relationships with people in my life and the terrible struggles of the peoples in the world. Further study to ready myself for the work, allowed me to focus in on the realization that to live a life reconciled means claiming the knowledge that I am God’s beloved. I am reconciled to God first and foremost through God’s sacrifice of Jesus, who suffered the ultimate sacrifice of his life so that we could know of God’s desire to be reconciled with us. When we consider this wonderful gift we have a model for how to relate and be reconciled to each other. If I stop and remember my reconciliation to God, how can I not make an effort to reconcile the broken relationships in my life. I believe that small personal steps are the way to bigger actions in the world.

As difficult as that small step can be sometimes, can it ever be as difficult as Jesus’ suffering on the cross must have been?

“When I tell people that my wounding was a blessing, it sounds crazy. I mean, who wants to be a survivor of anything? Auschwitz or incest? I’d much rather not have gone through it. But given that this is the way life is, and given that I have so many sisters and brothers out there who are also survivors,
these wounds can become blessing...
Jesus says to us:”Why are you crying?”
There is a time to love and rejoice.
Jesus is not on the cross any more.
He tells Mary Magdalene that she can dry her tears.
If she keeps crying, she can’t do the work
that she is supposed to do, which is
go tell the disciples that Jesus is risen.”

Roberta Nobleman
“Blessed Wounds”
The Other Side