They say, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Rumi’s words echo through time, quoted endlessly, admired deeply. But have you ever paused to ask—why?
Why the wound? Why not strength, or joy, or wholeness? And if it were true, wouldn’t suffering always make us wiser? Yet, it doesn’t—some wounds close over, leaving only scars, no light at all.
But think of this—have you ever been bedridden with fever, only to step outside days later and feel the air on your skin as if for the first time? As if you had never truly noticed what it meant to be well?
Pain does something similar. Until life wounds you, you drift, untouched by certain depths of feeling. And then, one day, suffering arrives—unexpected, uninvited. It does not ask if you are ready. It simply is. And suddenly, you find yourself standing at the edge of your own understanding, seeing yourself in ways you never did before.
Not all pain transforms. Some people break under its weight. Others, somehow, grow. But what makes the difference?
Perhaps it’s a belief—one we cling to without proof, without certainty. This pain must mean something. It must be leading somewhere.
But what if it isn’t? What if this, too, is just a story we tell ourselves? A mirage in the desert of suffering?
And yet—if that mirage keeps us walking, keeps us hoping, perhaps that is enough. Perhaps the light enters, not through the wound itself, but through the meaning we dare to find in it.
