Part Two: World Healing – The Intimate Wound

In continuing this conversation about healing, I want to explore the harmful effects of relationships on our overall well-being.

We often think of stress as coming from the outside—work demands, financial pressure, world events. Certainly, everyone has felt the shift in tolerance and anxiety since the pandemic. Many have learned to simply block the world out for self-preservation.

But what concerns me even more is the harm that can come from our up-close relationships—the most intimate ones.

When I look around, what becomes clear is how many couples live not just with disconnection but with quiet discontent. These are people 0ften feeling estranged in the places that should feel most safe.

I don’t believe this was ever God’s intention when He created man and woman. He didn’t design love so it would become a source of lasting pain, tension, or fear. In fact, the word dis-ease itself is literally the loss of ease. When our most important relationship becomes a chronic source of unresolved resentment, anger, or bitterness, it’s no wonder our bodies, minds, and spirits begin to suffer.

I imagine God’s original design very differently.

When He created Adam and Eve, He created them in His own image—an image of pure, unconditional love. I believe He intended them to be healers of one another, to create Eden together not merely as a place, but as a state of being. Union, as God envisioned it, was never meant for pleasure alone. Pleasure was a gift—a natural outflow of loving union—but the deeper purpose was healing, oneness, and mutual care.

Imagine a love so pure it could move mountains. A bond that mended wounds instead of making new ones. That was God’s dream.

Yet in our society, many remain unaware of how their closest relationships truly affect them. We recognize toxic workplaces or abusive friends, but often we don’t see the harm that festers in our own bedrooms. We may excuse angry outbursts as normal, dismiss silent resentment as “just how some relationships are,” or tolerate cold detachment as survival. But these heavy emotions don’t just vanish. They live in us. They feed stress. They can become the seeds of real, physical illness—dis-ease in the truest sense.

Intimacy, if we return to God’s intention, is not just sex, nor is it a transaction of needs. It is the spiritual, emotional, and physical merging of two souls seeking to mirror divine love. Intimacy at its best is healing. It’s a space where vulnerability is safe, truth is spoken gently, and love restores what the world depletes.

Sadly, many couples merely go through the motions. Intimacy fades or becomes mechanical. Emotional connection erodes. Instead of healing, these relationships harbor the very triggers that make us sick—anger, loneliness, frustration, resentment.

If we want to heal ourselves and our world, we cannot ignore the state of our most intimate bonds. True healing demands that we return to God’s design for union—a design built on love that is pure, unconditional, and strong enough to heal.

We can’t change others on our own. But we can become people who love in a way that heals, who create safety in our words and touch, who choose forgiveness over bitterness, and who dare to believe that love—real love—still holds the power to transform everything.