Designed to Heal: What the Body Shows Us about Healing Wounds, Repairing Relationships, and Restoring Community

by Jennie A. McLaurin, Cymbeline Tancongco Culiat, Luci Shaw (Foreword by)

Overview

“A rare combination of vivid science, compassionate storytelling, and lasting spiritual lessons. A delight to read.” –Philip Yancey

Our bodies are designed to heal. We fall off our bikes and skin our knees—and without effort on our part, the skin looks like new in a few days. But while our skinned knees easily heal, it can sometimes feel like our emotional and relational wounds are left gaping open, broken beyond repair. If our bodies instinctively know how to heal physical injuries, could they also help us understand how to restore painful emotional and relational ruptures?

In their groundbreaking debut book, physician Jennie McLaurin and scientist Cymbeline T. Culiat write Designed to Heal: a fascinating look at how the restorative processes of the body can model patterns we may adapt to heal the acute and chronic wounds of our social bodies. Through engaging patient stories, imaginative travels through the body’s microcellular landscapes, accessible references to current research, and reflections on the image of God, Designed to Heal offers a new perspective for healing our social divisions. By learning how the body is created with mechanisms that optimize a flourishing recovery from life’s inevitable wounds, we are given a model for hopeful, faithful, and enduring healing in all other aspects of our lives. Our wounds don’t have to have the last word.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496447821
Publisher:	Tyndale House Publishers
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB

Table of Contents

Foreword Luci Shaw xiii

Introduction: Bodies 1

1 Wounded 13

The Four Phases of Healing

2 Freshly Injured 29

Stop the Bleeding and Keep Things Clean

3 Inflammation Gone Awry 47

Slow Boils and Explosive Storms

4 Vital Connections 79

Collaboration and Community

5 Proud Flesh 105

Necessary Rewounding

6 Scarring and Maturation 123

Form and Function

7 Impaired Scarring 139

Distortion and Contracture

8 In the Beginning 157

Innocence and Perfection

9 Mind and Body as One 177

Science, Spirituality, and Transformation

10 Histories and Potentials 205

Wholeness and Healing in the Body

Acknowledgments 211

Reflection and Discussion Guide 215

Notes 243

About the Authors 251

What People are Saying About This

Deborah Haarsma

In this engaging book, a physician and a scientist share their stories of injury and healing. As they describe the amazing biological processes at work in our physical bodies, we gain new insights into ways to promote healing in our relationships, churches, and communities. A timely book, excellent for preachers, small groups, and our wounded world.

Brian Allain

This unique and very interesting book examines the processes by which our bodies heal, and applies that learning to the healing of relationships. The authors share current brain science research relating to the damaging effects of trauma and the protective effects of positive emotions and experiences. Overall a very valuable and useful new perspective.

Dr. Peter Tan-Chi

We are indeed spiritual beings in physical bodies that God created with amazing healing capabilities. God in his glory and majesty created our bodies magnificently, and Designed to Heal gives us a glimpse of what we can learn from the wondrous design of physical healing and what it teaches us about how to experience relational and emotional healing as well. It marries scientific and spiritual understanding to give a visual presentation of the work needed for us to be completely restored and transformed—not only from our physical wounds but also from our emotional, relational, and spiritual wounds as individuals and as one body of Christ. I recommend that you read this book and hope that it blesses you!

Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng

The prevalence and intensity of current conflicts in personal and communal lives have reached critical levels globally. This book presents a refreshing and intriguing new perspective on how the injuries in our lives can heal by applying the principles of how the physical body naturally heals wounds. Combining scientific and medical knowledge with engaging stories from the clinic, the laboratory, and their personal lives, the authors have crafted a unique work that has great potential to bring healing to the injured spaces of any reader’s life.

Philip Yancey

When I began reading Designed to Heal, I felt the same flush of excitement that I had when I first encountered Dr. Paul Brand, my collaborator on three books. These two authors, a researcher and a physician, have woven together a rare combination of vivid science, compassionate storytelling, and lasting spiritual lessons. A delight to read.

Jed Brewer

To work in prison ministry is to see, day in and day out, the damage that unhealed wounds can create in a life and a community. This book paints a vivid picture of the hope we share—that God’s love can bring healing to even the most profound of wounds, and the mechanisms through which that healing may come to pass.

Darrell Johnson

I have tried to come up with just the right word to describe this book, and the best I can do is “marvelous.” Medical doctor Jennie McLaurin, with the help of her friend, molecular geneticist Cymbeline Culiat, has written a marvelous book. They open up for us the wonders of the human body, in particular the marvel of the body’s inherent capacity for healing. I was stunned by what they show us: the ability of the body to repair, restore, and even regenerate. Drs. McLaurin and Culiat take us through the remarkable stages by which such wound healing takes place and apply them to the healing of corporate bodies, especially the church, the body of Christ. Through their stories of healing, clear and easily grasped biological explanations, and solid theological insights, I find myself lifted into hope that all wounds can be healed, and one day will be. Marvelous in every sense of the word!

Roger E. Stoller

McLaurin and Culiat thoughtfully compare the biological processes of wound healing to the steps needed to heal the human soul, what the Greeks called our psyche. Although biological healing appears to be spontaneous and almost miraculous (even to the medical community), healing our hearts requires more intervention. Whether it is our individual psyche or the corporate psyche of our families and communities, the authors provide practical examples (many from their own lives) that can encourage and enable us to seek the healing that leads to wholeness. I wholeheartedly recommend this book as one I will share with friends and family.

Patricia Raybon

On this fascinating journey, two medical friends invite readers into the human body’s capacity to heal its physical wounds and provide a spiritual blueprint for healing our broken communities. Kind, savvy, and encouraging, pediatrician Jennie McLaurin and scientist Cymbeline Tancongco Culiat apply the balm of insight, story, and encouragement to inspire fresh ways of exploring how God’s people and our connections can be healed and also transformed. It’s a restorative adventure worth taking.

Susan S. Phillips

This is a book of hope—hope in the grace that courses through our healing physical bodies and for the communal bodies that we live among. The wonders of science, illuminated by a physician and a molecular geneticist, shed light on possibilities for families, neighborhoods, churches, and the body politic. Drs. McLaurin and Culiat are close friends who share deep commitments to science, motherhood, and living out their Christian faith in our complicated world. Acknowledging the reality of woundedness, physical and social, they offer ways of seeing and living that will bless the world.

Editorial Reviews

The authors’ work as doctors, combined with their Christian faith, gives them insight into how physical wounds may inform social, psychological, and spiritual ones. Their clear prose style demystifies medical terminology as they skillfully blend theology into their observations.

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