The same experiences can lead to a pastor’s soul being an expression of trust and gratitude or lapsing into distance and cynicism.
There will be injuries, but scars speak of an experience of healing while open wounds speak of ongoing (unrecognised / unaddressed / unresolved) pain.
The pastor is not someone who has avoided injury, but who surrenders injury to the Father, and by that example encourages others to yield their hurts to the Father as well.
From Diary Of A Pastor’s Soul:
Typically, people with gravitas are older, but it really has less to do with age than with their response to the way life unfolds. They have scars, which are strangely attractive, but not open wounds. They’ve settled into themselves, and in the people God has given them to love, without any irritating plans for improvement. But they remain curious about the most ordinary things they find in those they care about. People with gravitas have discovered that the Holy haunts the landscape of life, and they gently probe every glimpse they find, whether it’s buried in the ordinary, the fleeting moments of delight and surprise, or the places of pain, as it often is.
No one is born with gravitas, and it’s not exactly a spiritual gift. It comes as a result of good responses to hurts, blessings, failures, achievement, boredom, and obligations, all of which are surrendered to the Creator. Some who have the sxact same experiences turn instead to cynicism. But should with gravitas somehow choose to receive their lives, such as they are with gratitude.Diary Of A Pastor’s Soul, M Craig Barnes, Brazos Press, 2020, pg 13.
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