3 Questions That Will Help Your Scars Heal

Early, outside air reminds me of camping as a kid. The inhale of adventure and wonder. The taste of food from the Coleman stove, scooped from dishes washed in a make-shift station. Grasses, leaves, trees named and water pumped onto eager hands. But when I think of camping, I also remember the scar lines across my knee from a run I couldn’t slow and a sprawl onto the pavement intersecting with the nature trail. 

There’s a page in Stuff I’d Only Tell God where Jennifer Dukes Lee invites you to mark the places your scars are visible. On the next page, she invites you to name the invisible ones. Soul hurts. Words that have cut or labeled or denied.  Self-critical lines you’ve borrowed as truth. Failures you’ve seen as an end stop. Broken that feels irreparable. Loss that engulfs. Unanticipated or deja vu rejection.

If you’re like me, you’d rather re-live the happy moment before the scar formed. The day at the waterpark with your 4-H club or the bike ride with your boyfriend or the ease of slicing vegetables with a Cutco knife. The untainted dream, memory, relationship. But what changed you is the pain. What changes all of us is the things that give God open access.

Two Scar-Healing Questions

Think back to moments grit wasn’t an option. When you told God thank you for something both painful and beautiful. When the darkness was intense but God was tangibly near. When despair was loud but the soft voice of Jesus was close as whisper.

Where were you?

Where was God?

Close your eyes and settle in. What do you see? Hear? Taste? Touch? Smell? Jot it down. How did you know God was with you? Even if words are inadequate, write it down for a day you need to remember that God comforts, guides, and provides. 

In her book Relentless, Michelle Cushatt urges us to create memorials of the moments God redeemed. Like the Israelites who built altars in the wilderness so they and generations after would know that God is faithful, we too need evidence to hold onto. As Michelle explains, “The point is to identify moments when you experienced God’s presence and then to mark them in such a way that you can return to them when life tempts you to forget.”

My remembrance list is long and messy, lacing through prayers and numbered gratitude, filling journals, Bible margins, Instagram. It pops up in Facebook memories and blog archives. It’s fluid and unrefined, but the key is that it’s accessible. I can retrace questions and petitions and know the God who was with me then is holding me now.

Michele Cushatt is an excellent guide if you prefer more structure. Find her book Relentless HERE.

One Final Question to Help Your Scars Heal

If we may, let’s talk about one more question. As you sit with the memories, the scars, the still-healing, let’s finish with this: Who else was with you?

Who’s on speed dial or in an active group chat? Who’s sitting on your couch, leaning in, caring, lending wisdom, hope, prayer? Who knows what you’re going through?

My prayer for you is that you’ve got people. A community that makes space for you and points you back to Jesus. Encouragers and prayer warriors and wisdom cultivators. Reservoirs of hope, compassion, humility, faith. Generous, big-hearted people who wade right in with you, hear you out, call you up.

Maybe they’re blood family, or maybe they’re the kind of family you choose when you’re in a new place or strained season or feeling alone. Your closest people might not be close in proximity but they’re FaceTime, DM, or Voxer accessible. 

Treasure them. Be honest with them. Pray for and with them. As Jennie Allen writes in Find Your People, “Only when we let down our guards and allow ourselves to be known can we get over ourselves and get on with loving people.” Press into vulnerability with people you trust. You deeply need them.

But as much as long-distance friendships mean to me, there’s something irreplaceable about the up-close ones you bump into in the neighborhood and on your walk and at the grocery store. Five friends—five miles is a goal we can borrow from Jennie Allen. These are people that fit the above description but also live within five miles of you.

If you already have that, you know how it matters. How dear those friends become when you cry in their kitchen and ask risky questions in their living room. How effective accountability becomes when you’re a part of each other’s daily lives.

Maybe you don’t have that (yet!). Perhaps you’ve longed for it and prayed for it and even gave up on the idea. This is for you:

You start at the very beginning, we all do, with every cherished friendship. Jennie Allen will tell you it takes 200 hours to get to the depth you crave, and before there’s 200 or even one hour, there are zero. Don’t give up. Ask God to highlight who you’ve already met that could become this kind of friend. Beg Him to connect you with someone you’ve never crossed paths with before. Trust that He got a good plan and perfect timing and holds you through the process.

Here’s another truth to tuck into your pocket for a day you want to give up. You’ve got to open up. Reach out. Let people in. Trust again. It’s risky, but so is holing up with your own sorrow and uncertainty and scars. So is thinking you’ve got to get through it on your own. 

Community is God-breathed into our DNA. It’s His design, that we need Him and other people, love Him and other people. They go together. 

There’s no quick fix for our scars, but slow healing that pulls us into real talk and right relationship with God is a lavish gift. Glory and groan intermingle through much of our lives. Together they paint a richer picture. Both make us more tender, more aware that we’re not alone. As if God bends close, whispers grace, imprints His presence on our hearts, hugs us through other people.

Let’s pray.

God here’s our scars. Our cut-short dreams and answers we can’t understand. We need You and we need people around us. Show us how near You are. Deepen our friendships and help us connect with others who point us straight to You.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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