You Need To Know The Truth About Scars Healing

You sit with a list of prompts and begin to think of names. “Who gave you good advice” pulls your thoughts to moments you pivoted and who was there. The faces make you smile as you remember who spurred that Kairos moment or kept it practical when you couldn’t see through the clouds. Gave you the key to a better lens, better solution, better way forward.

“Who makes you feel welcome” sends your thoughts gently sifting through memories. Warm houses, worn couches, always with room for you. You realize hospitality is something different than the pressure you feel when you’re the host. It’s earthy and honest and helps you unwind. Like your favorite food, grandma’s scent that lingers after she hugs you, or handpicked wildflowers. It’s an invitation that bids you come exactly as you are.

You sit with the next one for a while because “who listens without judgment” brings up some stuff. You’ve got to muddle through conversations that left you gutted and suddenly alone. Push through memories like they’re waist-high weeds.

Let’s stop here for a moment. We’re a week into the Thank Somebody Challenge, and I know that for all the happy memories the prompts can uncover, there may be some really painful ones too. People you’re purposefully not thanking. Things you don’t want to think about ever again.

You’re trying to be thankful for what you have and who’s in your life, but more glaring is what’s missing. Who wasn’t there. Who doesn’t actually know you. Who hurt you on purpose. Whose words told you that you can’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t.

Can we talk about it? Because if that’s you feeling all mixed up inside because isn’t a gratitude challenge supposed to make you feel better, it’s not time to bottle it all up.

We push away the hard memories as if they can collect so much dust in the recesses of our minds that we won’t recognize them. Wear our happy faces and only tell the things that are good and well in our lives.

But it’s exhausting, isn’t it?

I know because I’ve got memories too that take me to bittersweet places. Scars that are still healing. Ones I remember every time I bake sourdough.

Slow Like Sourdough

Before there’s bread, there’s the electric grain grinder with the same high-pitched howl I heard as a kid. The familiar haze of escaped flour suspended in the air. I breathe in the exact same scent because I grind the same variety of wheat berries.

It takes me back to my childhood home—the one we can’t go back to. I recall the way it was, and how it is now, with everything that’s been broken in between. Sometimes you pick up a pen and wish you could write the hard right out of your story.

But here’s the thing. They go together. The beautiful and ugly are inseparable. Cancel one and you cancel both. As Ann Voskamp writes in One Thousand Gifts, “Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don’t numb themselves to really living” (pg. 84). We can’t dismantle our stories and play choosey with the parts we keep.

So how do we move forward?

The jar of sourdough starter on my counter tells me we hold them both. The memories that make us smile and the ones that trigger old wounds. The pockets of empty and the filled space in between.

When sourdough starter is ready to use in bread, it’s airy and full of holes. If you watch closely, you can see bubbles expanding. But to get to this highly active state, you first take your jar of dormant starter from the fridge and feed it flour and water. Then you wait.

sour dough starter is a bit like the healing process

It will appear that nothing is happening. But the next morning you’ll see that it’s filled the jar, and to make room for it to expand again, you’ll discard almost all of it.

This process of feeding, waiting, and discarding happens several times before you add enough flour and water to turn the starter into bread dough. Eventually, you’ll pull crusty bread loaves from the oven, slice them still-warm, and watch rich-hued Irish butter melt right off the knife.

For sourdough, the holes aren’t what’s missing. They’re what’s there. You simply can’t get the final product without them.

And maybe it’s the same for you and I. We can’t heal without cupping the sorrow and wonder in the same two hands. Stay when we’d rather run, escape, ignore. Let the healing do its slow, deep work.

Like sourdough, we’ve got to be fed, nourished with God’s abundant love. Jesus says it this way in John 15:9 TPT: “I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must let my love continually nourish your hearts.”

Then, also like sourdough, we submit to the pruning process. Let God cut back even what’s growing in order to make room for more.

In order for this healing process to take place, we’ve got to visit some places that hurt. Name the pain while we’re nestled next to God. Let Him hold us while we hold the good and hard of our stories in open hands. He’s good, gentle, kind. You can trust Him.

We can’t heal without cupping the sorrow and wonder in the same two hands. Stay when we’d rather run, escape, ignore. Let the healing do its slow, deep work.

A Prayer for Healing

Before I pray, one quick note about the Thank Somebody Challenge. We started November 1^st, but you can jump in or start the challenge any time. Grab the prompts here:

Dear Jesus, how very much you love us. We can’t wrap our minds around the depth of your tender affection. Can’t fully understand how often we’re on Your mind.

You call us to a life of gratitude because it reaches down deep and grows good fruit. You’re with us as we practice, and You’re with us as we uncover things from our past we’d rather ignore. Take us there gently. Write Your name on our hearts over the top of the ones we’ve called ourselves. Give us the courage to talk honest with You and let You fully have Your way in us.

This we pray in Your precious name, Jesus. Amen.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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