In March 2021, my husband confessed to something eighteen years later. The details were historical, but my emotions were present-day. A few days after his confession, I was up late, journaling, praying, and crying. That’s when the Lord gave me a clear word picture of a scab and scar.
Scab vs. Scar
My dating story with Jason has always been a wound to me. It was wounding at the time it happened, and it had never completely healed. Sharing how we met would bump against the injury. Working with premarital couples also opened the scab. Valentine’s Day has always had a way of ripping the scab off. (I’ve mentioned reasons in previous posts such as here and here.) And I often picked open the scab myself by ruminating on the past and dwelling on my insecurities.
So when his confession from our dating days came forth, it was like a sharp blade ran over the scab and cut it wide open. I began bleeding everywhere. However, it was like the Lord was saying,
After you walk through this, it will be a scar and not a scab.
In the years leading up to his confession, I had greater success leaving the scab alone, but the Lord knew healing could not fully happen until this secret came out. However, the year that followed was brutal for both of us.
To continue with the medical analogies, it often felt as though the Lord re-broke bones so that they could finally heal correctly.
Like a good doctor, the Lord irrigated the wound, getting everything that was unhealthy out. All of my unresolved hurt and grief from the past. Insecurities I had ignored but never genuinely dealt with. My many attempts to wrap up our story with a pretty bow.
The process the Lord took me on was excruciating and, at times, seemed to have no end in sight. Not picking at the scab as it healed required a self-discipline I had never previously known. However, being healthier and healed from new injuries and old hurts was worth the work.
Our greatest pains can bring about the most beautiful healing.
The scab of hurt and insecurity that Jason’s confession sliced open has now healed into a scar. It looks different, and I can tell how it got there, but for the first time in my life, I can talk about our dating story or the events last two years and not feel sad. Instead, I am grateful to the Lord and am deeply in love with Jason.
Celebrations have always been important to me, but without realizing it I had put my hope for healing in them. Lavishly celebrating the day we met, our dating anniversary, our engag-a-versary, and our wedding anniversary every year has always been an expectation of mine in our marriage. Without realizing it, I used those celebrations to tell my wounded heart that our story was different than it was. To help my insecurity feel more like security. To heal.
It turns out only the Lord can do that.
Just because it is not always possible to wrap ugly parts of our story up with a pretty bow does not mean closure and healing are unattainable. It implies that closure and healing might look different than we once thought.
In December, I posted this photo on my Instagram page along with these thoughts:
18 years ago today I became Jason’s wife. The last 18 years have had their ups and downs… their joys and griefs… their fights and forgiveness.
The last year and a half has been the hardest of them all. We’ve had to wrestle our flesh to choose each other, we’ve needed the Holy Spirit’s help to extend Grace that we could not offer on our own, and when things seemed at their darkest, we had to trust that the Lord was doing a good work.
And what a great work it has been!
I have been looking forward to today for a while now because our love is deeper and more mature than I ever knew was possible.
The Lord has been teaching and growing me as His daughter in ways that I’ve never understood before now. Ways I couldn’t have understood without the trials, pain, and darkness of the last year and a half.
There were times when I wanted a vow renewal or some sort of milestone to say, “we’re starting over… resetting the clock.” but the need for such things is no longer there because I am learning that the bumps in the road, the need to re-route, and the times we are broken down on the side of the road and need assistance… those are not reasons to start over or reset the clock. Those are part of our lifelong journey, which is not perfect or magical or like the movies. But it is real, deep, faithful, true, and lifelong.
I’m so, so in love with this man, but even more in love with our Savior who heals and makes all things new. The words of Paul in Philippians 1:6 ring true, “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” ❤️
In January, we acknowledged that the 22nd was the day we had met, but we did not celebrate it like in the past. And that’s a good thing.
And today, on Valentine’s Day, I feel healthy.
My twenty-year-old Valentine’s Day hurts are finally a scar rather than a scab.
I recently processed this with a friend, and she asked why Valentine’s Day often triggered me. So I told her the whole story. And I loved every minute of it. Not because I got to play the victim or speak poorly about Jason’s ex-girlfriend. In no way was it an attempt to re-live the past. But instead, it was a way to exclaim all the Lord has accomplished. I am no longer worried about breaking open a tender scab because it is now a scar. The words of Psalm 147:3 are true, “He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.”
I hope you all are doing well. I miss connecting on this webpage regularly. My writing has slowed as the pace of life has increased. I’m praying about if to delete the blog or continue to keep it for the rare moments when I can process what the Lord is teaching me through written words. Thank you for journeying with me for all of these years!
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