Sarah Markley: Itches & Miracles

Today’s post is written by my sweet, beautiful friend, Sarah.

Sarah and Chad have quickly grown into irreplaceable friends for Brian and myself.  Our lives intertwine in the most incredible ways.  Chad’s cousin grew up in the high school small group Brian led… but the most miraculous must be the timing of which we met.  Sarah & Chad’s story is a lot likes ours.

These two have been instrumental in surrounding us with prayer, checking in and supporting us as we took our story public.  Everyone NEEDS friends like these.  Find people who’s life stories are similar to yours.  Stories that run parallel cultivate the most amazing friendships.

Thank you, Sarah, for writing your heart on my blog today.  I love you!

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It hurts to heal.  Or at least itches.

When I was a little girl I would scrape my knee/shin/elbow like all little girls do.  After a band-aid was in place my father would tell me not to itch it.  I would think, “It doesn’t itch yet, it just hurts!”

But he was right; as soon as the wound would begin to heal, it would begin to itch and I’d want to rip off the bandage and scratch scratch scratch until it felt better.

But what I didn’t realize was the itching it would have reopened the wound.  The scrape, even if it hurt and itched, needed the environment of the bandage to heal.

And time.  And then a miracle.

It’s the same with us.  With our big stories and big wounds and I-don’t-think-it-will-ever-be-the-same situations.

Healing hurts: I remember when I began the process of healing from my years of destroying my own marriage and watching my husband heal at the same time how much it hurt.  Almost all the time.  And I know it was necessary — the breaking and tearing away of my old habits, my old perceptions about myself and the world, the grief from watching the first seven years of my marriage crumble.  No memory for us was safe from what I had done to our life together.  We had to mourn the death of our marriage and try to rebuild.

Healing needs the right environment: When we walked down the process of healing, my husband and I made sure that we created the right environment for our fledgling marriage to prosper.  We went to weekly therapy sessions and sought the regular counsel of our pastors.  We got rid of all the things that had been a distraction for us earlier including inappropriate movies, alcohol, and unhealthy relationships.  We cushioned our baby-marriage with the things that would help to heal.  We put a bandage on and tried not to scratch.

Healing takes time: And then we waited. And while we waited we did the right things, the things we’d been taught to do, the things that would help us climb out of the hole that we’d dug for ourselves.  This part of it can’t be hurried and this is where discipline and patience comes in.  We wanted to fix things with a word, with a conversation, with one therapy session, but that’s impossible.  We are human beings with hearts that break and need time to be worked back to wholeness.  So we waited.  And sometimes we wanted to pull the bandage off and see the new skin grown back underneath. But it wasn’t finished yet.

Healing takes a miracle: And then there’s that.  With a normal wound, even with the right environment and time, the body still needs to regenerate skin cells and rebuild capillaries that have been severed.  This part of it is the miracle.  I can’t force a miracle.  It has to come from outside myself, outside of my control.  God is the One who created a heart (and a marriage) and He is the miracle-variable.  He ultimately does the healing. His hands fix wounded souls and relationships that have been shattered.  Hope in Him mends all that’s been broken.

Pulling off the bandage even hurts sometimes.  But the tender, healed skin beneath it is worth the waiting, the pain and the sacrifice.

Do you itch?