Healing Ever After

One day during this season of working on me and my marriage I was driving and I felt the Lord talking to me. He said, “Dear child, this work is hard, I know, but peace will come from it. Rebuilding this way, with all the bumps and the scars, will make you so much stronger, and you will know it was I who rebuilt you.”

I smiled and thought back to the earlier days of therapy when I felt like a growing lost puppy. I remembered my therapist confronting me, saying, “To put those scars to rest, you have to face them until they don’t scare you anymore. Until they don’t have that power over you anymore. That triggering power I spoke about. Right now it owns you, you can’t bury something you don’t own.”

I said, “They don’t own me! That’s a little extreme, dontcha think?”

“I don't know, you tell me. You are the one who wants to walk away from her marriage because of those bumps. How much power do you think they hold?”

“But I don’t know what other hurt I have besides Clark,” I said then.

“You have some deep-rooted Kristie issues you are fighting that aren’t all Clark. You know that. We’ve touched on them before. You are going to have to pull them to the surface and deal with them, or you will be blaming Clark the rest of your life so that you can remain the victim.”

“Kristie issues,” I said, confused. Victim, I thought, hmm, I am a victim, but I didn’t say that.

“I know you have been working on you, but we can’t neglect what has shaped and formed you. I think you had a pretty traumatic childhood, wouldn’t you say? Maybe this is where God needed you to be in order to start truly healing.”

I thought I could reinvent a new me and bypass that other junk. I knew exactly what she was talking about and I didn’t want to process it, I didn’t want to deal with it. I just wanted it all to go away. I didn’t talk to my parents anymore, so why did I need to process this?

I started crying again. God, is this where you want me? Did you have to break me down to this so I would listen?

I was completely overwhelmed with everything my therapist was saying. I’m sure my face showed this because she said, “What I’m saying is, you think healing means moving forward on a clean slate, but that’s not healing, that’s just moving forward. Still broken. If you want true healing and restoration, you have to face your past hurts and take back its power. I think you are ready now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, I think you have grown and matured and found your faith in the true healer and he thinks you are ready to start understanding what has happened the last 10 years, what led you there, what kept you there. Figure it out so you can learn from it, allow God to use it, to use you and finally be set free.”

It’s true. I had grown, I could see it, feel it. My thoughts were different, I felt different inside. God was my best friend, I knew he wanted good for me. I trusted him. I trusted him more than I trusted myself, so I had to believe he led me back here for a reason, and if I want to be different, to be better for my girls than what I had, I guess I have to do this. Oh my goodness, I think, but how hard is this going to be?

I was in deep thought and she interrupted me.

“Our time is almost up for today, but you have told me you know God wants you in this marriage. If that is true he wouldn’t ask you to rebuild over the bumps. He plans on being the builder. If you want the healing, then you’ve got to open your entire self up to the healer.”

“I thought I did,” I said. “I think that why I’m so confused.”

“Maybe you did and that’s why you are here today. God is working on you but you’ve also got work to do.”

Work, I think. Suddenly I didn’t feel so scared or confused, I felt hopeful. I’m okay with work. If it will bring me healing, sign me up. I can do this. I will do this.

I looked up at her, our eyes met, and I gave her a little smile through the tears. I think she felt the resistance had dropped and hope had appeared.

She said, “Continuing to stay broken is easy. Anyone can do it. And they also bleed on to everyone they come in contact with. Rebuilding is hard, but it stops the pain and the bleeding.”

My eyes met hers and held the gaze and I said, “I want to stop bleeding. I have been bled onto my entire life, and I never saw that I was dripping onto others until today. I need this to stop. The last thing in the world I want to do is stain my girls.”

“Rebuilding will not just be about your marriage, Kristie, it will be about your entire life.”