I am compelled to write about something that happened to me somewhat recently. Something I participated in. Something I was not expecting and had you told me ahead of time would happen, I would have said something sarcastic because I wouldn’t have believed you.

I am compelled to write about it but I cannot share details. It’s still a bit too fresh, too raw, too personal, too beautiful.

But I can share the principal behind the actual thing.

Healing and reconciliation and restoration and freedom came to me in two relationships that are deeply important to me.

These relationships have been complex, as most tend to be, I suppose. But there have been layers of misunderstandings and disappointments and narratives being rehearsed for years, on all sides.

The before was characterized by anxiety and some sadness and not always knowing what to say and longing to be more authentic but scared to actually say the things I wanted to say.

The during was…magic. Every topic I had hoped and literally prayed would not come up was either broached or brought up by me. Every topic. No stone left unturned.

And it’s as if scales were falling from all our eyes, walls thawing from around our hearts.

I’ve been in fragile relationships before and I’ve had some of those kinds of hard conversations before and I’ve seen when it has gone well and you find yourself surprised by a new level of understanding but I’ve also more often seen when it doesn’t go well and there’s more hurt than before and the fracturing is larger and you vow to never put yourself out there like that again.

But this time felt different. I said all the words. The words I’d rehearsed, the words I said I’d never have the courage to say. And I was heard. And I think they said all their words, me hearing some really difficult things. And I didn’t melt into the ground, the words and the emotions behind them didn’t kill me, didn’t break me even.

I’ve been carrying some of these things for a few years, some of them for a lifetime.

And I swear to you that something shifted. We will never be the same again. I will never be the same again.

And I’ve been asking God to metabolize all the new stories, all the good words, to rearrange my molecules even, to let my body and heart and mind soak it all in and literally be changed by what happened, to let what happened set me free, to heal even my memories.

So, though I can’t say the who and I won’t say the what, I will say this: this was my most – and I’m not being overdramatic – relationally-fraught, heart-fragile issue of my lifetime and it’s just not anymore. It’s just not. It feels done. I can barely believe it. I’m still stunned and in awe and full of gratitude.

My day to day won’t necessarily change. And yet, because I’m not carrying this thing that I’ve been carrying, it just might. I might be more free to love everyone else more lightly, in a less clinging and desperate way. We’ll see. Who knows.

And so I say to you: I didn’t think this would ever happen. Some heart-troubles of this world you just learn to live with, like a limp. Jesus has been carrying this with me, providing me with strength and comfort and healing for years and years on all of this. But then every once in a while, the trouble is literally lifted. It was literally taken off of my shoulders.

And if it happened to me, it can happen for you.

Ask God. Just ask. And wait and see. He wants to heal us; He wants to set us free.

O Lord, if you heal me, I will be truly healed; if you save me, I will be truly saved. -Jeremiah 17:14
He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. -Psalm 147:2
“I am the LORD who heals you.” -Exodus 15:26
“I will give you back your health and heal your wounds.” -Jeremiah 30:17

wholeness help:
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