09/06/2026
🩷 Sometimes the thing you wish had never happened becomes the very place where you can see just how faithful God has been.
Last week, I received another wonderful report at my breast cancer checkup.
And I am so, so thankful.
Then this morning at church, our preacher said something that went straight to my heart:
“Scars are a sign of healing.”
I haven't been able to stop thinking about that.
Because I have scars.
Real ones.
Scars that remind me of hospital rooms and surgeries.
Scars that remind me of fear.
Scars that remind me of lying awake wondering what was going to happen next.
Scars from things I never asked for and certainly never would have chosen.
And if I'm being truthful, there have been times I wished those scars weren't there.
Times I've looked at my body and remembered what it used to look like.
Times I've wished I could erase the evidence of what cancer took from me.
But maybe I've been looking at them all wrong.
Because a scar means the wound isn't open anymore.
It means healing happened there.
That doesn't mean it didn't hurt.
It doesn't mean you didn't cry.
It doesn't mean you weren't scared.
And it certainly doesn't mean you would ever choose to walk through it again.
It just means that somehow, by the grace of God, you made it to the other side of something you once wondered if you could survive.
And that isn't just true of the scars we can see.
Some of the deepest scars I carry aren't on my body at all.
They're from saying goodbye to people I would give anything to hug one more time.
They're from prayers I prayed through tears.
They're from seasons when I didn't understand what God was doing.
They're from moments when life changed and there was no going back to the way things were before.
Maybe you have some of those scars too.
And here's what gets me...
When Jesus rose from the grave, He could have come back without a single mark.
But He still had the scars.
The pain was over.
The grave had been defeated.
But the scars remained.
And His scars didn't take away from the victory.
They testified to it.
Maybe ours do too.
Maybe the places we try so hard to hide are sometimes the very places that whisper...
God carried me here.
I was hurt here.
I was afraid here.
I cried here.
I questioned here.
I thought I might never be okay again here.
But God met me here, too.
So today, I'm looking at my scars a little differently.
They aren't beautiful because what caused them was beautiful.
They're beautiful because they remind me that the wound didn't get the final word.
God did. 🩷
And maybe that's what shining really looks like.
Not walking through life untouched.
But allowing His light to shine through every scar that says...
I have been wounded.
I have been held.
And I have been healed.
Happy Shine Sunday, friends. 🩷
