Threads of Glory
A reflection on recovery and healing.
This was a draft I started in May 2023 and finished today. A valuable recurring lesson, nevertheless. I hope it encourages you!
My therapist called it an “unexpected crisis”. There was no warning, no time to prepare for every possible scenario, and I was a nervous wreck.
I normally do pretty well with the unexpected. Once adrenaline kicks in, I adapt pretty easily. This was different, though. Nothing could have prepared me for this.
The same way you only learn from your mistakes by making them, you only learn how to cope by coping.
The dictionary defines “cope” as “to deal effectively with something difficult”. But how do you qualify effective coping? Do they mean perfect coping? Like, sip a cup of tea, pray for 18 minutes, then be healed? Or, follow a formula, do whatever helped that one person, and you should be able to smile again?
Take deep steady breaths.
Get yourself out of bed.
Drink a glass of water.
That’s pretty good coping, if you ask me. We can’t and shouldn’t mistake perfectionism for intentionality and motivation when it comes to healing. Because, here’s the thing: recovery is involuntary.
Recovery happens whether we like it or not. We can welcome God’s healing hand, sure, but the actual process of being transformed from one degree of glory to the next is one we can’t control (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Healing is continuous, consistent, a natural response after trauma. Healing happens one breath at a time, “one small deposit at a time”, as John Onwuchekwa puts it. (His writing feels like a warm hug and the post I linked to below is no exception. I highly recommend you read it.)
In the middle of my own unexpected crisis, I coped. Not perfectly, not effectively. I simply coped. I’ve learned to accept that the way I reacted was the best I could do at the time.
Goosebumps have disappeared, tears have dried, and trauma reverberates through my bones. Thankfully, God began to heal me before I could even find the words to pray.
Recovery is the painful mending of our bodies and souls.
With a never-ending thread of life, God takes a needle, carefully pokes through, and stitches together the pieces we wish we could throw away. He holds the scraps of our lives in his holy hands for just a moment — the loose threads and stains we’ve tried over and over to wash away — and, with no effort at all, he opens his hands to reveal something new.
Call it “manifestation”, “inner strength”, “mental toughness”, or whatever you’d like. The children of God know in their hearts that this is called glory. From one degree to the next, broken down and rebuilt to look more like Jesus, for his glory and our good.
Somehow, God will give strength to weak people. He will give unshakeable assurance to helpless people in a way that no one will be able to deny comes from a holy place.
It doesn’t make sense. Why would a perfect, holy, God care to redeem broken and hurt people? It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make sense. What matters is that he does what he said he’d do.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. — John 10:10
If only we’d loosen our grip on our strategies for self-preservation and perfectionism. If only we’d remember that there’s no trophy for holding back the most tears, no reward for who can “be okay” or maintain a smile the longest.
If only we’d let go.
God takes us as we are, with all our anxiety, trauma and self-centredness, and somehow brings glory to his name. In the hands of our Father, all our hurt can turn into something beautiful. Thank God.
There will be joy in the morning (Psalm 30:5). And that’s a promise he’ll keep.