Still Here: What Healing Has Taught Me About Scars, Soil, and Sacred Shrinking

Healing, for me, has meant walking away from people and positions that once felt permanent. It has meant releasing titles that once defined me. I have rebuilt my purpose from fragments. I stepped into theology school when logic said I was starting over. I trusted that the same God who met me in boardrooms could also meet me in a classroom or in a field.

This is my story. I’ve learned that pruning, scars, and sacred shrinking don’t belong to one life alone. They resonate with many of us.

The Wisdom of Creation

During my Echo Theology course, we spent a morning outside discussing creation—roots, soil, and the quiet wisdom beneath what we see. Our professor, Dr. Van Meter, explained that the roots of a plant often mirror what’s above ground. When a plant is trimmed or cut back, the roots don’t stay the same size. They shrink upward to match the new height.

The next day, as we reflected, I shared that the image stayed with me. It reminded me that God meets us exactly where we are. In public health, we’re taught to “meet people where they are.” For me, that phrase has always lived at the intersection of faith and practice.

Dr. Van Meter nodded, then gently added, “What if, in addition to that, the cutting back—the shrinking—was making room for something else?”

That question stayed with me.

What if every pruning, every loss, every scar is not erasure but preparation? What if reduction is not rejection but readiness?

The Nature of Healing

This is the lens through which I understand healing now—not as linear or polished, but as something alive. Like soil that must sometimes rest before it can be renewed, healing requires patience, gentleness, and trust. The parts of us that have been cut down are not gone. They are being tended for growth we cannot yet see.

There are seasons when life feels abruptly smaller. Positions end. Blueprints stop fitting. Relationships no longer hold what they once did. New callings emerge while fear quietly paces behind faith.

Those seasons feel like loss. But sometimes they are divine landscaping. When soil has been overworked or depleted, it must rest to return to balance before it can hold new life. Healing asks the same of us.

That image has stayed with me because scars are much like soil that’s been tilled too many times—still capable, still rich, but in need of care before cultivation. Just as roots adjust to what’s been cut, God meets us in the shrinking. Our roots—our spirit, our resilience, our faith—draw inward just enough to make room for something deeper.

The Story My Scars Tell

Every scar carries a biography. Mine tell stories of transition, disappointment, and divine redirection. They speak of moments I mistook pruning for punishment. They whisper the truth that growth and grief often share the same soil.

Each scar is evidence of survival—proof that something tried to break me and failed. But they are also testimonies of grace: that I was tended by unseen hands, kept by a purpose I couldn’t always name.

Our scars are sacred because they prove we have been both hurt and healed.

What Scars Hold

Scars hold memory the way roots hold moisture—quietly, beneath the surface. They remember what cut us, yes, but also what closed us.

Some healed places still ache when touched. That ache isn’t regression; it’s information.

The soul doesn’t forget—it integrates.

Scar tissue is thicker and stronger than what existed before. In the same way, our healed places often become the most fertile ground for empathy, compassion, and understanding. The hurt becomes holy when we learn how to hold it without hiding it.

Healing While Thriving

Healing isn’t a single season—it’s a rhythm. We can be pruning and blooming, healing and thriving, resting and rising all at once.

When a plant is cut back, it doesn’t die—it redirects. Energy flows inward to repair before stretching outward again. Maybe that’s what healing looks like for us, too.

Sometimes our lives are trimmed—titles lost, platforms reduced, relationships ended—so our inner roots can deepen. We feel smaller, but shrinking may be sacred space-making. It may be how God prepares us for growth that requires depth, not display.

Thriving isn’t the absence of wounds. It’s the wisdom to grow with them.

Grace Over the Scars

Grace is what keeps healed places flexible. Without it, scar tissue—emotional or spiritual—can harden, leaving us guarded and brittle.

Grace softens what pain tried to toughen. It reminds us that we are not defined by what happened to us, but by how we choose to carry it.

Each morning, I practice grace the way soil receives dew—quietly, consistently, trusting that it’s enough. Grace doesn’t erase scars. It simply allows them to exist without shame. Grace says: you can touch the past without bleeding again.

The Ache After the Amen

Even after healing, the body remembers. The ache is the echo—the trigger, the memory, the moment that resurfaces uninvited.

When the ache returns, I try not to retreat. I ask instead: What still needs tending? What soil in me needs rest, water, or light?

The ache isn’t failure—it’s feedback. It tells us where gentleness is still required. The ache after the amen doesn’t mean God forgot. It means there is still life unfolding in the scar.

Proof of Survival

Every scar is evidence of endurance. Proof that the wound closed. Proof that purpose outlasted pain.

If you’re reading this while holding a scar you don’t talk about, or standing in a season that feels smaller than the one before—know this: you are not misaligned. You are not late. You are not alone.

I’m still here. And so are you.

Our scars may change shape over time, but they keep telling the same truth: we survived what was meant to bury us, and we became our own fertile ground.

Survival is not just breathing. It is blooming again after the cutting.

Final Word

Healing is layered. We are constantly being tilled, tended, and transformed.

Some days we stand tall. Other days we retreat underground to rest.

Both are sacred. Both are necessary.

So if you find yourself aching where you thought you had already healed, remember: you are not broken again. You are being re-rooted for something deeper.

You are the soil and the seed. Still scarred. Still sacred. Still here.

Reflection Prompts

Ask yourself:

1. What stories are my scars telling now, and how have they shaped me?

2. Which healed places still ache, and what are they asking for now?

3. Where might my “shrinking” actually be making room for new growth?

4. How can I offer myself grace so my healing stays soft, not guarded?

5. What does proof of survival look like for me in this season?

   
   

Call to Action

As you reflect on your journey, consider how you can embrace your scars as part of your story. Remember, healing is not a destination but a continuous process. Let’s walk this path together, supporting one another in our sacred shrinking and growth.