God Never Wastes a Healed Wound
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3–4 (KJV)
A few years ago, I attended a women’s group meeting to hear Michelle Daugherty share her testimony. While I cannot remember many of the details of her story, I have never forgotten one piece of advice she gave. When sharing your testimony with others—transparency is paramount. That resonated with me.
Transparency Brings Liberation
I understood the shroud of secret shame, especially as an unwed mother in the 60s. To escape social ruin, the “S” word—secrecy—was demanded. Otherwise, ruin seemed certain. I was a “card-carrying” member of Sisters From the Society of Secrets and Lies. For nearly thirty years, only my mother and father knew the truth. Later I shared it with a few trusted friends, but only a handful. That part of me huddled in a deep dark closet of shame.
I grew up during a time when “What will people think?” seemed to govern everything. Image mattered. Weakness was hidden. Failures were covered. We carefully protected the picture we wanted others to see. We hid behind carefully constructed facades.
Then God reunited me with the daughter I had been told I would never see again.
I knew the secret could no longer remain hidden. But fear still whispered.
“What will people think?”
“There goes the image I’ve spent years building.”
One Sunday evening after our reunion, I stood before my church and told the entire story. I held nothing back. It was both frightening and exlerating—many in the congregation had attended back in the 60s—when at best, there would have been whispers and gossip.
Then I introduced my daughter to the congregation. She and her trio sang “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” When they reached the words “All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,” there wasn’t a dry eye in the church.
The judgment I had feared never came. Instead, I found acceptance, rejoicing, a`nd the unmistakable love of a church family celebrating what only God could have done.
That evening I experienced James 5:16 in a way I had never understood before.
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed…”
For years I had focused on the command to confess. I had overlooked God’s purpose—that we might be healed.
That night the burden of shame that I had quietly carried for so many years lost its grip. Transparency became liberating.
Looking back now, I realize God wasn’t asking me to expose my past to embarrass me. He was inviting me into a deeper place of healing.
And then something unexpected happened.
People whose lives had been touched by adoption began contacting me. They wanted someone who understood.
Years ago I wrote a poem that begins,
“I know the paths you walked today—for I walked them in my yesterdays.”
Over the years, I have watched God bring those words to life again and again.
The Unexpected Fruit of Transparency
In the mid-1980s, I discovered there might be a possibility of finding the daughter I had placed for adoption. I agonized over whether to tell Todd and Lisa they had a sister. What if one day a young woman knocked on our door claiming to be their sister? Would they wonder what other secrets Mom had kept from them? Or if I told them now, would they fear that I might one day give them away too?
One evening, as we drove down a dark country road, I finally told them. They said very little that night—or in the years that followed. I often wondered if I had done the right thing.
Then, a few years later, one of Lisa’s high school friends became pregnant and was frightened. Lisa’s response surprised me. She told her friend, “You need to talk to my Mom. She understands.”
And I did.
When Lisa told me what she had said, years of fear quietly disappeared. My transparency hadn’t harmed my children. It had given my daughter something I never expected—an understanding heart for someone walking a difficult road.
That was a powerful example of why transparency matters.
Success stories certainly encourage us, but if all we share are our victories, people may assume we never struggled. They may conclude that our faith was always stronger and our path was always certain. Sometimes what gives another person hope is not hearing how courageous we were. It’s hearing that we were frightened too. That we cried. That we questioned. That we could not see a way forward.
God Never Wastes a Healed Wound
If every hero in the Bible had lived a flawless life, we might wonder whether God’s grace was only for extraordinary people. Instead, He gave us ordinary men and women like Abraham, Jacob, David, Peter, and Paul—people who failed greatly, experienced His forgiveness, and went on to accomplish extraordinary things because God wasn’t finished with them. Their failures became the backdrop against which His faithfulness could be clearly seen.
Our testimonies are not about exposing our failures. They are about revealing the faithfulness of a God who never stopped walking beside us.
Looking back now, I smile when I think about writing He Ordered My Steps: From Shattered Dreams to Something Beautiful. By the time I finished telling my story, I was so transparent I joked that I might as well have been walking around wearing only Saran Wrap! Talk about a pride buster. But I also realized something. If I carefully edit God out of the valleys by hiding the struggle, I also hide the miracle of His faithfulness.
Blessing
My prayer is that if you have been hiding behind a carefully constructed facade, fearful of what others might think, you will remember that God’s grace is greater than your failures. May He gently lead you out of the closets of shame and into the freedom that comes from His forgiveness. And as He brings healing to the wounded places in your heart, may you discover that your story—redeemed by His grace—can become a source of hope for someone walking the same path.
After all…our Good Shepherd never wastes a healed wound.
If this message encouraged you, I invite you to subscribe so you’ll receive future Hope in the Journey posts by email. My prayer is that each week’s journey will remind you that no valley is beyond the reach of our Good Shepherd.
My story of God’s faithfulness continues in my memoir, He Ordered My Steps: From Shattered Dreams to Something Beautiful. If you’d like to learn more, you’ll find it here: https://hopeinthejourney.com/
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