Are You Stitched Together in Wholeness?

Dan and I recently returned after a week of wandering through Olympic National Park and down Washington’s ruggedly gorgeous coastline.

The seven days on the road—just the two of us driving, camping, and hiking—offered the luxury of time to think back on the unique set of logistics God designed that led us to each other.

It started with the wilderness years for me—that season when so much slipped away. A good job. A home we could call our own. Our hard-earned investments against retirement. My husband. Dan’s losses and sorrows were different but similar when his wife passed away.

Joanna Gaines of “Fixer-Upper” fame encourages us to embrace both the hard and the holy things of this life:

“To me, there’s a grace woven into the very fabric of wholeness that invites us to live in the abundance of the story. That every piece of our identity—the broken, the sad, the hard, just as much as the fulfilled, the good, the happy—is stitched together to make us complete.”

The invitation to wholeness. Which reminds me of the Hebrew word shalom. It can be used as a greeting of hello or goodbye, and is most often translated as “peace.”

But it’s more personal than wishing someone the absence of conflict. It’s wishing someone an inward tranquility, a sense of being whole or complete. Which matters when we have wounds that sever our hearts, our homes, our relationships.

Wounds. They’re a guaranteed part of the privilege of being human and being alive on this beautiful, broken planet.

There are no coincidences around how my life and Dan’s have played out with their share of losses and sorrows, and how God brought us together.

As Pastor Trevor said in a recent message (translated loosely and personalized for me here): “Every decision, every choice, every life event to date has led me to this moment in this place with this husband as part of this faith fellowship.” 

Suffering brings us to where God wants us to be. And even if we don’t think we want to go there, we wouldn’t trade what God has formed in us for any amount of comfort and not-suffering.

David—the young lad who threw a stone, toppled a giant, and eventually became a king—gathers together the words that describe his feelings during a hard season:

“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” – Psalm 13:1-2

I’ve done the same. I’ve whined, “Lord, haven’t we served you faithfully through the years? Haven’t we tithed, and opened our home to feed the hungry and the discouraged? Then why are you punishing us?”

I knew in my heart this was incorrect theology … but too often my feelings won out over my head knowledge in those early days of loss.

In that same psalm, King David wrapped up what he was feeling with what he knew in his heart and mind:

“But I have trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.” – Psalm 13:5-6

And so, on these scenic highways and trails along a rugged and gorgeous Pacific Northwest coastline, Dan and I re-marveled at the details, the logistics of how God brought us together, of what we think he wants to do in and through our coupled lives, and how we want to live out that holy purpose.

Yes, we’ve had our share of sorrows. You’ve had your share of sorrows. Dan and I are currently in a season of abundance. There has been so much grace and wholeness woven into our fabric. And if/when loss, pain, and sorrow show up again, we will remember that both the good and the bad, the holy and the hard, the joy and the tears are all stitched together—filling us with shalom and making us whole.