This Is Only A Test 4-3-26

I woke up this morning without a song, without a to-do list (at least right away), just a peaceful awareness that I was awake and I was going to hear something wonderful to start this new day. No sooner than the words crossed my mind, “What do You want to show me today Lord?” I had the thought, “Poke the scar. This is only a test”. At first, this may seem like a random and disconnected thought, but it’s not to me. Not right now.

As I became aware of this morning’s song, it fits with what’s happening right now in my life, and the thoughts become a clear message with so much backstory!

Today is Good Friday 2026. A week ago we had a memorial service for my brother. We were 13 months apart. We did a lot of life together. The first song we played for his Celebration of Life was “The Only Scars in Heaven”. It’s a song that encourages us that no matter what wounds we’ve picked up over the years, the people we grieve for are “standing tall and whole”, because “the only scars in heaven are on the hands that hold you now”. Jesus’s nail scarred hands are holding our loved ones and all our scars from our earlier lives are gone, when we've put our faith and trust in Him. While it is a blessed assurance that our eternal spirits and glorified bodies will be untouched by earth’s sorrow, pain, tears or death, the question that came up this morning is, “why wait?”

What? Here it comes… the treasure from this morning’s first conversation :-) If we are to consider ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:11) while we’re still alive, why wait until we die to start the process of turning our current wounds to scars? A speaker I heard years ago pointed out the difference between the two. A wound hurts when you poke it. A scar has nothing left in it that hurts, not matter how many times you poke it. That’s an interesting challenge Lord! What does that look like?

"You. Now. In the area that I healed you from." It’s no secret that I’m post-abortive. I had an abortion when I was 16 years old in the middle of a lot of other choices that were not part of where I should have been or what I should have been doing back then. But in 2010, God gifted me the opportunity to take part in a post-abortion Bible study called “Forgiven and Set Free”. Another woman who’d gone through it herself walked me through my healing step by step until I was able to accept forgiveness for all those choices. Part of that study was God’s insistent Word that He not only forgives the sin, He removes the guilt and shame of it too (Psalm 32:5). So, it’s no longer an open or healing wound that still has unhealed parts, painful to the touch, but completely healed and no longer able to bring pain.

That seemed like an impossible goal at the time. I’m walking in that deep forgiveness now. For 17 years since then, I’ve been blessed to walk other women through that same study, each time reading through those verses and taking part in that healing journey. I am completely healed and the enemy’s taunts and jabs no longer produce pain in the poking – I’m dead to his accusations and lies in this area. This is not the case in other areas of my life. I still wince, or squirm, or get emotionally triggered in some way with other areas. And God’s question floats by again: “Why wait till heaven to heal from those other wounds?” We’re supposed to be “running our race with endurance” (Hebrews 12:1). Wouldn’t the race be more easily run without old wounds, rags and grave clothes from our former lives before Christ’s healing? Why hold onto what is slowing us down? It’s not a slam. It’s an invitation!

1 Peter 1:7 says that the genuineness of our faith is tested and purified by fire. God is a refining fire (Malachi 3:2). He brings things to the surface so He can gently and completely remove it. But he needs our cooperation.

God is not trying to rub your face in it. He wants to set you free! But you have to choose to heal. To let him deactivate the buttons the enemy is so adept at finding, poking, and provoking you to actions and responses that reflect poorly on the image of God, the Holy Spirit residing in you. “Man’s anger does not promote the righteousness God requires” (James 1:20). So, if I have anger issues - news flash: I do! (it’s the longest chapter in my book “Stories from the Well”), or any other stinky responses then shouldn’t I take the time with God to deactivate those buttons so the enemy can’t use them against me, my family, my ministry, my witness – or God’s glory?

God says He doesn’t condemn us (Romans 8:1) – He convicts us so we can repent and be cleansed (1 John 1:9) and gives us other people to be in relationship with so we can confess our sins one to another and pray for one another so we may be healed (James 5:16). Our current responses are a test. And they are more important than we realize.

When I was a kid we had 5 TV stations that came in clear enough to see – if it wasn’t storming and the antenna on the roof was in the right position! 5. And it wasn’t 24/7 access. Stations would go quiet from about midnight to 6 am. My brother and I would wake up to watch cartoons on Saturday morning (the only time they were on!). We’d often have to wait for the familiar color block test pattern to go away before the station would come back on the air for the day. Before the test pattern would clear, an annoying sound would go off with the words, “This is only a test. Had this been a real emergency, you would have been directed… blah, blah, blah” If I thought about it long enough I could probably remember the rest of the words, but we weren’t listening to the warning, we just wanted the cartoons to start. We wanted to get to the “good part”. But just like the information given during the test pattern, God wants us to pay attention to the Word given during our current “test patterns” in life – warnings that we don’t ignore like Charlie Brown’s teacher “wah, wah wah, wah wah..”

When we get poked, do our emotions bring up familiar and annoying patterns of behavior that assault our (and others) ears? Or are we truly “dead to sin” (wounds healed into scars that are) impermeable to the pokes of the enemy? Do we understand that God is warning us, inviting us to deactivate those buttons (and the places those buttons are wired to in our past) so we are no longer triggered into sinful patterns. God warned Cain in Genesis 4:7, “...sin is crouching at your door,...but you must master it.” Do we ignore the warning? Tuning it out and waiting for the good part to come?

Let’s cooperate with God and allow Him to shine His spotlight into the nooks and crannies where some residual wounds are not yet healed. He’s not a “gotcha” kind of God. He running a test pattern so you can get to the good stuff without the rags from the past slowing you down. Let’s help one another back-trace those wires that “so easily entangle” so we can run this race with endurance! If you help me with my wires, and I help you with yours, God can deactivate those buttons and turn those active wounds to scars… “This is only a test” – let’s pass it!