Maybe, like me, you’ve been through things that have shaped your whole self. Difficult experiences can do that – alter how we think and feel, chip away at our sense of worth. I’m determined to be more than a product of my past and I battle so hard at it – so the days I slip up? When my childhood is showing? It feels a lot like failure.

Over the years, I’ve waged war against depression, insomnia and eating disorders, and in God’s strength, I seem to have won. But there are odd days, still, when the scales taunt me; when I’d happily draw the curtains and hide away. Or there are days when I say words I wish I could take back. I react, all too human.

At times, I’ve found myself thinking who am I kidding? No matter how hard I strive at becoming something other, I can never escape what I’ve come from.

And it’s frustrating, isn’t it? Soul-destroying, even. Because we’re told we’re new creations; that our identity lies in Christ – but what about the days we don’t feel it? How about when our minds slip back into old, broken patterns; when we respond out of deep-rooted fear?

There are days that I wonder. When the anxiety takes hold or when my self esteem plummets. In the moments I embody the brokenness you’d expect me to, I do wonder if God has changed me at all. Am I truly made new, if I’m right back here again?

In nursing, we pack cavity wounds to prevent them from healing over superficially, before the deeper layers have had the chance to renew. You do your utmost best to prevent further deterioration; to treat underlying infection, while encouraging the forming and knitting together of new tissue.

Sometimes a wound must stay open a while so you can heal layer by layer.

And God does heal, but often healing is a process.

We are being made new, but we are works in progress.

Sometimes, determined to heal over and desperate to be made new, we expect perfection from ourselves and quickly. But maybe, in the process of making you new, God’s dealing with what’s there beneath, and we need to allow ourselves grace for that. We need to allow ourselves time and daily mercy, just as we would for anyone else.

We are works in progress, you and I. We are still forming. And at face value, it may seem like not a lot has changed, but those deeper layers, they’re knitting together and our God of restoration, He’s making you new.

 “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” – Philippians 1:6

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