Don’t clap for me. Applause was misplaced when the Band-Aid ripped off and the pain screamed louder than I could bear. I told myself, “It couldn’t be that bad,” but when I looked again, it needed more than stitches—it needed surgery.

I was no longer claiming the superpower called strength. I was battle-tested, and my loyalty to “strong” had grown weary and uncommitted. I needed immediate attention, and this time, I could not outsmart myself.

It was not the medical care I thought I needed. It was revealed to me that my whole being was leaking, and the only way to stop it was through invasive surgery—radical reformation of mind, heart, body, and soul. What felt abominable then has become what many call therapy—inner healing.

Formation is the shaping of wisdom, identity, and integrity through intentional engagement with the whole self. The soul’s work is never done, only deepened. Formation is the art of being undone, to be remade whole.

This is often our experience when we move through life without processing how life is happening to us and how we are happening with life. Untreated wounds may appear harmless—or muted enough to ignore. But left alone, infection spreads, disrupting what we know as good. It ripples outward, immobilizing the whole being—mind, soul, body, and spirit—and leaving us in a place that feels like no return.

As a recovering and champion patient of radical formation, one thing is clear to me: we are intricately interwoven image-bearers, created with:

A spirit — our heart and will, the center of life and choices.

A mind — the seat of our thinking, feeling, and response to both inner and outer worlds.

A soul — the integrative center of the whole person, weaving all dimensions into a coherent whole.

A body — the temple, the vessel of our inner life, the host of mind, soul, and spirit.

To think we can outwit this design would be foolish. The incisions of life require not control, but surrender—a willingness to enter a process that must break before it can build. In the rewiring, there are no guarantees you will be the same, as if sameness were ever the goal. The guarantee is this: you may have to part with people, vices, comforts, ways of thinking, or rooted ideologies to make room for God’s ultimate plan.

Formation can bring some wounds to a permanent close. Yet to remain human is to admit that life’s realities may reopen old scars. Formation is not a locked door, but a doorway we may re-enter whenever restoration is needed.

This is my way of saying: fervent love requires radical resistance to our own ways. Only then can we make room for what is good, eternal, and freeing.

It is good to receive love that is unadulterated and pure, and to give it to others in the same vein.

If formation is the art of being undone to be remade whole, what part of you is being reshaped right now?

Selah!