What I See Now: What My Healing Journey Taught Me About Healing

Several years ago, I experienced a traumatic incident that completely shattered my inner world.

It happened at a vulnerable time, when I was just a teenager. I will share my full story in the future, but suffice it to say, I was thrown into a multiyear battle of spiritual warfare and anguish of soul, without yet having the theology for my experiences. I struggled with feeling confused and alone. That is why now, I’m so passionate about giving more biblical foundations for topics that are often avoided, such as trauma, spiritual warfare and soul prosperity.

Maybe today you find yourself dealing with circumstances you don’t fully understand. Or maybe you find yourself working through the wounds of the past and, deep down, secretly feeling ashamed that your heart is not healing as fast as you thought it would.

I’ve been there.

Healing is a process. And that process often takes time, especially if you’re dealing with compounding trauma from more than one situation.

I want to share an overview of my journey as a pattern that may help you understand what the Lord may be doing in your healing journey.

Keep in mind that I am not a mental health professional. These are observations from my own experience which I can now recognize after many years. These are not universal patterns or a linear process. These periods may often overlap, and that is okay. I know what it is to feel like I’m taking five steps forward, two steps back.

Here are four periods in my own healing journey that may bring some insight into yours.

Shock

Sometimes we experience something painful and immediately shut down mentally and emotionally.

We may become numb. We may not fully understand what happened or how deeply it affected us. There may be little to no outward signs of damage, even though something inside of us has been deeply affected.

There were times in my own healing journey when I was in a state of shock without realizing it.

I didn’t have language for what was happening yet.

Sometimes the first step in healing is simply recognizing that something happened and that it affected us.

Recognition

My first time truly grieving what I had experienced came later. I remember sobbing before the Lord in my prayer time and beginning to notice things within myself that I had not recognized before.

I started to notice heightened anxiety, sudden emotional outbursts in response to triggers, fears and an overall sense that something was not right. I also battled shame as to why certain experiences affected me so deeply.

Recognition is when we start to see that trauma is present and we identify our specific triggers and how these triggers affect us.

This can be difficult because recognizing our pain does not necessarily mean we know how to heal it.

Sometimes we can identify the wound but still have no idea what to do with it.

For me, there were times when I could recognize that I was hurting but didn’t have language for all of these things like I do now.

That is okay.

You don’t have to understand everything at once.

Coping

For the next several years, I then went into what I would call the coping part of my healing journey as I recognized my pain and my triggers from my traumas, yet I had no idea how to heal.

So, I coped through subconsciously trying to ignore my trauma through constant busyness and even ministry activities.

I was always somewhere doing something, producing something.

Looking back, I can see how easy it was to stay busy rather than slow down enough to face what was hurting underneath.

I did intentionally take time to rest when possible, but in my case, what refuels me socially and emotionally is quiet time with the Lord. Yet there were seasons when this sacred space felt completely lifeless.

I also found ways to distract myself from my deep hurt by praying for others, studying the Word for my next blog post and so forth.

What further added to my confusion was that helpful spiritual practices, such as worship, prayer with others, repentance and so forth, were either only temporarily strengthening me or not directly addressing the issue.

I personally felt isolated and somewhat ashamed because I didn’t have an answer for how to deal with the deeper aspects of what I was experiencing.

While others around me were compassionate, none of us quite knew what the solution was.

I think this is an important part of the healing conversation because coping is not necessarily wrong.

Sometimes coping is how we survive a season we don’t yet know how to process.

But eventually, coping may no longer be enough.

Surrender

My healing began when coping was no longer enough to contain what hurt.

My healing did not begin with another strategy. It began with surrender.

I had to acknowledge what was hurting instead of continuing to find ways around it.

I would classify the surrender period as the time in which we acknowledge our coping mechanisms and all that has caused our brokenness.

We turn to Jesus, our only True Healer, in complete vulnerability.

This is when we begin to take steps to allow the Lord to meet us in our mess, not tidy it up for Him.

That may look different for everyone.

It might look like receiving prayer ministry from a Holy Spirit-led Christian counselor, taking time to rest or, as in my case, creating space in my personal time alone with the Lord.

The important thing is that we allow ourselves to be honest about what hurts.

We don’t have to clean ourselves up before coming to Jesus.

He wants to meet us right where we are, how we are, in whatever state we are in.

Healing Takes Time

Remember that healing takes time and is not a formula.

We may still be utilizing coping mechanisms after we have entered the surrender period where we are letting the Lord work on us.

It’s natural for this process to take time and be done in layers, especially if you are dealing with multiple severe traumatic experiences.

I know what it is to feel like I’m taking five steps forward, two steps back.

Healing is not always a straight line.

There may be things we recognize before we are ready to surrender them. There may be coping mechanisms we continue to use while the Lord is already beginning to work on us.

That doesn’t mean we are failing.

It means we are human and healing takes time.

What I See Now

Looking back, I can see things I couldn’t see while I was living through them.

I can see that being numb didn’t mean I wasn’t hurting.

I can see that recognizing my pain didn’t automatically mean I knew how to heal.

I can see that staying busy could help me function without actually addressing what was hurting underneath.

And I can see that my healing did not begin with another strategy.

It began with surrender.

I had to let Jesus into the places I had spent years trying to avoid.

I had to learn that healing doesn’t always mean everything changes overnight. Sometimes it happens gradually. Sometimes it happens in layers. Sometimes we take five steps forward and two steps back.

But God can still be working in the process.

If you are somewhere in your own healing journey right now, I hope you know that you don’t have to have all the answers.

Maybe you’re still in shock.

Maybe you’re beginning to recognize the wound.

Maybe you’re coping because you don’t yet know what else to do.

Or maybe you’re finally ready to surrender something you’ve been carrying for a long time.

Wherever you are, Jesus can meet you there.

He wants to give you rest for your weary soul.

And all you have to do is come to Him.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30