In my experience, stories of suffering have two parts: the beginning and the end. The story starts with a detailed explanation of what caused the suffering, and then jumps to the part of being healed where everything in life makes sense again.
The middle part—the process of becoming healed— is glossed over or even skipped entirely.
What happens in the middle? How do you reach the moment of being completely healed?
I used to look for the answer in books. Fictional stories don’t skim over the process in the middle, the process of healing. In some of the best books, the main character never even reaches a moment of complete healing.
I eventually expanded my reading material and turned to psychology books, spiritual living books—anything that could potentially help explain the process of healing.
For all of the reading and analyzing I’ve done, you’d think I would have this whole healing thing figured out.
Spoiler alert: I don’t. Not even close. In fact, I am just beginning to scratch the surface.
For the longest time, I thought I could get to the point in my life where I could say, “I have healed from all of the pain, and I have this whole Christian thing figured out. Everything makes sense.”
Then, it would be okay for me to talk about the hard things openly. Then, I would be ready to share my story. Then, I would be a good Christian.
I internalized the lie that I had to be as close to perfect as possible before turning to God. Everyone at church had it together. I was struggling. Therefore, I was a bad Christian and my faith wasn’t strong enough
It took me a long time to see how believing those lies has impacted my life and my faith. I had to make the decision to do something about it if I wanted anything to change.
I began the process, and God opened the door for me to have the time and space to begin to heal.
I am slowly learning to replace the lies with the truth.
I’m living in a broken world. Until I’m not, that moment where everything makes sense and I feel completely healed won’t exist.
So why keep pretending? It’s exhausting.
I’m living in the messy part in the middle. It’s the part we’re all living in anyway. Let’s be honest about it.
I’m choosing to own my story—all of it. A story full of mistakes, pain, brokenness, and the God that keeps fighting for me.