I thought healing would be easier to recognize by now. Not easy. Just… recognizable.
I thought there would be some kind of progression to it. The pain would hurt a little less. The questions would become fewer. The memories wouldn’t hit quite as hard. Eventually, I would be able to look back and say, That wound is healed.
And sometimes I can.
Until something touches a part of it I didn’t know was still tender. That’s the strange thing about healing. You can genuinely be doing well and suddenly find yourself hurting again. You can laugh until your stomach hurts and cry later that night. You can be incredibly grateful for the life in front of you while still grieving something behind you. You can have peace and still occasionally wonder, What if?
For a long time, I think I interpreted those moments as regression.
Why does this still hurt? I thought I dealt with this. I thought God healed this.
But the hard truth is that healing may never be that linear. Sometimes the original wound has healed, but life reveals something that became attached to it.
A fear. An insecurity. A response. A lie I started believing. A way I learned to protect myself. And suddenly I’m not necessarily revisiting the same wound. I’m discovering another place that was affected by it.
That’s different.
Psalm 147:3 says: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
I’ve always loved the first half: He heals.
That’s the part I want. But lately I’ve been sitting with the second part.
He binds their wounds. You don’t bandage something by pretending the wound isn’t there; you tend to it, cover it, protect it, and give it the conditions it needs to heal.
And some wounds need that care longer than others.
God has healed some things in me quickly. And in other places, His healing has looked more like patiently tending to something over time. That doesn’t make Him less of a Healer. And it doesn’t mean I’m failing at being healed.
Maybe I’ve been measuring healing by how little something hurts, when I should also notice how faithfully God meets me when it does.
I’ve learned that my heart can hold more than one feeling at a time. I can grieve and still have joy. I can hurt and still recognize healing. I can have questions and still trust God. I can remember what happened without living there anymore. I can wonder what if and still have peace about what is.
Scripture doesn’t ask us to become emotionally dishonest in order to become spiritually mature.
Paul described believers as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” in 2 Corinthians 6:10. Both. Not sorrow first and rejoicing once sorrow disappears. Sorrowful and rejoicing.
That has been freeing for me. Because sometimes I think we accidentally treat faith like it should eliminate every conflicting emotion.
If I’m trusting God, I shouldn’t feel afraid. If I’m grateful, I shouldn’t grieve. If I’m healed, this shouldn’t hurt. If I have peace, I shouldn’t have questions.
But Scripture gives us a much more human picture.
The Psalms are full of people bringing anguish, confusion, fear, remembrance, hope, praise, and trust to God, sometimes in the same prayer.
God doesn’t seem intimidated by the complexity. He meets us there.
I think that’s what I’m learning right now. Healing isn’t always God removing every trace of what happened.
Sometimes it’s realizing that what happened no longer gets to define what is true.
And you may be wondering, “Joelibeck, what has happened that you feel like you are grieving again?”
Well, a little bit of everything. I sometimes remember people in my life who were so influential in my journey as a believer, a mom, and a wife, but are no longer here, and I deeply miss them. Sometimes I feel a lot of pain when I rejoice for a friend getting a rainbow baby after a miscarriage, while I feel extremely sad that I’ve tried for several months to see if we can conceive again, and I remember the glimpse of life I was getting ready to welcome to the world, but she didn’t make it.
However, when I look up, I know God is still the Healer. He is near to the brokenhearted. He doesn’t rush wounded people or shame them for needing care. So remaining a bit broken reassures me that He has never left my side.
Then I look inward and realize I don’t have to interpret every painful emotion as evidence that something is wrong with me or that God hasn’t done anything. I can let Him show me what is underneath it without condemning myself for finding another layer.
Therefore, I can stop pretending that spiritual maturity means always looking okay. I can also give other people permission to heal without demanding their process look neat.
Maybe that’s part of freedom. Not feeling pain again. But no longer being afraid of what the pain means.
I can notice the tenderness and bring it to Him. I can find another layer and let Him into that one too. I can cry and still know I’m healing. I can grieve and still experience joy. I can have a what if and still rest in even if.
Because healing isn’t always a straight line from wounded to whole.
Sometimes it looks more like being held while God patiently tends to places we didn’t even know were hurting.
And through every layer, every memory, every unexpected ache…
He stays.
Maybe that’s what I needed to know most. Not that every wound would heal according to my timeline. But that at no point in the healing would I have to walk through it without Him.
Let’s Tune In.
