The tricky thing about healing is that, on the outside, it can look like you've moved on.
Like you're no longer grieving. Like you're okay again.
But that couldn't be further from the truth.
Sure, people stop asking how you're really doing. If you're okay. How you're holding up. Life around you continues to move, and somehow, there’s an expectation that you’ve done the same.
But the reality is that some days are still a struggle.
Some days I'm so overwhelmed by my own thoughts that it's exhausting just trying to hold it all together. Because if people see you cry now, they may not understand. It's not easily explained.
So you hold it in until you're alone.
I've learned that, just like grief, healing isn't linear. It's a constant ebb and flow of good days and bad days.
But somewhere in that ebb and flow, I've discovered two things to be true.
1. True healing can only begin when we stop trying to control what only God can control.
Surrender doesn't come easily to our human hearts.
We want to control the narrative. We create our own timelines and our own paths, trying to get to the outcome we think we want—or maybe even think we deserve.
But I've had to ask myself: if I had control of everything, if I could see the outcome before it happened, what need would I have for faith?
It is in surrendering my need for control that I can strengthen my faith in God.
And I'm learning that surrender isn't something I do once and suddenly never struggle with again. It's daily. Sometimes hourly. It's waking up and handing God the same thing I tried to take back yesterday.
Again and again.
2. Healing doesn't always mean going back to who you were before the heartbreak.
I spent some time trying to feel "normal" again.
I wanted to get back to who I was before. To enjoy the same things. To feel like myself again. And the harder I tried, the more sad, lost, and confused I became.
The things that satisfied me before didn't anymore.
For a while, I felt like I didn't really know who I was.
But maybe I wasn't supposed to go back.
What if healing = growth?
What if God can use the very thing you never would have chosen to shape you into the person He's calling you to become?
You went through something that changed you.
Of course you're not the same person anymore—even when others still expect you to be.
Maybe you’re not meant to be…
Maybe healing is coming out on the other side as someone new.
Someone who longs for deeper purpose.
Deeper connection.
Someone who holds things a little more loosely.
Someone who is learning, day by day, to surrender what you cannot control and trust the God who can.
I've spent so much of this season thinking that healing meant becoming strong again.
Strong enough to carry the weight. Strong enough to hold it together. Strong enough to finally feel okay.
But I'm beginning to understand that God never asked me to be strong enough on my own.
There are things I cannot fix. Things I cannot control. Things I cannot carry on my own.
And admitting that doesn't make me weak.
It makes room for God.
I've read 2 Corinthians 12:9 before, but it means something different to me now:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
I used to focus on the weakness in that verse.
Now I notice the grace.
His grace is enough for the days I feel strong and the days I don't. For the days when surrender comes easily and the days when I find myself reaching for control all over again.
Healing hasn't taught me how to need God less.
It's taught me just how much I truly need Him.
His grace really is enough.