E31 | When Healing Isn't Linear. I Still Go Back Sometimes And That's Okay | I Never Got My Why - Part 9

Have you ever thought you were healed, only to find yourself asking the same questions all over again?

Maybe a conversation caught you off guard.

Maybe you heard news you weren't expecting.

Maybe a memory resurfaced, and suddenly it felt like you were back where you started.

If you've ever wondered whether that means you've failed, this conversation is for you.

In Part 9 of the I Never Got My Why series, we're talking about something we don't often hear in conversations about healing: what happens when old wounds are touched again.

Because healing isn't about pretending the pain never existed.

It's about learning that the pain no longer gets to tell your story.

We'll explore why revisiting an old wound doesn't erase the progress you've made, how God meets us even when familiar questions return, and why choosing to trust Him again is not starting over—it's continuing the journey.

If you're discouraged because you thought you should be "further along" by now, I hope this conversation reminds you that growth isn't measured by whether you ever struggle again.

It's measured by where you turn when you do.

In this conversation:

• Why healing isn't linear.
• What to do when old wounds resurface.
• The difference between visiting the pain and living there.
• How God gently meets us when familiar questions return.
• Why trusting God again isn't going backward—it's growing deeper.

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

I thought healing meant one day I would stop missing it completely, stop thinking about it, stop feeling it, stop revisiting it in random moments that caught me off guard. But that's not what happened. I still go back sometimes, just not the way I used to I think one of the quiet fears many women carry after a hard season is this: What if I never fully heal? What if the grief keeps revisiting me forever? What if the fact that I still feel it sometimes means I haven't actually grown at all? And I wanna say this gently because I think we've been handed a version of healing that is often unrealistic. Healing in real life is not linear. It's not one breakthrough service and suddenly the ache never returns. It's not one prayer and then you never revisit the wound again. It's not arriving at a permanent emotional state where nothing ever touches a scar. That's not how actual human healing usually works, especially not when the wound was deep, especially not when it touched identity, and especially not when it shaped entire chapters of your life. There is a difference between revisiting a wound and living inside it. That difference matters because I still go back sometimes. There are still moments where I will hear a worship song that once held my grief, and suddenly I am back there for a minute, back in that ache, back remembering the version of myself that stood at the altar trying to survive another Sunday. And the difference now is not that I never feel it. The difference is I no longer confuse the feeling with a permanent return. The pain is no longer my address. That's what healing started looking like for me. Not the complete disappearance of sadness, not forgetting, not becoming untouched by the story, but becoming someone who could visit the room without building a life there again. And I think that distinction is important because some women keep condemning themselves for normal moments of remembering a specific date, a song, a conversation, a certain time of year, and suddenly the feeling returns and immediately shame follows it. And you say to yourself, "I thought I was over this. I thought I healed. Why am I back here again?" But maybe you're not back there the way you think you are. Maybe the grief visited. Maybe the memory surfaced. Maybe the body remembered before the mind had time to catch up. And maybe none of that means you failed. David went back all the time. That is one of the reasons I love the Psalms now in a way I didn't before, because they sound like a real human being trying to stay connected to God while still carrying emotions that moved around constantly. One Psalm says, "I will praise you at all times." another one says, "How long, O Lord?" One moment he is confident, the next moment he is grieving, the next moment he is afraid, and the next moment he's remembering what God has done before. He goes back. And honestly, I think it's, it's a part of why the Psalms feel so alive, because they sound like an actual person walking through faith In real time, not a cleaned up testimony written after the fact. A person moving between grief and trust while still living inside the story. And somehow we have created a version of spirituality where women think returning emotions mean spiritual failure, as if maturity means never struggling again, never feeling the ache again, never revisiting the wound again. And that is not what maturity looks like in scripture. Maturity looks more like returning faster, returning to the truth and returning to God and returning to yourself, not pretending you never wandered emotionally in the first place. I think some women have been condemning themselves for the very thing that proves they are still trying. The repeated surrender, the repeated returning, and the repeated handing it back to God even after they picked it up again. That mattered to me because I spent a long time believing healing had to look dramatic to count. I thought freedom meant the grief disappearing completely. I thought maturity meant no longer feeling affected. I thought if I still cried sometimes and still revisited certain questions inside internally, then maybe I had not actually healed the way I thought I had. But now I think healing often looks quieter than that. More ordinary, repetitive even. You feel it, you recognize it, you name it honestly, and then instead of building a home there again, you give it back. And every time you do that, something is strengthened inside you. Not because you never felt the grief, because you no longer obey it automatically. That's growth. That's maturity. That's the turning continuing in real time. Not perfection. It's practice. And maybe maturity is not never entering the room again. Maybe maturity is recognizing the room faster, staying there for the last time, and remembering where the door is before you build a life there again. That line matters because there was a time in my life where grief felt permanent, like it had become part of my identity. Like the room was simply where I live now. And I don't live there anymore. I visit sometimes. I remember sometimes. I still have moments where something catches me unexpectedly, and I feel the ache all over again for a minute. But I know how to leave now. I know where the door is. And maybe that is what healing in real life actually looks like. Not erasing the room, learning how to move through it differently. I wanna say something important before I close. If you're listening to this episode and you still revisit the grief sometimes, you're not broken, you're not behind, and you're not spiritually immature because the aches still revisits you occasionally. The goal is never to become emotionally numb. The goal was to become whole enough that the grief no longer controls the direction of your life, and that takes time. Sometimes longer than you can understand, 'cause I know I didn't. But slow healing is still healing. Quiet healing is still healing. Repeated surrender is still surrender. And maybe one day you will look up the same way I did and realize something quietly changed. Not all at once, not dramatically, but enough. Enough that the grief is no longer the loudest thing in the room. Enough that you can carry the memory without it carrying you. Enough that you can revisit the chapter without becoming trapped inside it again. because eventually the work is no longer only learning how to survive the heartbreak or the loss. The work becomes learning how to live without shame when the grief revisits you. Learning how to keep walking forward without requiring yourself to be perfectly healed first. That's the next layer we're stepping into together And if you're walking through this series with me, don't forget to download the free I Never Got My Why reflection guide. It's filled with scriptures, reflection prompts, and journal questions to help you process your own story alongside each episode. You'll find the link in the show notes And with part 10 coming, we're gonna close out this series. I wanna tell you the truth about what happened to me after I never got my why. And as always, I want you to remember that you are seen. You are completely seen and held, even here, even now, even in the why