I think 2020 was a traumatic year for all of us, but especially so for my family. I won’t go into details since it isn’t my story to tell, but something happened that shook the foundation of our family. In all honesty, it nearly destroyed us. Trust was broken. By the grace of God, we all survived, but we’ve all walked away with broken hearts in need of healing and restoration.

At the time, I had been living in Brazil for 2 months. I was learning how to live in a new country that spoke a language I didn’t know, at the height of a global pandemic, and then suddenly one phone call changed everything. I have never felt so broken, weak, and lost in my entire life. Recovery took a long time. For the first time, I considered leaving the mission field. I started having regular anxiety attacks. I started therapy because I had no clue how to deal with everything that was inside of me. I needed someone who could help me untangle the threads and make sense of what had happened.

The weeks after were dark. Honestly, I remember very little from that time. When I started walking through the process of healing, it was painful. There was just. so. much. So much hurt to process, so many things I didn’t understand. So many skeletons were falling out of so many closets. I had never been wounded like that before. My entire world had shifted and I was just trying to figure out up from down. I felt like I had been thrown into the ocean during a hurricane. In the months after, I started to feel my world balance again. The journey was long, but I felt like I was making progress. After a few months, the anxiety attacks became less and less frequent.

Then the one-year anniversary hit, and I had my first anxiety attack in 6 months.

After the attack had passed, I started questioning God. Every time I prayed, I only had questions. “Why am I back here?? I thought this was over?” I felt like I had been making so much progress! Things were looking up! I was healed, wasn’t I? Once I finally calmed down, I looked over at my desk and saw a design I had in a frame. It simply said, “The healing is His.” 

Have you ever been there?

It’s a place I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. The constant back and forth with God, asking why He wasn’t working faster, thanking Him when I made progress, feeling discouraged when I felt like I’d fallen behind. Back and forth, back and forth. So many questions, but not enough answers. Trying to figure out what is happening in your heart. It’s a hard road to walk. Most days feel like an uphill battle. Eventually, it gets better though. Your legs grow stronger. The mountain doesn’t seem quite so high. You breathe a little easier. It just takes time. 

Unfortunately, healing isn’t linear. It isn’t a straight path that we follow; it’s more like a crooked line, carrying us all over the place. Some days are climbing mountains, and some are sliding down the cliff a little. We like to imagine healing as a straightforward process; a straight path that as long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you’ll slowly get better. In reality, it’s anything but. It takes time. It can be painful. Sometimes it’s backtracking after so much progress. But in the end, it makes us stronger.

Don’t get discouraged if you feel like you’re walking backward. It’s normal to feel that way at times. Even if you aren’t always going the way you’d like to, every step you take is making you a little stronger for the days ahead. All pain has a purpose; we just usually can’t see it when we’re in it.

Healing doesn’t always look the way we imagined. I honestly believed that my heart would be healed by now. I believed that anxiety wouldn’t be something that I had to live with. I believed that by now, all of that would be resolved. But the Lord doesn’t work on our time. He does things on His timeline. I may never know why I still struggle after all this time, but I do know that I’ve gained a deeper trust in the Lord through all of the hurt.

If I could’ve written my own story, it would be so much different. Yet, it wouldn’t have been as beautiful as the story I’ve lived. It would’ve been much easier yes, but it wouldn’t have been what I needed. The story God writes for us doesn’t always seem like the better one, but it is. He can see way beyond what we can. We can trust that He knows what’s best for us.

Nearly five years later, I still have my bad days. Some days it feels like I’m completely healed; others I feel like I’ve taken twenty steps back. The bad days are fewer and farther between, but they haven’t gone away yet. I know one day in the future this pain will just be a distant memory, but I’m not there yet. That frame is still on my desk; a constant reminder that I’m not the one in control of this healing journey. And honestly, it’s a good thing I’m not. 

We need to embrace the nature of healing. When we embrace it for what it is and don’t fight against it, that’s when we truly start to get better.