I have a special heart for abuse survivors as evidenced in my other podcast, Tragically Beautiful. Those who have survived abuse or any kind of trauma really deserve some special care and healing after these periods in life is what I really want to talk about today. When you've experienced trauma or abuse and you're newly on the other side of it, probably the last thing you're thinking about is how much you actually need to heal. Not because you don't care about that,but because you're in it. Your emotions are high, you might feel hurt, betrayed or overwhelmed.

Or maybe it's the exact opposite, maybe you feel numb or disconnected and unsure of what you even feel at all. You're in this place where you're trying to steady yourself, trying to kind of make sense of what just happened. Your emotions are probably all over the place. Some moments you feel everything and other moments you feel nothing at all. You're figuring out how to breathe again and at the same time trying to figure out what your next step even is.

But somewhere along the way, and if you've been through anything traumatic in your life, you'll understand what I mean when I say this. Somewhere along the way, there comes a shift. It might be really subtle. It might take some time to get to that point, but it's there and it comes. And it's the moment when you realize, I don't want to just get through this. I actually want and need to heal from it.

And that moment, that moment matters more than you think. In fact, it's actually a critical and pivotal moment because how you step forward from there can actually shape your entire journey.

On last week's episode, I talked about how I kind of put God on a shelf for a time after life didn't work out the way I prayed it would. I mentioned that I started out on my healing journey on my own. But if there's one piece of advice I could give you from my own lived experience, it's this. One of the most important things you can do in that pivotal moment is invite God into your healing. Not as a last resort, not as something you turn to once everything else fails, but as the foundation you build on from the very beginning.

And if you do that, your healing is going to be different. Not perfect, it's not going to be instant, but it will be different because healing was never meant to be something you carry on your own. We live in a fallen world. Bad things happen to good people and bad things happen to people every single day. God knows there's going to be things that we need to heal from and He wants to be just as much a part of that process as He wants to be a part of anything else in our life. And I'll be honest, as I alluded to in the last episode, that's something I only learned in hindsight. I moved through a lot of my healing on my own. I processed things mentally, I worked through the emotions, and I grew in a lot of ways. But looking back, I can see that I was carrying more than I need to. My burden was difficult and my yoke was heavy.

It would have been so much easier if I had allowed God to walk with me in it. He tells us, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light." Looking back, I so wish I had done that. It wasn't that God wasn't there. It was that I wasn't fully letting Him in. And I think for a lot of us, when we come through abuse or trauma, that hesitation makes sense and I understand kind of where that comes from because when you've gone through something really painful, especially something like abuse or trauma, it can bring up questions about God that feel really hard to reconcile. Why did He allow this? Why didn't He step in? Why didn't things turn out the way I prayed for? Those questions are raw and real and they don't make you weak in your faith. They make you honest. And God isn't intimidated by your honesty or by your questions, and e's not put off by your doubt. He doesn't distance himself from you in your pain. If anything, He moves closer. In fact, we're told in Psalm 34:18 that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. That means He doesn't wait for you to have perfect understanding or perfect faith. He meets you right where you are.

And that's where healing begins to take on a different tone. And this is where things begin to shift in a really meaningful way. Because healing is not just about working through what happened to you. It's about learning how to move forward in a way that actually supports your whole being, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually with God at the center of it. And that is what this podcast is all about. That is exactly why I started Wellness God's Way. Because this is meant to be a journey that we take together with God, or an Odyssey as I like to call it, because it is such an adventure.

After abuse or trauma, your body and your mind have been in survival mode. Your cortisol levels are high, your sleep is off, you may have been finding comfort in food or not eating at all. Everything in you has been working to get you through. So if you feel tired or disconnected or unsure of what you even need, that's not a failure. That's simply a reflection of what you've been through. It's a reminder of how incredible God created our bodies to be. As they attempt to protect us from the negative outside influences.

But here's the hopeful part. You're not meant to stay in survival mode. This shift is available to you from surviving to actually being supported. So basically God is inviting you to invite Him into your healing. And this is where caring for your health becomes so important. Not because you need to fix yourself, but because you're learning how to support the version of you that's stepping into healing. The version of you who is now in a position to begin rebuilding with intention, and with support. And this does not have to be overwhelming. It's not about doing everything perfectly or changing your entire life overnight. It's about small intentional choices. It might look like getting more rest. It might look like eating regularly or moving your body in a way that feels good instead of forced. But more than anything, it looks like inviting God into those choices.

And when you bring God into that process, it shifts from being just another thing you have to figure out to something you walk through together with guidance. Instead of trying to figure everything out on your own, you begin asking God, what do I need today? Where are You leading me right now? What do You want to show me? And then taking one step in that direction. Sometimes the answer is really practical. You need rest, you need nourishment, you need to slow down instead of pushing through.

Sometimes it's more emotional. You need to acknowledge what you're feeling instead of dismissing it. And sometimes it's simply creating space to be with God without pressure or performance, just His presence. And that's how healing builds, not all at once, but over time.

Now I do want to speak to something that can come up in this process because it's very real and I know it came up for me. You might feel some resistance. You might feel like focusing on yourself is selfish. You might feel like you should be further along by now. You might even feel uncomfortable receiving care at all. These could be your own thoughts, but they could also be lies the enemy is whispering in your ear because he knows that a healed person is dangerous. So he'd much rather keep you in a state of mental, emotional, physical, and or spiritual illness so you're not effective for God.

But those thoughts, no matter where they come from, don't get to define what's actually true. Truth is truth and truth comes from God. So when this resistance creeps in, talk to God about it and ask Him to help you navigate it. Caring for yourself is not stepping away from God at all.

In fact, it's often one of the ways you draw closer to Him because you're honoring what He created. You're tending to the life He sustained. You're participating in your own restoration and redemption and restoration is exactly the work our Father is known for and most interested in. And that is such a beautiful thing. Healing is not about becoming someone completely different. It's about coming back into alignment with who you were always created to be - whole, supported, deeply loved, and deeply cared for.

More often than not, healing doesn't happen in big dramatic moments. It happens in those small choices you make every day, those sustainable shifts that allow us to keep making progress, the choice to take care of your body, the choice to slow down when you need to, the choice to bring God into the middle of what you're walking through, the choice to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

And over time, those small choices begin to create something really steady, something strong and something whole. So wherever you are right now, whether you're still trying to catch your breath or you're starting to think about what healing could look like for you, I want to leave you with this. You do not have to have it all figured out. You don't need a full plan. You just need a starting point. So the question I want to leave you with this week is actually one I want you to ask of God.

And it is this, God, what is one way you want to care for me today? And how can I partner with you in that? And then friend, trust that He will meet you there because He will. You're not behind, you're not disqualified, you are not alone in this. Not only do you have God Himself, but you have this community. And if you'd like more support from me, I invite you to head over to trueandlastingwellness.com and sign up to be on my email list for more information and updates right to your inbox.

But friend, there is so much more for you than just surviving what you've been through. There is healing, there is restoration, there is purpose in your suffering, but there is joy in the morning. Your healing is not only possible, it's already beginning and there is a version of you on the other side of that that feels whole, grounded and at peace. And you don't have to get there alone.

God has big things in mind for you. God does not waste a single moment in our lives. So even this terrible thing that you've been through, the abuse, the trauma, whatever it was, like I say in my other podcast, you may have experienced tragedy, but it has made you tragically beautiful. If you are living and breathing, God has a purpose for you. And it might just be that that very thing that you have just come through, is exactly the thing he wants to use to make progress in is kiKngdom, that He wants you to use to help others that may have been through something very similar. So never dismiss that. Never think that God wastes anything because He will use every moment in your life for His good and for his glory.

So friend,thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I hope that this episode touched you and that you were able to glean something valuable from it. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe, to leave a review, or share this with a sister you think could be blessed by it. I look so forward to talking with you again next week, but until then, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. We'll talk soon. Bye for now.