Dear God, I Didn’t Know Healing Would Hurt This Much

Dear God,

I don’t know if You still listen. I don’t know if I’m even saying this right. But I’m writing You anyway, because sometimes silence feels like screaming when there’s no one left to hear it.

I used to believe in You without hesitation. Sunday mornings. Bowed heads. Raised hands. I gave You everything because I thought that’s what love looked like—total surrender. I wore You like armor. I used scripture like a compass. I prayed like I was auditioning for grace.

But somewhere along the way, I broke.

It wasn’t one thing. It was a slow shatter. A betrayal I couldn’t explain. Prayers that went unanswered. Watching good people suffer while those who manipulate Your name prosper. I wanted to believe there was a plan. But when I looked around, all I saw was pain dressed up as purpose.

So I left. Quietly at first. Then fully. I stopped going. Stopped singing. Stopped pretending the verses felt like comfort when they just felt like salt in a wound.

And then the healing began.

Not the kind they preach about. Not the clean, anointed kind. The kind where you cry on the floor because the numbness finally cracked. The kind where you realize how much of your identity was borrowed. The kind where you question everything you ever believed… including whether You were ever listening.

God, healing hurt more than the breaking.

It felt like dying. And in a way, it was. I had to let parts of me go—parts that were holy only because someone told me they were. I had to sit with shame that wasn’t mine. I had to feel every ache I buried beneath Bible verses. And I hated You for it. I won’t lie.

But You didn’t strike me down. You didn’t thunder. You didn’t silence me.

You waited.

And in the waiting, something unexpected happened. I found You again.

Not in churches or chapels. But in people who showed up when I didn’t ask. In laughter after long silence. In a sunrise that felt like mercy. In a breath that came easier than the last.

You weren’t in the ritual. You were in the recovery.

So here I am—not fixed, but freer. Not righteous, but real. And if You’re still out there—if You still hear this broken whisper of a prayer—then I just want to say…

Thank You.

Not for the pain. But for what the pain revealed.

Faith wasn’t supposed to be armor. It was always meant to be oxygen.

And now I’m breathing again.

— Me

Do you remember that night I sat in my car outside the church and couldn’t make myself go in?

I stared at the glowing steeple like it was the house of someone I used to love—but who no longer knew my name. I was tired. Of pretending. Of plastering a smile over a soul that was unraveling. That night, I realized I didn’t want answers. I wanted honesty. But all I felt was performance.

I used to think You lived in the pulpit. That I had to dress a certain way, sing the right way, pray in a voice that sounded like a preacher’s cadence just to be heard. But that night, sitting behind a fogged windshield, I whispered one sentence through clenched teeth:

“If You’re real, I need You to find me outside of this.”

You didn’t answer in thunder. There were no angelic choruses. But something shifted. The silence didn’t feel empty anymore. It felt... patient.

Healing didn’t look like worship songs. It looked like breaking down in therapy because someone finally said, “That shouldn’t have happened to you.”

It looked like walking by the ocean alone and letting the waves carry the weight I couldn’t name.

It looked like forgiving people who never asked.

Like grieving the person I used to be before the world convinced me that joy was childish and faith was weakness.

And God, I still don’t have the same faith I did back then. I don’t quote verses the way I used to. I don’t call You Father because, honestly, my wounds around that word are still tender.

But I talk to You.

When I see a child dance without shame. When I hear a song that makes my chest ache. When someone holds my hand without needing to fix me. That’s when I feel You again—not as a doctrine, but as a presence.

People say You never change. Maybe that’s true. But my understanding of You has. You’re not the angry God I feared. Not the absentee judge I resented. You are the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. The grace that didn’t come through a pulpit but through pain. Through people. Through patience.

I’m not sure where this road leads. I still have doubts. I still wrestle. But maybe faith isn’t the absence of doubt. Maybe it’s choosing to believe anyway. Not because I’m told to—but because my soul remembers something that fear tried to erase.

Thank You for not giving up on me, even when I gave up on You.

I’m still learning.

But I’m listening now.

And somehow, I think You are too.