I think I’ve been holding a grudge against God.
& the really embarrassing part? I’ve been recommending Him to everybody while secretly having an attitude with Him.
WHEW.
Now, before somebody starts an emergency prayer chain, schedules my deliverance, and adds me to the church group chat under “urgent spiritual concerns,” please hear me out.
I love God. Like, LOVE Him. I love His Word. I love discovering the little details in scripture that make me sit there with my mouth open. I love telling people how good He is, how faithful He’s been, and how He has carried me through things that should have absolutely taken me out.
But I had a conversation with Him that I don’t think I’ve ever allowed myself to have without immediately trying to clean it up.
God, I’m angry with You.
And I’m disappointed.
And I feel absolutely terrible saying that because I know how good You’ve been to me.
But why?
Why did I have to lose my mother at eleven? Why did I have to become acquainted with grief before I even understood what it meant to live? Why did I have to learn how to read people’s moods, anticipate danger, and make myself useful just to feel like I belonged somewhere?
Why did I have to become so good at surviving?
And why, after all these years, am I still dealing with the emotional consequences of things I had absolutely no control over?
I know people have free will. I know You didn’t personally orchestrate every cruel thing somebody did to me. I know all the scriptures about Your goodness, Your sovereignty, and Your faithfulness.
I KNOW.
But sometimes, God, knowing all of that doesn’t make the questions go away.
And I’ve been afraid to admit that because how do I tell people to trust a God I’m still trying to understand?
How do I write about His goodness when there are still parts of my story that make me wonder why He didn’t intervene?
And how do I admit that I love Him with everything in me while simultaneously feeling disappointed with Him?
Apparently, by sitting here and telling the whole internet my business.
Wonderful.
But the more I talked to God, the more I realized something that made me want to close my Bible and mind my business.
I wasn’t in pain anymore.
But I was still hurt.
And I had confused the two for YEARS.
I could tell my story without crying. I could laugh about things that once devastated me. I could discuss my childhood, my losses, and the things people did to me without falling apart.
So I assumed I was healed.
Because apparently, being able to recount your trauma without ruining your mascara qualifies as a complete emotional recovery.
Ma’am.
Then I got into Exodus 14 and 15, and God proceeded to mind every single piece of business I thought I had successfully buried.
The Israelites had just escaped Egypt. Pharaoh had pursued them, the Red Sea had parted, and they had walked across on dry ground. An entire army was swallowed by the same water that God had made a pathway through.
And something stood out to me that I hadn’t really considered before.
The Red Sea wasn’t just for Israel.
It was also for Pharaoh.
In Exodus 14:4, God says He will gain glory through Pharaoh. Then in Exodus 14:13–14, Moses tells the Israelites that the Egyptians they see that day, they will never see again.
The same sea that delivered Israel destroyed the army pursuing them.
God wasn’t just providing an exit. He was bringing an end to the pursuit.
And that hit me because I’ve spent so much of my life running from things that were already over.
I escaped certain environments, but I kept expecting every new environment to operate like the old one. I got away from people who hurt me, but I continued anticipating hurt from people who hadn’t done anything to me.
I left Egypt physically and then proceeded to furnish an entire emotional apartment there.
Fully decorated. Utilities connected. Forwarding address updated.
And God, I have the nerve to wonder why I’m exhausted.
Because I don’t always know how to live without preparing for something terrible to happen.
But then Exodus 15:22–26 gets even more personal.
Three days after witnessing the Red Sea miracle, the Israelites are walking through the wilderness without water. They finally reach Marah, see water, and discover it’s bitter.
Now, I know we love to criticize the Israelites for complaining, but can I be honest?
I would’ve had an attitude too.
I’ve been enslaved for generations, finally get delivered, walk through an entire SEA, spend three days thirsty, and the first water I find tastes like disappointment?
God. Respectfully. WHAT ARE WE DOING?
But here’s what caught my attention.
They complained to Moses, Moses cried out to God, and God showed him a piece of wood that made the water drinkable.
Then God began speaking about obedience and revealed Himself as the Lord who heals.
Jehovah Rapha.
And I sat there wondering why a conversation that started with thirst ended with healing.
They needed water.
God revealed Himself as a healer.
Now, the passage doesn’t say their complaining was caused by unresolved trauma, and I don’t want to put words in scripture that aren’t there. But after generations of slavery, I can’t help wondering what it was like to learn how to trust God in freedom when bondage was all they had known.
And that question exposed something in me.
How I handle my Marah often reveals what I haven’t dealt with from my Egypt.
Because sometimes the disappointment in front of me isn’t nearly as big as my reaction to it.
Sometimes somebody tells me no, and suddenly I’m eleven years old again, feeling powerless.
Sometimes somebody doesn’t respond to me, and I start preparing myself for abandonment.
Sometimes I feel overlooked, and instead of asking a question or communicating how I feel, I quietly start collecting evidence that nobody cares.
And sometimes I’m not even upset with the person who disappointed me.
I’m upset with everybody who disappointed me before them.
Including You, God.
And THAT was uncomfortable to admit.
Because I’ve been calling these things my personality.
“I’m independent.”
No, sometimes I’m terrified of needing somebody.
“I’m sensitive.”
Sometimes. Other times, I’m reacting to an injury the person in front of me didn’t cause.
“I’m just a giver.”
Or perhaps I learned that being useful was the safest way to keep people from leaving.
“I don’t need anybody.”
Girl, please. That’s not always strength. Sometimes that’s abandonment dressed up in a cute outfit with matching shoes.
And the worst one?
“That’s just how I am.”
But is it?
Or is that how I learned to be when I didn’t have another choice?
Somewhere along the way, I stopped applying godly principles to my circumstances and started allowing my circumstances to define my person.
I didn’t just develop boundaries. I built walls.
I didn’t just become responsible. I became hyper-independent.
I didn’t just learn to read a room. I became responsible for everybody’s emotional temperature.
And I didn’t just survive pain. I let some of that pain write my personality.
And suddenly, all I could hear was Sofia from The Color Purple.
“All my life I had to fight.”
And GIRL.
Because when she said that, she wasn’t talking about being argumentative for entertainment. She was talking about a life where fighting had become necessary. Fighting to be respected. Fighting to be heard. Fighting to maintain some sense of herself in a world that kept trying to take it from her.
And I felt that in places I didn’t even know were still tender.
Because all my life, I’ve felt like I had to fight too.
Fight to belong. Fight to be loved. Fight to be understood. Fight to protect myself. Fight to prove that I was worth keeping around.
And somewhere along the way, fighting stopped being something I did when necessary and became the posture I carried into everything.
I learned to keep my guard up even when nobody was attacking me.
I learned to defend myself before anybody accused me.
I learned to anticipate rejection before anybody had the opportunity to accept me.
And God, how do You teach somebody to rest when they’ve spent their entire life preparing for war?
Because I know how to fight.
I know how to survive.
I know how to get back up after life knocks me down.
But I don’t always know how to put my fists down when the fight is over.
And that’s when I realized something that absolutely broke my heart.
I’ve been asking God for peace while continuing to live like I’m under attack.
And I’m not saying the fights weren’t real. They were. Some of them were devastating. Some of them changed me in ways I’m still discovering.
But I cannot keep allowing battles I’ve already survived to determine how I treat people who never declared war on me.
I don’t want to be so committed to protecting the little girl I was that I prevent the woman I am from experiencing the love she deserves.
And I don’t want to keep confusing my ability to fight with my ability to heal.
Because those are two very different things.
That’s where Jeremiah 6:14 came in and finished whatever emotional dignity I had left.
“They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”
Jeremiah 6:14, ESV
In its context, Jeremiah is confronting leaders who were treating the people’s serious spiritual condition superficially, declaring peace when things were far from right.
And while this scripture wasn’t specifically written about childhood trauma, the principle made me uncomfortable.
Because how many times have I done that to myself?
How many times have I declared peace over something I never actually addressed?
How many times have I called myself healed because I could talk about what happened without crying?
How many times have I said, “I’m over it,” when the truth was I had simply learned how to function around it?
God, I’ve been treating my own wounds lightly.
Putting Band-Aids over things that needed real attention. Calling it maturity when sometimes it was emotional suppression. Calling it forgiveness when I was still mentally rehearsing conversations with people who weren’t even in my life anymore.
Apparently, I’ve been holding imaginary court proceedings for YEARS.
And winning every single case, might I add.
But what good is winning an argument with somebody who isn’t there if I’m still carrying the hurt into relationships with people who are?
And that’s the part I can’t keep avoiding.
Because I have spent years being proud of the woman I became despite what happened to me.
And I still am.
She’s strong. She’s resilient. She’s capable. She’s resourceful. She can walk into chaos and somehow figure out how to make everything work.
But how much of that strength came from wisdom, and how much came from never feeling safe enough to fall apart?
How much of my independence is healthy, and how much is fear?
How much of my discernment is actually discernment, and how much is disappointment looking for evidence that it was right?
And God, who would I be if I wasn’t constantly preparing to be hurt?
Because I don’t want to spend another twenty years expecting people to disappoint me and then congratulating myself when I survive it.
I want to learn how to be loved without interrogating it.
I want to learn how to receive without immediately calculating what I owe.
I want to establish boundaries without building emotional fortresses.
I want to stop treating every disagreement like a threat to my security.
And I want to stop making the people in my present pay emotional debts they never created.
But I also need to be honest with You about something else.
I have been so afraid of sounding ungrateful that I’ve sometimes refused to acknowledge my grief.
And that’s not fair to either of us.
Because gratitude doesn’t cancel grief.
I can be thankful for the people who loved me and still grieve the people I lost.
I can recognize Your faithfulness and still have questions about the things You permitted.
I can believe You are good and still struggle to understand why certain parts of my story were so painful.
I don’t want to accuse You of being unloving simply because I don’t understand.
But I also don’t want to manufacture an explanation just to make myself feel more spiritual.
I don’t know why everything happened.
And perhaps I don’t have to pretend I do.
What I do know is that I don’t want to keep calling myself healed simply because I’ve learned how to function while hurting.
So, God, I’m asking You for something different.
An emotional miracle.
Not a miracle that erases what happened or magically makes every memory pleasant.
I want You to heal the way those experiences continue to shape my expectations, my reactions, my relationships, and my understanding of myself.
I want to remember without immediately bracing for impact.
I want to have boundaries without building emotional fortresses.
I want to be compassionate without abandoning myself.
I want to stop expecting rejection before anybody has even had the opportunity to love me.
And I want to know who I am without all the armor.
Because I know who I became to survive.
I know that woman very well.
She’s capable. She’s resourceful. She’s funny. She’s resilient. She knows how to figure things out when everything falls apart.
And I love her.
But I wonder who I might become if I no longer felt like everything was about to fall apart.
That’s the woman I want to meet.
And maybe that’s why this conversation with You has been so difficult.
Because I thought healing meant finally getting to a place where nothing hurt anymore.
But I’m discovering that sometimes healing begins when I stop pretending something doesn’t.
The Israelites were no longer in Egypt when they reached Marah.
They were free.
And they still encountered bitter water.
Freedom didn’t mean every experience afterward would be pleasant.
And my deliverance doesn’t mean I will never have another disappointment, another hard conversation, or another moment when old wounds try to speak louder than what I know to be true.
But I can learn to respond differently.
I can let You address what is happening inside me instead of demanding that everything around me change first.
And I can acknowledge that my past influenced me without continuing to give it authority over who I become.
So here I am, God.
Still loving You. Still pursuing You. Still opening my Bible with the same excitement I’ve always had.
But this time, I’m bringing the questions too.
I’m bringing the anger I didn’t want to admit existed.
I’m bringing the disappointment I kept covering with praise.
I’m bringing the little girl who learned to survive before she learned what safety felt like.
And I’m bringing the grown woman who is finally realizing that being strong isn’t the same thing as being well.
I don’t need a prettier testimony.
I don’t need another opportunity to prove how much I can endure.
I don’t need to become better at surviving.
I want to become healthier at living.
And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life introducing people to a version of me that was created by everything that hurt me.
God, show me who I am beneath it all.
Because I survived Egypt.
I crossed the Red Sea.
I made it to the other side.
But somewhere along the way, I confused making it out with being made whole.
And now I’m standing at Marah, realizing that the water isn’t the only thing that needs healing.
God, You brought me out of Egypt.
Now I’m asking You to heal the parts of me that still believe I live there.