you can trust and love again "the story behind it"
I was healed, but I was still guarded
I remember the first summer I came to the U.S. Our flight was delayed, so we ended up landing at night, which is something we actually didn’t even plan. I remember looking out the window and seeing the Miami city lights, seeing how everything changed under those colorful lights in the sky. It was so beautiful from above. Everything looked exciting, bright, and almost easy, really. But at the same time, there were so many things beneath the surface that I didn’t know yet. Things I hadn’t experienced. Layers that my eyes just hadn’t met. And I think healing is like that. From the outside, everything can look bright, like everything changed overnight. But real healing is layered. Real life is layered, and real people are layered. I think healing is like an onion. You keep peeling and peeling, and every time you think you’re done, you realize there’s another layer. And one of those layers for me was realizing that I could trust people again... in the sense that I could trust and love again. I know that may sound simple, but there’s a story behind it. I had gone through deliverance in April, a healing moment. And in the summer God brought the same thing back to my mind: that I was free, that I wasn’t the same person I was a year ago. But I also needed to learn how to walk in that freedom. I needed to learn how to open my heart again. Because my story is that I was always on alert when I was younger, and that was how I avoided bullies. That’s how I kept myself safe. But the problem is when you take survival mode into a new season. I could talk to most people easily. But when it came to people who were my age — people I was interested in — it was hard for me. And I kept asking myself these questions: Why does a normal conversation feel hard with someone I like? Why does “How are you?” feel loaded? Why am I asking “What’s the motive?” when I’m actually excited? Why do I feel on guard when I’m happy? And with time, one of the things I realized was this: It’s one thing to be healed. It’s another thing to learn how to walk in that freedom. I had to learn that I wasn’t that same little girl anymore, but my mind and my heart were still acting like I was. And in the Bible too, it says that we have to take every thought captive, and that we have to ask God to keep renewing our mind. Because some months later, in the summer, that’s what He was doing with me. He was teaching me how to step into that freedom, not just spiritually, but mentally too. He was teaching me that I could be open. That I could love without fear controlling me. Freedom meant stepping into who God was calling me to be. And part of that meant learning how to interact with men who were my age, because my trauma was from boys who were my age. And it takes me back to the story in the Bible about Israel. God delivered them in a moment. But then there was the wilderness, where God had to teach them how to live as free people. They had been slaves for so long and that's all they knew. So little by little, God was taking Egypt out of them and teaching them a new way to live. I realized my story was similar. God healed me. He changed me. But then He had to teach me how to live like I was healed in 2025. And I think that’s what freedom really is. Layer by layer, you become who you were always meant to be. I used to think transformation looked like everything changing overnight. Now I know it looks more like a long walk through the wilderness, where God teaches you how to live free. Freedom was the months of transformation that followed later on. It was learning to be open to love again. And that freedom is not just something that happens to you, my friend. It's something you learn to walk in, with God and with people, layer by layer.
Heart Call:
I wrote a poem this testimony about my heart a while back in the poem (you can trust people again.), but I wasn’t ready to share this full story yet. So it felt incomplete. I took it down and decided I would share it fully as an essay when the time was right.
Because healing is layered. And freedom is something you learn to walk in, not just something that happens to you.
“…we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”—2 Corinthians 10:5
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”—Romans 12:2
So here is my Heart Call for you:
What is one layer God might be asking you to surrender right now?
And what would it look like for you to walk in freedom, practically (memorizing verses, confession, journaling) this week?