A Letter I Wasn’t Ready to Write

There is a difference between writing about your past and writing to God about it.

I’ve done plenty of the first kind of writing. Blog posts. Devotionals. Conference notes. Careful words shaped with a reader in mind.

Sometimes, healing from past trauma begins with telling God the truth we have spent years trying not to say.

This wasn’t that.

I wrote this letter when I finally ran out of ways to avoid what I had spent years circling. I wasn’t writing for an audience. I was writing because I could not carry it alone for one more day.

If you read Walking in Purpose After Trauma, you met the woman who learned that what wounded her did not have the right to define her. What you did not see was what came before that. The fear. The hiding. The moment I realized I could not keep my past sealed away and still call myself free.

This letter is that missing part.

I wrote it before I had the language I use now. All I had was fear and prayer.

I am sharing it because some of you may be standing where I once stood. You can see the conversation, memory, truth, or decision you have avoided for years. You wonder whether facing it will undo everything you worked so hard to become.

This is what I said to God.

Dear God,

How do the untreated scars of our past find us, and how do we lay them to rest?

Looking back, it would have been easier if I had confronted things head-on instead of putting them away. Things simply do not disappear without some kind of resolution, no matter how hard we try to forget them.

Was I naive to believe I could walk away and never look back? Or was it wishful thinking on my part? It is interesting how we tell ourselves things that are not true because we want so desperately to believe, or pray somehow, that they are.

Life has a way of reminding us of our imperfections. And when You have something You do not want us to forget, You have a way of making sure it leaves a lasting impression.

The time has come for me to confront my past. I am praying that I get this right because I cannot afford another failure.

What frightens me is the thought that the person I have become, and all the hard work and sacrifices it took to get here, could be erased in a moment in the eyes of others.

Help me.

Guide me through this so that my untreated scars can finally heal and fade into the background.

Give me the victory over people. Shield my heart from their thoughts and opinions because, in the end, what You think and what You say about me are what truly matter.

Donna

What This Letter Taught Me

When I wrote those words, I did not realize how much I was still trying to negotiate with the truth.

I was not asking God to remove the confrontation. I was asking Him to help me survive it. I wanted Him to protect what I had built and make sure my past could not erase the woman I had become.

That is such a human prayer.

Maybe it is yours too.

What I have learned since then is that what we refuse to face does not stay buried. It shows up when we least expect it. In a conversation. A memory. A name we thought had lost its power. A reaction we cannot fully explain.

Avoidance was never protecting me. It was only postponing the moment when I would have to face what still hurt.

The fear in that letter was real. I truly believed that looking back might erase the woman I had worked so hard to become.

It did not erase her.

It made room for her to become whole.

The Victory Was Never About Winning People

Read that last line again:

“Give me the victory over people and shield my heart from their thoughts and opinions.”

I was asking God for what I now understand as freedom. I wanted to stop measuring my worth by what other people decided about me.

Their opinions were never mine to carry.

Their judgments were never mine to fix.

What mattered then, and what still matters now, is what God says about me. Not because other people’s words do not hurt. They do. But their words do not get to name me.

God had already called me loved before anyone else formed an opinion.

He had already seen the whole story and stayed.

If You Are Avoiding Your Own Confrontation

Maybe there is a letter sitting unwritten inside you.

A truth you packed away instead of facing.

A memory you refuse to touch.

A fear that looking back will undo everything you have built since.

It will not erase you.

It may be the first honest step toward living without hiding part of yourself. It may allow you to stop carrying two versions of your life, the one everyone sees and the one you work so hard to keep hidden.

Write your letter.

Tell God the truth.

Say what you have been avoiding.

Ask for the help you have been too proud, ashamed, or afraid to ask for.

You do not need polished words.

You only need honesty.

He is already listening.

Keep Emerging

If this stirred something you have been avoiding, you do not have to face it alone.

Consider reaching out to a trusted therapist, pastor, mentor, or safe support person. Let someone trustworthy sit with you as you begin naming what still hurts.

My devotional, You Are Not What Wounded You: An 8-Week Devotional Journey to Healing, Identity, and Wholeness, was created for women who are ready to bring the hidden places before God, challenge the messages their wounds taught them, and begin seeing themselves through truth instead of pain.

Learn more about the devotional.

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