The Journey to Inner Healing: Trusting God With Your Wounds
Evening casts a hushed shadow over the valley, and I pause to listen to the chimelike song of a red-eyed vireo. Our family has slipped away for a weekend in the woods, and everything about this weekend feels like an invitation to a deeper level of inner healing.
The past few months have led me on a surprising journey of pursuing deeper levels of healing for wounds I thought I’d dealt with decades ago.
Unearthing these memories hasn’t been easy, but it has been so deeply healing and restorative. I’ve encountered both the fierce protectiveness and the tenderness of Jesus like never before. I’ve come to know him more deeply, and the work has been worth it.
Because we live in a broken world, we all have wounds.
God is a loving, protective Father, and he wants to heal our deepest wounds. If you’re dealing with scars that still ache or unhealed wounds, God wants to meet you where you are.
Today, we’ll look at several practical ways to begin the journey to inner healing as you learn to trust God with your wounds. Be sure to read to the end of today’s post for a free online devotional to help you on your journey.
A Journey Toward Inner Healing
I like formulas. Much to my frustration, healing never happens according to a formula. It can’t be neatly broken into concrete steps.
I’m offering you these six insights not as a blueprint to follow concisely but as an array of basic ideas that can help you experience God’s healing for your most painful wounds.
I encourage you to take your time exploring these insights. Resist the urge to approach them like a simple to-do list. Slow down. Talk to God. Ask him to show you what he wants you to know as you dig deep for healing.
I also encourage you to pray about asking a trusted friend to take this journey with you. As we’ll discuss in greater depth shortly, we heal together, not in isolation.
God is waiting, and he wants to heal your heart. Psalm 147:3 reads, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” God is waiting to bind our wounds.
Steps Toward Healing
Let’s look at these insights together.
1. Acknowledge your need for inner healing.
The first step toward growth is recognizing your need for healing.
We all face pain, trauma, and shame attached to past mistakes. Most of us pursue relief through temporary solutions. We turn to work, relationships, and other distractions to escape the pain.
Meanwhile, only Jesus offers lasting healing. The first step in receiving his healing is recognizing our need.
Months ago, I recognized a need for God to heal part of my past. I was shocked. I’d already dealt with the issue in depth. Yet God showed me that there were layers to the wound. I’d found healing on several outer layers, but he wanted to heal me on a deeper level.
It would have been easy to brush this off and tell God I was done dealing with that old wound—to tell him I refused to dig into it again.
Instead, I did the work. He led me to deeper levels of healing as a result.
2. Share your wounds with someone you trust.
As I shared above, we heal through the context of relationships with others. This is challenging for introverts and contemplatives who would rather sit quietly and heal alone with God than take the risk of sharing with others.
In the book, How People Grow, Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend reiterate that we heal when we bring our wounds into the light with others. James 5:16 commands us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another so that we might be healed. Healing happens in community.
If you’ve done the brave work of acknowledging your need for healing, sharing this need with someone you trust can be the first step toward restoration.
If you’ve done the brave work of acknowledging your need for healing, sharing this need with someone you trust can be the first step toward restoration. #innerhealing #healing Share on XYou might share with a trusted friend, spouse, pastor, or therapist. Ask God to show you a safe place to open up, and he will show you.
3. Enlist prayer support for inner healing.
As I pursued healing, I asked my closest friends to pray. I knew the work I would need to do wouldn’t be easy. My flesh would resist it.
Ask those who are close to you to pray for you to have the courage and boldness to take the journey toward inner healing. They don’t need to know the details of the journey, but their prayers can carry you.
4. Take it to Jesus.
One of the prayers I pray most often is, “Jesus, show me what I need to know about this.”
Whether I’m dealing with a defiant child or a past wound, Jesus has the answer. He doesn’t always respond immediately, but if I slow down and ask for direction, I often experience a strong sense of what I need to do.
Jesus wants to guide and direct us. 
5. Pursue God’s Word for inner healing.
Your journey toward healing might include talking with a counselor to deal with past trauma or sort through pain. God often uses trained professionals to help us move forward.
In the meantime, spend time in your Bible. Memorize verses. Study the Word. Read it daily.
God’s Word renews our minds and can help us see our wounds differently—through his eyes.
6. Persevere through the journey.
Lastly, as you walk out your journey toward deeper inner healing, recognize that it will be a process that takes time. Healing rarely happens overnight.
Don’t rush the process. Depending on the nature of the wounds you are dealing with, your journey might take months or even years. Don’t give up.
Final Thoughts on Inner Healing
No matter where you are in your relationship with Jesus, healing is possible. I invite you to begin your journey into healing by praying this prayer. Afterward, download my free devotional for hope and healing below.
A Prayer for Inner Healing
“Heavenly Father, thank you for your immense love and care for me. Thank you for wanting me to be whole. Please give me the courage to face this journey toward deeper healing. Guide me. Comfort me. Reveal yourself to me so that I might emerge changed. Amen.”
A Free Devotional for Hope and Healing
God is a good Father, and he wants us to experience his healing, deliverance, and replenishment. Most of us have learned that we cannot heal, deliver, or refresh ourselves; we need God to do this work within us. I invite you to create space for God to transform your life by downloading a free copy of my devotional eBook, The Lean Into Grace Devotional: An 8-Day Devotional for Healing, Deliverance, and Replenishment. Find it free here. 
Calling all moms and daughters—and parents of boys!
As the parent of two sons and a daughter, I have a heart for helping parents develop deeper relationships with their children and with God. Our kids, ages 6, 11, and 14, share this vision. They have helped me write three family devotionals for parents or grandparents to read with the children they care about.
God’s Warrior: Devotions for Boys Who Want to Grow in Courage and Strength is for boys ages 5-13. Now, more than ever, our world needs men who are willing to courageously carry God’s love into the world. Written with input from our two young sons, Aiden and Caleb, ages six and eleven, this book will help the boys you care about find courage and strength in God. Find this life-changing devotional book here.
Devotionals for Girls
Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith is written for girls ages 7-12. It includes 60 devotions with Scripture, conversation starters, and a shared journaling section for moms and daughters after each devotion. I wrote this book with the help of our daughter, Bekah, when she was eleven. Find this one-of-a-kind shared devotional here.
Heart to Heart: A Mother-Daughter Devotional With 50 Devotions for Teen Girls is for teenage girls ages 13-20. It includes 50 devotions, each with a shared journaling section to help moms and daughters connect through writing. This is a great book for moms who want to communicate about awkward topics—like dating, sexuality, peer pressure, and more—but don’t know where to start. Bekah and I will help you right here.
All three books are available in print and eBook form here on Amazon. They are also free on the Kindle Unlimited plan, which you can enjoy with a free three-month trial! These books make great gifts, and you don’t need to be the parent of young children to read them. Share them with your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or the young ones you love.
Learn Why Willpower Doesn’t Work and Experience God’s Deliverance and Healing
God wants to work in your life to accomplish what you’ve been unable to do through willpower alone. Lean Into Grace: Let God’s Grace Heal Your Heart, Refresh Your Soul, and Set You Free shares practical ways to experience God’s freedom, healing, power, and presence in your life. Find this life-changing book as a free eBook on Kindle Unlimited or for 12.99 in print right here. (If you do not have Kindle Unlimited, you can try it out with a free three-month trial!) This book will transform your life and revitalize your relationship with the Lord!
