I hate doing hard things. I hate showing up to therapy, everything in me screams to cancel. But instead, I sit on that couch; hands shaking, trying to find words for things I’ve spent years avoiding. There are tears I didn’t plan on, silence I don’t know how to fill, and the overwhelming urge to run.

This is the hard work of healing.

For so long, I have used substances to numb what felt unbearable—pain, shame, grief, anger, loneliness. Addiction gave me an escape, even if it was destroying me at the same time. When I go to therapy, I’m not just “talking about my feelings.” I’m facing everything I tried to bury. And that is not easy.

Some days, therapy feels like progress. Other days, it feels like I’ve been ripped open. I leave emotionally drained, questioning everything, wondering if it’s even worth it. I think, Why does healing have to hurt this much? This surely can’t be worth it.

But healing requires feeling.

I can’t heal what I refuse to acknowledge. And therapy has a way of gently (and sometimes not so gently) bringing those hidden places into the light. The wounds I’ve carried, the lies I’ve believed, the pain I’ve pushed down—this is where the real work happens.

And this is where faith meets the process.

Therapy, at its core, is a tool. I should know this; I do it all day long. However, when I invite God into it, it becomes something even more powerful. It becomes a place where He can meet me in my brokenness. A place where truth can replace lies. A place where wounds can begin to close instead of fester.

There is something sacred about choosing to stay when it gets hard. About whispering a prayer before I walk in:
“God, I don’t want to do this, but I know I need to. Please be with me. Use this. Heal what I can’t heal on my own.”

And He does.

Not always in big, dramatic ways. Sometimes it’s slow. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it feels like two steps forward and four steps back. But little by little, something begins to shift. I start to understand myself differently. I begin to recognize my triggers instead of being controlled by them. I learn that my pain has a voice—but it doesn’t have to have the final say.

Doing the hard work of therapy is an act of surrender. It’s saying, I can’t keep living the way I was living. I’m willing to face the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is. And that kind of surrender creates space for God to move.

Healing doesn’t mean the past disappears. It means the past no longer has power over who you are becoming.

So I encourage myself: Don’t run. Stay. Keep showing up. Keep doing the work. Keep praying, even if it’s through tears.

Because this hard, uncomfortable, deeply emotional process?
Might just be one of the very tools God is using to heal me.