Sometimes, You Just Need to Cry
In the years I’ve walked this healed path, I have learned that healing is not a “One and Done” event. Healing is a continual, ongoing, process. You choose to stay healed. You choose to walk it every single day. Every morning when you wake up, you choose to thank God for another day, regardless of what happens, and thank Him for His mercies, which are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23).
But sometimes you just need to cry.
It’s okay to cry. Crying is part of the healing process. There is no shame in it; it’s actually therapeutic, cleansing, and it also relieves the weight and pressure of thoughts and feelings which pop up, making us feel those old issues. It doesn’t mean we aren’t still healed. It just means we are processing – and processing is good.
Healing has many layers. Like an onion, it’s necessary to peel back those layers to get to the next layer. As we walk in our healing the outer layer dries, shrivels up, and eventually must come off. When that happens, another layer is revealed. It’s fresh. It’s raw. It’s tender. It’s sensitive. Oftentimes, like an onion, that layer will cause our eyes to water. That’s okay. Don’t be ashamed. Don’t feel guilty. Just process it and let it move you down the path. But don’t stop and camp there. It’s really no fun to dwell (camp) in the tender, sensitive, layer. Just move through it.
Psalms 30:5b (NLT) says, “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
When we cry, it doesn’t mean God is mad at us. He’s never mad at us. He loves us. But crying is often the result of hurt, sadness, anger, grief, and many other emotions… and sometimes, we just have to cry and don’t know why. That’s okay, too.
I say that because, even though my healing journey is now twelve years and counting, I still have times when I cry. It used to bother me, because before my healing I cried all the time. It seemed as if everything set me off and I would cry for hours. Yet, after my healing I didn’t cry much, which again, bothered me because I didn’t understand the sudden lack of tears. Healing was a new adventure for me. Eventually, I figured it out, with the help of the Holy Spirit. And as I grew in my relationship with Him, I realized this was a gift, sent to help me learn to navigate the new, healed life.
Then, life hit me once more. In that, I cried. I began to experience old feelings, old thoughts, and old memories I thought were put away and forgotten. What I didn’t realize until now was that this is the healing process. Fortunately, one of my very good friends is a grief and trauma counselor, and in talking with her one day, I randomly asked about the things I had been experiencing.
She calmly told me about the layers of healing. She also helped me to understand that we never really “get over” trauma, grief, or any other thing we go through, abuse, neglect, etc. Those things are put into a “file” in our mind and locked away for another time. Sometimes, those files are randomly opened and brought to the surface. We must then process them. However, over the years, the process affects us in different ways. Yes, we may cry. We may get angry. We may have other emotions, but the truth is that however we react, we must process those things. Then they go back into the file and are put back into the file cabinet of our minds for another time.
This, my friends, is the healing path. The journey.
If you’re experiencing that today, be encouraged. You’re going to be okay.
Have a blessed day!
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