“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5–6 (NKJV)
Dear Sister,
A woman asked me something that I think a lot of us have wondered, even if we didn’t always say it out loud.
She asked, “What do I do when healing feels quiet? How do I trust God in the process when I don’t feel like anything is happening?”
So before we go any further, take a breath. This is a tender place, and we don’t have to rush through it.
When she asked me that, I understood why she was asking. Because when you are processing sexual trauma and you are still in the middle of your healing, it can be hard to trust the process when you can’t see the other side yet.
You may be praying, going to therapy, journaling, crying, resting, talking through things, and still wondering if anything is changing. You may be showing up the best way you know how, but because healing feels quiet, you start asking yourself if you are really moving forward.
I have been there.
And what I have learned is that some of the deepest work does not always happen in the moments that feel big. A lot of healing happens in the small, conscious, deliberate choices we make daily. Sometimes the choice is as simple as getting up that day.
That may not sound like healing to someone else, but for the woman who knows what it cost her to get up, there was healing being walked out in that moment.
When Quiet Healing Does Not Look the Same for Every Woman
I want to be careful when I talk about quiet healing because quiet was different for me on different days.
And how I processed my quiet may be completely different from how you process your quiet or what it may feel like for you.
That is why I do not want to say, “Quiet healing feels like this,” and define it too tightly. Because if your quiet does not look like mine, I don’t want you questioning your process. I do not want you thinking something is wrong with you because your healing is not showing up the same way it showed up for me.
For one woman, quiet may look like being able to sit with God for five minutes without running from Him or maybe it may look like going to therapy even when she does not feel like talking.
Or maybe quiet looks like not answering the phone because she’s learning boundaries, or quiet may look like getting out of bed, washing her face, and making it through the day.
Then again for another woman, quiet may look like not reacting the same way she used to react and then being confused by her own calm.
And as you can see, quiet can look different for different women. This is not a complete list, and it is not meant to define what your quiet has to look like. I do not want you questioning your quiet because it does not look like mine or someone else’s.
When My Own Response Surprised Me
This topic is dear to me because of something that happened in my own life. I know that may be tender to read, so take your time with this part. I received a letter in the mail from my father, the one who sexually abused me.
At first, I did not open it right away because his name is the same as my other brothers, and one of them was out of the country at the time. So, when I saw the name, I thought maybe my brother was writing to me. But when I opened the letter, I then realized who it was actually from and began to read it.
What I thought I would feel and what actually happened were two different things. I expected that I might react a certain way. I thought maybe I would feel anger. I thought maybe fear would come up. I thought maybe shame would try to sit on me again. I thought maybe my body would respond the way it had responded before.
But that is not what happened…….I was calm.
There were no flashbacks. There was no anger taking over. There was no shame rising up in me. There was no fear moving through my body the way I thought it would. And because I did not react the way I expected, I started questioning myself. For weeks, I kept thinking, “What is wrong with me? Why do I have such peace and calm?”
That may sound strange to someone who is still processing her sexual trauma. But some women will understand exactly what I mean. When your body has been used to reacting to certain things for so long, peace can feel unfamiliar. Calm can make you wonder if something is wrong, because you were expecting the old response.
I was so used to knowing what a trigger felt like that when the trigger did not come, I did not immediately recognize it as growth. So, I naturally questioned it.
When Peace Felt Unfamiliar
Looking back now, I can see that my body was not betraying me in that moment. My body was showing me something. It was showing me that some healing had already been walked out.
At the time, I did not have language for it. I just knew that I was not responding the way I thought I would. But now I understand that when healing from sexual trauma happens over time, the body can begin to learn safety in places where it once only knew fear. Your body can begin to respond differently when it’s been cared for, supported, and given space to process what it once had to survive. That was body-memory. My body remembered what my heart was still healing from, but it was also beginning to learn something new.
I was not teaching myself to pretend, forcing myself to be okay or bypassing what happened. God had been doing a work in me through the process, and my body was beginning to show evidence of that work. But I did not know it right away. I didn’t have language for it then, but God knew the temperature of my oven even when I didn’t understand what He was doing. That is why Proverbs 3:5–6 matters so much in this conversation.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 (NKJV)
In that moment, my own understanding did not know what to do with peace. My understanding expected a reaction, it expected the old thing to happen again, and my understanding thought calm meant something was wrong. But the Holy Spirit met me in that quiet place and helped me understand what was really happening.
What the Holy Spirit Helped Me See
It was in a quiet moment with the Holy Spirit that I realized that my father, the person, did not have that type of impact on me anymore. That didn’t mean what happened to me was okay or that I would not be triggered another way. Nor did it mean the abuse was not real. It just meant that, for me, I had truly learned how to separate the action from the person.
Had I forgotten no, it just meant for me that I had forgiven more and grew more than what I realized. That didn’t mean every part of my journey was finished either, for as I always say ‘healing is a journey, and I am still on it.’
That does not mean I am further along than the next person or even behind another. It just means that we are all on the same journey, it just looks different for each of us. For me, it meant, in this moment, that this part of my healing had been walked out further than what I knew had happened.
And the part that blessed me was realizing that it had not been walked out in one dramatic moment. It had been walked out in the quiet moments. It was happening when I was showing up to therapy and talking, when I was praying and when I was making the choice to forgive and move on.
I want to say that carefully because I am not talking about the kind of forgiveness people try to force on survivors of sexual trauma, about pretending it did not happen and surely not talking about going back into unsafe relationships or letting someone have access to you because they asked for forgiveness. Even though that was not what the letter was about at all.
This moment was not really about the content of the letter. It was about the healing that I had come to sit in while reading the content of that letter. That was part of my process. It was not something everyone could see. But it was real.
When Healing Was Being Processed Quietly
One thing I have learned is that we often want proof that healing is happening while it is happening. We want to feel different immediately.
For example, the prayer to make everything lift, because it does a lot of the time, or we are told that it does all the time. How about the therapy session to give us a clear sign right in the session or right after, and yes, sometimes it does. But I am here as living proof that sometimes it can be days, weeks, months, and yes, even years later that sign shows up.
Or we want the journal entry to end with an answer and not more questions, which it sometimes can. But sometimes healing is being processed quietly in us while we are simply doing the next faithful thing.
Jesus said:
“And He said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.'” Mark 4:26–27 (NKJV)
That scripture speaks to me because it gives language to something I lived. The man scattered seed. He slept. He rose. He kept living. And while he was doing that, the seed was growing, even though he did not know how or even see it at first. That is how some parts of healing have been for me.
And maybe even for you. I was going to therapy, talking, praying, and making choices. I was choosing forgiveness where God was leading me to forgive, getting up on days when getting up was the work, I was walking through my process with God. And something was growing in me that I did not fully recognize until that letter came and showed me.
That is why I can tell another woman, “Do not despise the quiet.” Because quiet does not always mean nothing is happening. Sometimes quiet means the seed is growing.
Learning to Trust God with My Process
It was there that I recognized healing is a journey, and I was learning to trust God with my process. My process does not look like someone else’s process. And someone else’s process does not have to look like mine.
That sounds simple, but it is not always easy to live. Especially when we are watching other women walk through healing and we start comparing our timeline to theirs. We may look at another woman and think, “Why did she get free from that faster than me,” “Why does that still bother me,” or “Why am I not reacting the way I thought I would?”
But what I had to learn is that God knows how to work with me.
I started saying that God knows the temperature of my oven. He is the Baker, and He knows what temperature to bake the cake. He knows what ingredients are needed. He knows the very plan that is needed in order to complete this part of the process in my life and yours.
My oven does not look like your oven. Your oven does not look like the woman you are watching walk out her healing journey. And her oven does not look like yours.
God knows what He is forming in each of us what needs time and what needs care. He knows what needs to be strengthened and what needs to be healed gently. He also knows what can be touched now and what He will walk us into later. That is why I cannot compare my quiet to yours. And I do not want you comparing your quiet to mine.
When Trust Is Being Built in the Quiet
Trusting God in the process does not mean you always understand the process, you never have questions or you never feel tired. It means you keep acknowledging Him in the middle of it. That may look like saying, “Lord, I do not understand what You are doing, but I trust that You are with me,” “Lord, I expected to feel one way, but I feel something different. Help me not be afraid of peace,” or “Lord, I do not want to compare my healing to hers. Help me trust the way You are walking with me.”
It may look like saying nothing at all and just sitting with Him because words feel like too much. I had to learn that God was not only present in the moments that felt powerful. He was also present in the quiet moments when I was making small choices that no one else saw.
He was there in the therapy room, when I was talking through what I needed to talk through and when I was praying. He was there when I was choosing to forgive, when I was learning to move forward and when I opened that letter. But most of all, He was there when I did not understand my own peace.
What I Learned About Walking It Out
What I learned is that healing can be happening before you have proof that healing is happening. Sometimes we don’t see the proof until later. Sometimes we don’t know that a place has been healed until something touches it and it does not respond the same way anymore.
It means God has been working and your body has been learning something new. That place that once only knew survival may be learning peace now. That wound that used to demand all your attention may have received care over time.
And sister, that matters.
I do not want us to only call it healing when it looks dramatic. Because, sometimes healing is quiet, but quiet does not mean empty.
My Moment of Reflection
When I think about that letter now, I do not just think about the letter. I think about all the quiet moments before it, the therapy sessions, the prayers and the choices. I think about the times I kept moving forward when I could not see what God was doing, about how I was trusting God with my process, even when I did not know that is what I was doing.
And I think about how easy it would have been to miss the healing because it did not look like what I expected. That moment taught me something I still carry.
Peace can be evidence. Calm can be evidence. A different response can be evidence. Not because I performed healing correctly, but because God had been walking with me in the process.
He knew the temperature of my oven and what He was doing. He knew how to bring me to a place where something that once had power over me did not have that same power anymore.
A Gentle Pause
So, when your healing looks and feels quiet in your now, do not question your quiet because it does not look like mine or someone else’s. Please don’t assume God is not working because you cannot see all the evidence today, better yet don’t compare your process to another woman’s process. And do not overlook the small choices.
Getting up is part of healing, going to therapy is part of healing and praying with few words is definitely part of healing. Resting is part of healing. Choosing to keep walking with God is part of healing.
The seed is growing in ways you do not know how to explain yet. And one day, you will look back and realize that God was doing more in the quiet than you knew.
Journal Reflection
Take a quiet moment with one or more of these prompts. Sit with them for a while and let God show you where growth has been happening.
Where has healing felt quiet in my life lately?
What small, conscious, deliberate choices have I been making that I may have overlooked?
Have I been comparing my healing process to another woman’s process?
Is there a place where peace feels unfamiliar to me?
What would it look like for me to trust that God knows the temperature of my oven?
Where do I need to acknowledge God in the process, even though I do not fully understand it yet?
Your next step does not have to be big. It can be one breath, one prayer, one honest moment with God.
Join the Journey
If these words met you somewhere tender today, I’m grateful you’re here.
Still on the Journey Ministries exists for Christian women healing from sexual trauma, women who are growing, rebuilding trust, and learning how to walk with God through the process. Healing is a journey, not a destination, and you do not have to walk it alone.
If you would like to support this work and help us continue creating safe, trauma-informed, Christ-centered spaces for women healing from sexual trauma, you can join the journey through Buy Me A Tea or choose or gift a tool for your own healing journey or another woman on the journey, such as a Hardcover Journal, Affirmation Cuff Bracelet, or Scent Diffuser.
Your story matters. Your process matters. And God is still meeting women in the quiet places.
Save the Date
Still on the Journey Ministries invites you to save the date for the 2nd Annual Beauty for Ashes Women’s Conference: Where Faith and Healing Meet.
Saturday, September 12, 2026
10:00 AM to 4:00 PM EDT
Anne Arundel County, Maryland
Venue to be announced
www.sotjmin.org
Come be reminded that you are not alone, your healing matters, and God is still walking with you on the journey.
