There was a question I had to ask myself during my healing journey that changed the way I understood so much about myself: What is standing between what I know and what I am actually able to receive, believe, and live? Because sometimes knowing something does not mean that we have actually received it. We can know something intellectually and still struggle to believe it emotionally. We can know that God loves us and still struggle to receive His love. We can know that we are worthy of love and still push people away when they get too close. We can know that we are safe now and still find ourselves constantly looking for danger. We can know that God is good while somewhere deep inside wondering if He is eventually going to hurt us, disappoint us, or leave us too. There can be a huge difference between what we know in our minds and what our hearts, experiences, and beliefs have allowed us to receive.
So I began asking myself, what is standing between what I know and what I am actually able to receive, believe, and live? What beliefs are sitting underneath my behaviors? What am I saying that I want but subconsciously protecting myself from? What do I believe about myself, other people, God, love, safety, and life that may be affecting the way I experience all of those things? One of the answers I found for myself was love. Love scared me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want love. I wanted love. I craved love. I believed that love was something beautiful. But wanting something and feeling safe enough to receive it are two completely different things. When I started looking deeper, I realized that I didn’t trust that it was safe to love. When I thought about having to be vulnerable, that scared me. Vulnerability meant allowing someone to really see me. It meant allowing someone access to parts of me that they could potentially reject, misunderstand, abandon, or hurt. Vulnerability meant that I could not control everything, and for me, control was deeply connected to safety.
I subconsciously craved control over my life because I never felt like I fully had control. Control represented protection to me. If I could control something, maybe I could protect myself from it. If I could predict what was going to happen, maybe I could prepare for it. If I could see something coming, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much. But growing up, there were so many things that happened that I had absolutely no control over. I had no control over the people breaking into our home when I was a child and hurting my mother. I had no control over my dad leaving for work one night and never coming back. I had no control over someone hurting me or harming me. There were things happening around me and to the people I loved that I could not stop, change, predict, or protect myself from. So somewhere along the way, I began connecting control with safety.
If I could control my life, maybe I would finally be safe. If I could control who I let close to me, maybe they couldn’t hurt me. If I could control how much I loved someone, maybe I wouldn’t be devastated if they left. If I could control my emotions, maybe I could protect myself from disappointment. If I could control people’s access to me, maybe I could protect the parts of myself that had already been hurt. The problem was that love doesn’t allow you to have that kind of control.
I could love someone, but I could not control whether they loved me back. I could love someone, but I could not control whether they knew how to express love in a way that I understood and could receive. I could love someone, but I could not control whether they would stay. I could love someone, and they could still hurt me. I could give someone my heart, and they could handle it differently than I hoped they would. And that scared me. Love was uncontrollable, and because control had become connected to my safety, love subconsciously began to feel unsafe.
I had beliefs about love that I didn’t even realize I was carrying. Love isn’t safe. Love isn’t fair. Love can leave. Love can hurt you. Love can be one-sided. I can love you, but can you admit to loving me back? Can you go a step further and actually act like it? Can your words and your actions match? Can you love me in a way that I can understand? Can I trust that when I give you access to me, you won’t use that access to hurt me? These were the questions sitting underneath my relationships, underneath my fear, and underneath my desire to be loved.
Maybe your answers are different than mine, but I want you to sit with this question for a moment: What is standing between what you know and what you are actually able to receive, believe, and live? Maybe you know that you are loved, but somewhere inside you believe that people always leave. Maybe you know that you are worthy, but you still feel like you have to earn love. Maybe you know that you are forgiven, but you haven’t forgiven yourself. Maybe you know that you are safe now, but your body and mind are still living as if something bad is about to happen. Maybe you know that God has a plan for your life, but trusting Him requires you to release control, and control has become the thing that makes you feel protected.
Maybe you say that you want healthy love, but healthy love feels unfamiliar to you. Maybe you say that you want to be seen, but being seen feels dangerous because you learned that people can use what they know about you against you. Maybe you say that you want to be vulnerable, but vulnerability feels like giving someone a weapon. Maybe you say that you trust God, but when life becomes uncertain, you realize that you only feel comfortable trusting Him when you understand what He is doing. Maybe the thing standing between what you know and what you are able to live is not a lack of knowledge. Maybe it is a belief that needs to be explored.
Because I wanted love, but subconsciously, I didn’t trust it. And because I didn’t trust love, I wasn’t always able to receive it in its authentic form. I often found myself connected to people who held similar beliefs about love. People who were afraid of vulnerability. People who wanted connection but didn’t know how to receive it. People who wanted love but were afraid of being known. People who struggled to express love. And I realized that I could not continue saying that I wanted something while refusing to explore why I was afraid of it.
Then I had another realization that became a pivotal moment in my healing journey. God calls us to love because God is love. The Bible says in 1 John 4:8, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” I had heard that Scripture before, but I began to sit with it differently. If God is love, what did my beliefs about love say about my beliefs about God?
Because if I replaced the word love with God, some of the beliefs I carried suddenly became much deeper. Love isn’t safe. God isn’t safe. Love isn’t fair. God isn’t fair. Love is uncontrollable. God is uncontrollable. I don’t trust love. I don’t trust God.
That was a pivotal moment for me.
I realized that this wasn’t only about learning how to trust other people. This wasn’t only about relationships. This wasn’t only about learning how to receive love. At the root of it, I had to ask myself whether I trusted God. Because if God is love and Christ is love, and I didn’t trust God or Christ, then there was no way I could fully trust love, believe love, receive love, or experience love the way God intended me to.
The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:16, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” I had to ask myself, do I actually rely on the love God has for me? Or do I just know about it? Do I believe that God loves me when life doesn’t make sense? Do I believe that God is good when I don’t get what I prayed for? Do I believe that He is safe enough for me to be honest with Him? Do I believe that I can give Him the parts of myself that I have spent my life trying to protect?
Because knowing Scripture and trusting the God behind the Scripture are not always the same thing. I could quote verses about God’s love while still questioning whether that love was safe for me to receive. I could know that God would never leave me while carrying the fear of everyone else who had. I could know that God was faithful while still trying to control everything because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.
So I had to start getting to know God.
Not just what people told me about Him. Not just what I learned in church. Not just what I had read about Him. I needed to know Him for myself. I started asking questions. Who are You, really? What are You about? How do You feel about me? Do You laugh? Do You cry? Do You have secrets? Can I tell You mine? Are You real? And how real are You?
And I started talking to God just like that. Honestly. Openly. Sometimes confused. Sometimes angry. Sometimes afraid.
Sometimes with faith and sometimes with more questions than answers.
I began allowing myself to talk to God as I was instead of feeling like I had to become someone else before I could come to Him. I began reading His Word not simply to find verses to make me feel better but to learn who He was. I wanted to know His character. I wanted to know how He responded to people. I wanted to know how Jesus treated people who were hurting, afraid, ashamed, confused, rejected, and broken.
And the more I got to know God, the more I began allowing Him to show me who He was.
Scripture says in Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” So I started seeking Him with my real heart. Not the polished version. Not the version that had all the right answers. My real heart. The heart that was afraid. The heart that wanted control. The heart that wanted love but didn’t trust it. The heart that had questions about whether God was really who He said He was.
And God met me there.
I think sometimes healing begins when we stop asking only, What is wrong with me? and start asking, What happened that caused me to believe this? What belief is standing between what I know and what I can receive? What am I protecting myself from? What does safety mean to me? What did I learn about love? What did I learn about God? What did I learn about myself?
Maybe your healing journey starts with one honest answer.
Maybe you know that you are loved, but you don’t feel lovable. Maybe you know that God is faithful, but you are afraid to depend on Him.
Maybe you know that you are safe now, but you still feel like you have to control everything.
Maybe you know that love is beautiful, but you are afraid of what could happen if you actually let yourself experience it.
Maybe you know the truth, but there is a belief standing between you and your ability to receive it.
And maybe that belief isn’t there to shame you. Maybe it is there to be explored.
Jesus said in John 8:32, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But sometimes before we can fully live in the truth, we have to become honest about the lies, fears, experiences, and beliefs that have been standing in the way.
So I want to leave you with the question that changed something in me: What is standing between what you know and what you are able to receive, believe, and live?
Don’t rush to answer it. Sit with it. Ask God to help you see what you haven’t been able to see. Be honest about what scares you.
Be curious about where your beliefs came from. And then get to know God.
Not just the God you have heard about, but the God you are willing to seek, question, talk to, cry with, laugh with, and allow him to show Himself to you.
Because maybe the thing you have been struggling to receive is connected to the way you see God.
And maybe healing begins when you allow yourself to know Him differently.
“We love because he first loved us.” — 1 John 4:19
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