Why Does the Healing Process Take So Long?

Building and growth take time. Restoration and healing. when these things have been broken or hindered. take time as well.

Many people question whether healing from trauma is really possible. And if so, they wonder, why does it take so long?

Following is an excerpt from Just Before Dawn (Perez, 2003). I hope it will encourage you:

God is a God of process. For some reason He chose to create the earth one day at a time, though He certainly didn’t have to do it that way. In that process of creation, God set into motion basic laws of nature, and all of creation is subject to those laws. He began, for example, by making clear distinctions between one thing and another – dividing night from day, darkness from light, etc. (Gen 1:3,6,9). Then God began to build upon those things; growth happened (Gen 1:11). He began to expand His creation (Gen 1:14) but also to prepare it for what in the future would be needed.

In His love and wisdom, He had already factored man into the creation plan. For example, while God is timeless and didn’t need stars and seasons to mark time’s passage, He knew we would. So, you see, there was purpose in every step God took in the creation process – and there is meaning and value and wisdom and purpose in your life processes, as well.

Gen 2:5 points out that at that point in the creation process, “there was not a man to till the ground.” God didn’t send the rain, which would give the ground the capacity to produce, until it was time. The Genesis account reminds us that from the very, very beginning, God had a purpose for man; it is when we don’t feel there isn’t one that hopelessness and discouragement become overpowering. Those, and all the “why” questions, begin to have power to overwhelm us and rob us of joy.

God understood the consequences that the processes of time and its ravages would have on His creation and on His people, and He’s very interested in our particular life processes today. He is deeply concerned – and engaged with us – in how those processes have affected us. This includes how past experiences have affected us, as well as those that are still in our futures. How do we, for example, deal with our feelings of deep inadequacy, or the belief that we are ruined, marred, damaged goods based on the many storms of life we have endured at some point in our lives?

Stay in the process and allow God to do the healing work in your life in His time. However long it took you to get to the place you find yourself today… well, that was a process of time and experience also. Be patient – with yourself and with those He has called to come alongside you on the healing journey. Allow yourself the time you need to recover and heal. You will need to relearn many things in order to enter into the life you long to have, but it is most certainly possible if you persevere and do not give up.