The Thread for Survivors: A 5-Day Devotional Journal of Healing, Finding Your Voice and Sacred BecomingSample

You Are Allowed to Heal

Yesterday, we embraced the power of No, a holy boundary and a declaration of sacred worth. Today, we turn toward something just as important, but often harder to believe:

You are allowed to heal. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to take up space. You are allowed to breathe deeply without apologizing for the air you need.

For many of us, trauma taught us to keep moving, keep quiet, stay small. But healing asks something different. It invites us to pause, feel, and come closer to the parts of ourselves we’ve kept hidden, even from God.

Tamar withdrew to her brother Absalom’s house after her assault. Scripture tells us she lived in desolation, but I imagine her healing began there, in the quiet places no one else saw. Perhaps her heart started to mend not in one miraculous moment, but in sacred fragments. In stillness. In tears. In survival.

Healing doesn’t always look like upward motion. Like a tapestry, it winds and loops up, around, down again. Dark threads beside light ones. Beauty stitched beside brokenness. Some days you feel strong; other days, you’re just breathing. That’s okay. Healing is not a straight line. It’s a sacred spiral.

Your path may begin in a therapist’s office, where your story is held with tenderness. It may unfold in the presence of a trusted friend, in quiet prayer, or even in your journal. It might appear in art, movement, music, or how you finally allow yourself to rest without guilt.

There is no wrong path. Only your path. And God will walk every inch of it with you. You don’t have to know how to heal. You only need to know that healing is holy and belongs to you. “To all who mourn… He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.” Isaiah 61:3

God isn’t asking you to fix yourself. He’s inviting you to offer Him the scraps, the threads, the unraveling—and let Him reweave something redemptive. Slowly. Lovingly. Together.

Reweave a New Tapestry of Change

• What would it feel like to give yourself full permission to heal?
• Where do you see your life curving like a thread, looping through grief, grace, or growth?
• Can you believe that even the tangled places are sacred in God’s hands?

Prayer

God of gentleness,
Thank You for never rushing my healing. Thank You for holding all the parts of me—torn, tired, and tangled. Teach me to rest in the truth that I am allowed to heal. Help me trust the pattern You are weaving through joy, sorrow, and each small step.
Amen.