Somewhere along the way, healing became something we were supposed to do correctly.
I’m not sure exactly when it happened. Maybe it was the first time someone said “at least you’re out of that situation now” with a tone that implied the hard part was over. Maybe it was the small group where breakthrough was celebrated so enthusiastically that struggling felt like an embarrassment. Maybe it was the internal voice — the one that has been keeping score since the beginning — that started asking: why aren’t you further along by now?
Whatever the source, many of us have developed an invisible audience for our healing. And we have been performing for them ever since.
The Performance of Recovery
Performing recovery looks different for everyone. For some of us it looks like telling the testimony before it’s fully formed — rushing to the part where God brought us through before we’ve actually arrived there. For others it looks like minimizing how hard the process still is, because saying “I’m still struggling” feels like failing.
For many of us, it looks like measuring ourselves against other women’s timelines. She forgave in two years. She’s thriving after eighteen months. What is taking you so long?
I want to be very direct about something: that measurement is not from God.
❝ The pace of grace is not the pace of productivity. And God has never once checked a clock while waiting for you. ❞
Thirty-Eight Years at the Pool
In John chapter 5, Jesus encounters a man who has been ill for thirty-eight years. He is lying beside a pool called Bethesda, where people believed healing came to the first one in when the water stirred.
Thirty-eight years. And Jesus does not ask him why he isn’t healed yet. He doesn’t question whether he has tried hard enough, prayed enough, or believed the right things with enough consistency.
He asks: “Do you want to get well?”
It seems like an obvious question. But embedded in it is something radical: agency, autonomy. An acknowledgment that healing is not something done to us, but something we participate in — on our own timeline, in our own readiness.
The man doesn’t answer with a triumphant “yes.” He explains his circumstances. He names his obstacles. And Jesus does not critique his answer. He simply meets him in the midst of it.
“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
— John 5:8 (NIV)
The healing came not after the man performed perfect faith, but in the middle of his explanation. In the middle of his doubt, weariness, and history.
The Door Is Already Open
Revelation 3:8 says something that I return to again and again: “I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.”
No one can shut it. Not your past. Not the people who hurt you. Not the invisible audience keeping score of your healing speed. Not the voice in your head that says you should be further along.
The door to your healing is open. And here is the grace: you do not have to sprint through it.
You can walk. You can pause at the threshold. You can take one step and rest. You can go slowly — not because you are failing, but because slow is sometimes exactly what God’s pace looks like.
Beloved, you are not behind. The door is open. And it will still be open tomorrow.
What Permission Actually Looks Like
Giving yourself permission to heal at your own pace is not giving up. It is not settling for less than wholeness. It is simply releasing the performance and returning to the process.
It might look like telling the truth about where you actually are, instead of where you think you should be. It might look like stopping the comparison between your timeline and someone else’s. It might look like saying — out loud, to God, to yourself — “I am in the middle of this. And the middle is enough for today.”
Romans 8:1 gives you the foundation for all of this: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
No condemnation for taking your time. No condemnation for the days the door felt too heavy to approach. No condemnation for the years by the pool.
You are free to heal at the pace of grace. And grace, beloved, has never once been in a hurry.
🎙️ Listen to the companion episode
S1E2 — “The Door Has Opened” is available now on the Monica in Daylight Podcast.
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