Hope in the Hardest Places: A Story of Healing from Childhood Trauma

Hope hits differently when you’ve been through it

Every time I sit down to write about healing, I think about the moment when things started to change for me—not in a big, dramatic way, but in the quiet, gut-deep way that sneaks up after years of silence. The kind of healing that doesn’t start with a therapist’s office or a journal, but with a gut instinct screaming: “Not again.”

I spent years trying to figure out how to put this into words. Years being polite. Years trying not to feel sick every time my past brushed against my present. I carried my trauma like a secret I owed someone else to keep. But now? Now I know better.

Now I know healing isn’t just possible, it’s holy work.

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When Your Body Holds the Story

My stomach has been a mess for most of my life. Diagnosed with IBS, poked and prodded through colonoscopies, endoscopies, GI scans—you name it. But beneath all of that was something deeper. Something that didn’t appear in the lab report.

See, trauma has a way of settling into your body like unwanted furniture. You learn to live around it, but it’s always there, taking up space.

For me, that space was carved out when I was just seven years old.

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Why I Stayed Silent

From age 7 to 10, I was sexually assaulted. I told no one, except once when I tried to tell my older sister. She didn’t believe me. Said I was lying. I remember the way my voice shut down after that. I buried it. Deep. Like it never happened.

For decades, I didn’t speak of it. I became a master of smiling through nausea, of brushing off flashbacks as “just a bad day.” I raised a child, built a life, kept moving forward… all while carrying a secret that never stopped whispering, “Don’t tell.”

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The Day It All Came Out

I was 25 when the stone started to roll away.

It was a snowy day, and I was at work when my parents offered to have someone pick up my daughter, Heather, from daycare. They mentioned who it was—him. The man who assaulted me.

Time froze. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak the truth at work. But I begged them not to let him near her. I told them I’d explain when I got home.

And I did.

To their credit, they believed me. No questions. No second-guessing. Just belief. And at that moment, something cracked open in me. I had spoken. I was heard.

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Healing Isn’t Linear—But It Is Sacred

Since then, healing has come in slow, imperfect waves. There has been no big breakthrough, just little mercies: honest conversations, crying in the car, and finally waking up and deciding not to carry the shame anymore.

Some days, I still feel the old weight, and some days, I walk a little lighter. But every day, I remind myself: I am not what happened to me, and I am not alone.

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If You’re Still Holding It In, Please Read This

Friend, if you’re still silent—if your trauma is still living in the corners of your stomach, your chest, your dreams—please hear me:

You don’t have to tell the whole world.
You don’t have to write a blog.
You don’t even have to say it out loud right away.

But maybe you whisper it to God, tell one safe person, or stop pretending it didn’t happen.

Whatever your next step looks like, take it knowing this: you are not alone, you are not broken, and you are absolutely not to blame.

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This Is Holy Ground

There is nothing weak about surviving. There’s nothing shameful about needing time to heal. Whether it’s been 5 years or 50, your story still matters. And so do you.

I’m still healing, figuring it out, and breathing through the hard days. But I truly believe that God is doing something beautiful with my broken pieces.

And I believe He can do the same with yours.

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A Quick Prayer

Jesus, thank You for seeing every hidden hurt, for walking with me through the silence, and for believing me even when I didn’t believe myself. Give courage to those who are still holding it in. Show them You’re still rolling away stones. Amen.