Waiting to Be Rescued vs. Showing Up for Your Own Healing

I lived most of my life waiting for my prince to come. Fairy tales played a big part in my younger years, and they left their mark. I just knew that somewhere, somehow, there was a prince on a white horse waiting to charge over the next hill and carry me away to my happily ever after home. He would sweep me up, take me away from everything that hurt, and somehow make my life right. Over time, the prince changed, the horse changed, the hills changed, but I was still waiting. In fact, some days I'm still waiting. Old habits, especially the ones we've carried since childhood, don't disappear just because we've gotten older and supposedly wiser.

I'm sure you know what I mean. There will be the right person, the right sermon, the right season—a moment when God will finally fix everything. Maybe it's the counselor who will have all the answers, the friend who will know exactly what to say, or the Sunday morning when the pastor preaches a sermon that changes our lives forever. And sometimes those things really do help. I've had people speak into my life in ways that made a difference. But I also spent an awful lot of time waiting for someone else to do something that, at least in part, I needed to do myself.

I want to name this core idea plainly. We are waiting for healing to arrive from somewhere outside. We are waiting to be delivered by someone else, and our job is simply to endure our ugly stepsisters until that person appears. Meanwhile, life keeps moving along. The days turn into months, the months turn into years, and we're still looking toward that hill, wondering when somebody is finally going to come over it. I know because I've stood there looking. And sometimes I was so busy watching for that prince that I failed to see the help God had already placed right in front of me.

I also want to state this plainly, as well. God meets us in our healing, but the showing up is still ours to do. I'm not scolding, and I'm certainly not saying that God helps those who help themselves. That's not even Scripture, although people quote it as though it is. What I am saying is that in our own self-care, we have a part to play. We are the ones who live inside our own heads every day. We are the ones who know where it hurts, even when we can't quite explain why. And with some help, some patience, and a good deal of practice, we can begin to recognize what makes things worse and what might help us move toward something better. Sometimes that means counseling. Sometimes it means medication. Sometimes it means finally admitting that we're not doing nearly as well as we've been telling everybody.

I also know that some of you are too exhausted to act right now. I've been there, too. There were times in my life when getting out of bed was an accomplishment, and the thought of taking responsibility for one more thing was more than I could bear. So please don't hear this as another assignment you're failing to complete. Waiting isn't a character flaw, and recognizing the pattern of waiting is itself a first step in your recovery. When I finally realized what I was doing, it helped set me on my long road toward healing. It didn't make the road easy. There were still setbacks, disappointments, and days when I wanted to crawl back under the covers and let somebody else handle everything. But it made something clear. I couldn't spend the rest of my life standing at the window waiting for a white horse. And at least knowing the next step, even when you aren't ready to take it, gives you a direction to face.

You might be asking what that next step would look like. Maybe it's a phone call you've been putting off. Maybe it's telling one person the truth when they ask how you're doing instead of automatically saying, "I'm fine." Maybe it's showing up for an appointment you've rescheduled three times, or asking your doctor whether what you're feeling might be depression. It doesn't have to be something big. In fact, I think sometimes we make the mistake of believing that healing requires some grand gesture or life-changing decision. Most of the healing I've experienced has come in much smaller pieces. Your path won't look exactly like mine. But there are familiar landmarks along both of our paths, and one of them is the moment we decide we're worth showing up for.

Name one small step you've been avoiding—just name it, in the comments or to yourself. You don't even have to promise to do it tomorrow. Just acknowledge that it's there. Naming it is half the battle, and sometimes half the battle is all we have the strength for today.

And here's what I want you to remember. You don't have to rescue yourself. You don't have to figure everything out, and you certainly don't have to walk this road alone. God hasn't forgotten where you are, even if you've been standing in the same place for years. The help you need may come through a counselor, a doctor, a friend, or someone you haven't even met yet. But healing doesn't always arrive on a white horse. Sometimes it begins when we find just enough courage to take one small step toward the life we've been waiting for.

And who knows? Maybe that first small step is the beginning of your happily ever after. Not the fairy-tale kind, where nothing ever goes wrong again. But the real kind, where there are more good days than bad, where hope begins to feel possible again, and where you discover that your story isn't finished yet.

Crushed Olive Ministries