I never wanted to be known as the hurt girl. The one who felt insecure, brokenhearted, and unworthy. The one who found it hard to trust others and was severely lonely.

Yet a few years ago, that is exactly where I was.

I walked through an incredibly hard season of hurt and rejection from people I never expected. It was one of those seasons where it felt like I kept getting the air knocked out of me no matter which direction I turned.

I felt wounded, confused, and exhausted. Before I knew it, I was carrying my pain around like a backpack, waiting for someone to show me just enough attention so I could unpack it all and tell them everything I had been through. The deeper truth, though, was that I felt so hurt that I wanted someone else to tell me I was okay and that none of it was my fault.

Over time, through counseling, mentorship, and a lot of prayer, I began learning how to handle my emotions in healthier ways. I learned how to communicate, process, and cope with the things I had faced. Slowly, the deep wounds began to feel more like scars than open cuts. While they are still part of my story, they are no longer something that can be easily reopened. That’s a good place to be.

I know now that when we lose a relationship, it takes time to properly grieve. Standing on the other side of my journey, I can confidently say I’ve walked through all the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. Ironically, acceptance has felt like the hardest stage of all.

Accepting that I cannot control another person.

Accepting that some relationships will never look the way I hoped.

Accepting that not every story gets the ending I wanted.

That’s a difficult reality to face.

And sometimes, even after we’ve reached acceptance, we can find ourselves replaying the story, hurt and conversations.

But I’ve learned through my own journey that God doesn’t want us to spend our lives circling the same pain. He wants to heal and redeem the broken places in our hearts so we can move forward into the future He has for us.

I work as a dental hygienist, and I remember one morning when a patient sat down in my chair. She didn’t seem happy to be there, which isn’t totally uncommon. Yet from the moment she arrived, she appeared frustrated and weighed down by something.

As we began talking, I asked how she was doing.

That simple question opened the floodgates to something deeper.

She began sharing about a friend who had deeply hurt her. She walked me through the details of what had been said and done. As she spoke, I could hear the pain in her voice. I told her how sorry I was that she had experienced something so hurtful and that it sounded like the situation was still fresh.

Then she said something that caught me off guard.

The situation had happened years earlier.

Something that morning had simply triggered the memory, and she felt the anger all over again.

I think many of us can relate to that woman.

When we’ve been hurt, it’s natural to want someone else to validate our pain and reassure us that we’re okay. We want someone to tell us we were right, understood, and justified in how we feel.

But I believe Jesus invites us into something even better.

He invites us to bring those wounds to Him instead of continually bringing them to others.

Not so we can stay stuck in the past, but so we can walk freely into the future He has prepared for us.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my later years still replaying wounds from my twenties and thirties. Yet I see it all the time—people carrying hurts that happened decades ago as though they happened yesterday.

To be clear, letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. Forgiveness doesn’t mean those who hurt us get full access to us anymore. It doesn’t mean excusing bad behavior. It doesn’t mean allowing unhealthy people back into our lives.

It simply means refusing to allow yesterday’s pain to steal today’s peace.

God has a future that is far too beautiful to miss because we’re still consumed by what happened years ago.

I’ve been reading through the Gospels lately, and I love the encounter in John 5 where Jesus meets a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been unable to walk for thirty-eight years. Surrounded by others who were sick and suffering, this man waited day after day in hopes of being healed.

Jesus approached him and asked what may seem like a surprising question:

“Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6)

At first glance, the question seems obvious. Of course he wanted to be healed. Why else would he be there?

But Jesus wasn’t simply addressing the man’s physical condition. He was inviting him to confront a deeper need.

Before healing him, Jesus caused him to consider whether he was truly ready to step into something different.

I’ve realized in my own journey of healing from past hurt that Jesus asks us the same question:

Do you actually want to be made well?

Do you really want to move forward?

Do you want to be free from bitterness?

Do you want to stop carrying the offense?

Do you want to let Me heal the places you’ve been protecting for years?

The beautiful thing about walking with Jesus is that He meets us exactly where we are, but He loves us far too much to leave us there.

We have to be willing to partner with Him in our pain and trust that as we let go of what was, He will lead us into a future far better than we can imagine. It won’t always be easy. In fact, I can almost guarantee that He will expose things in your own heart that need to be confronted and surrendered.

But I am equally certain that as you choose to heal with Jesus, you will one day look back and realize that the hurt you faced led you into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him. You’ll discover that even your deepest wounds and hardest seasons were not wasted. God used them to shape you, refine you, and draw you closer to Himself.

Because sometimes the very thing that broke your heart becomes the place where you encounter the healing heart of God.

Katie Dietz is a lover of Jesus, wife, dental hygienist, and author of He’s Still Good: Trusting God in the Midst of Hurt & Rejection. She discovered her love for writing and making Jesus known through her online ministry, Back Porch Devotionals, where she hopes to encourage others and point them to Jesus in the everyday, ordinary moments of life.

In her downtime, she enjoys spending time with family, traveling to new places, and simply savoring a slow morning at home. Keep up with Katie on Instagram at @katie.dietz and @back.porch.devos.