Faith & Healing

Finding Faith During Healing: When God Felt Like Punishment, Not Peace

When Faith Felt Like a Love–Hate Relationship

Finding my faith during healing did not come easily.

For most of my life, my relationship with God was a love–hate one. I always believed He existed. During good times, I believed He was with me. But when things went bad, I didn’t see lessons—I saw punishment.

I believed God was punishing me for my choices.

For how I behaved.

For the thoughts I had.

For the anger I carried.

For the moments when I stopped caring altogether.

Even when I knew I was doing the right thing—when I was trying, when I was showing up—if something fell apart, I assumed it was because I deserved it.

I got angry with God because I didn’t understand.

I used the phrase often:

“You made me. You should know this is who I am.”

Why Punishment Made Sense to Me

Punishment made sense to me because peace was never modeled.

I was never met with softness.

Never met with grace.

Never met with calm correction or reassurance.

I was met with anger.

With confusion.

With chaos.

I was told what I did wrong—but never what I did right.

I don’t remember being praised as a child. If it happened, it was so minimal it never stayed with me.

As the oldest daughter, I was expected to know better.

To lead by example.

To take care of my siblings.

To be responsible.

But when no one teaches you how—how are you supposed to know?

Learning to Survive Instead of Being Cared For

The anger grew quietly.

I learned to find peace alone, but it never lasted. My safe spaces were always taken from me. Even family vacations weren’t about connection—they were just new locations where the same emotional distance followed.

So I learned to disappear.

Outdoors.

In the basement.

In my room.

When my parents divorced and my mom moved us thousands of miles away, even solitude changed. I shared a room with my sister, so I found new places to hide.

And still, I was angry with God—because nothing felt safe.

As I got older, no matter what choices I made—my own or someone else’s—I always felt regret. Remorse. Sadness. Anger at myself for “stupid” decisions.

I would get back up and try harder, but my faith never grew. It stayed stagnant. The love–hate relationship remained.

Confusing Pain With God’s Voice

I walked with empathy, confusion, anxiety, and chaos—not constant anger.

At one point, my body was so tense and sore that I feared something was wrong with me physically. I remembered hearing about diseases that stiffen the body over time, and I wondered if that was happening to me.

Life would shatter me, then shift again. I’d thank God when things changed—but the change was never truly good. It was just another version of the same harm.

I didn’t realize that what hurt me was hurting me the entire time.

Trauma Disguised as Love

My ex-husband repeated what I had learned growing up.

He held things over my head.

Punished me emotionally.

Left when I didn’t comply.

Each time he left, I felt the devastating pain of abandonment—the kind that comes without warning. And every time, I believed it was my punishment.

Punishment for being “bad.”

For needing attention as a child.

For failing somehow as a wife, a person, a human.

Yet even then, I made sure my daughter didn’t suffer the way I did.

That’s when something shifted.

My parents moved on with their lives.

I stayed present for my child.

I didn’t yet understand what that meant—but it planted a seed.

Realizing What Was Never My Responsibility

I never understood that as a child, I should have been taken care of.

It wasn’t my job to raise myself.

To regulate myself.

To protect myself.

But I did.

And I continued doing it into adulthood.

When my ex came back, I thought it was God saying, “You deserve this now.”

But it wasn’t God.

It was trauma bonding.

And I couldn’t see it yet.

When Healing Began—but Trust Hadn’t Yet

When I started my healing journey about a year and a half ago, I still believed in God—but I didn’t trust Him.

I was terrified that if I let my guard down, something bad would happen.

And often, it did.

So I would cry out to God, angry and broken:

“This is why I can’t trust You. Every time I do, something goes wrong.”

So I put my guard back up and tried to fix everything myself.

I believed it was my job to heal others. To make things right. To carry everything.

And when that became impossible, all the trauma I had buried came spilling out.

Seeing the Lesson Instead of the Punishment

The change didn’t happen all at once.

But slowly, I began to see patterns.

Lessons.

Meaning.

I started looking back at my life—not through shame, but through understanding.

God wasn’t punishing me.

He was teaching me.

I just wasn’t healthy enough to see it at the time.

That realization changed everything.

Faith Became Trust, Not Fear

I began to trust God—not because life became easy, but because I understood there was purpose even in pain.

I gave myself fully to Him, realizing He had never intended for me to carry everything alone.

But like any good father, He allowed me to learn—because real understanding comes from walking through something, not being shielded from it.

Now, I begin and end my day in Scripture.

Even the verses I don’t understand, I research. I sit with them. And every single time, they connect back to my life.

Walking With God Feels Different

When you walk with God, life feels different.

It becomes whole.

Peaceful.

Grounded.

You heal.

You respond instead of react.

You pause before speaking.

I now ask myself:

How can I speak in a way that teaches without harming?

How can I invite reflection without forcing belief?

I don’t push people toward God.

I leave space for Him to meet them.

Because that’s how He met me.

shared from lived experience, not professional advice.