Learning How to Breathe Again

A quiet testimony on leaving survival mode and learning how to receive love

As I enter the new year, I thought I would have something profound to say.

For the last couple of years, my writing has centered on unveiling difficult truths—how God reveals abuse in Scripture, how harm is often minimized or spiritualized, how healing requires truth before reconciliation. Much of what I’ve written has lived in heavy places, because that’s where I was living. God knew I needed to learn as much as possible about what happened to me so that I could feel safe again.

But if I’m honest, I’m so very tired.

Not the kind of tired that comes from doing too much in a day…but the kind that comes after a lifetime of holding everything together in ways I now see I shouldn’t have had to.

For thirty-five years, I learned how to read a room before I learned how to read myself. I learned how to soften my voice, anticipate reactions, absorb tension, and steady everyone else’s emotions so the ground wouldn’t shake. I became skilled at calming storms I didn’t cause. I mistook survival for maturity and silence for strength.

I had absolutely no idea that I was traumatized. I had buried it too well. I’m still a bit in shock at how well I had repressed it all… but am comforted that other childhood trauma survivors have similar stories of unlocking those memories once they know they're physically and psychologically safe… usually once they’ve had kids or are in their 30s according to studies.

I was raised inside a story that wasn’t true—surrounded by gaslighting so constant it felt like air. When lies are spoken as fact long enough, you don’t recognize deception… you just learn to distrust yourself. I was told I was crazy. Worthless. Mentally ill. That my reactions (not the harm that caused them) were the problem. And because I was a child, I believed it. I built an entire life on top of those words, never knowing they were poison. And sadly, I don’t believe my story is uncommon.

So I learned to please. To perform. To keep peace at any cost. That as long as I stayed happy and kept everyone else happy, I was loved. I called that love.

But something has shifted.

After two years of trauma recovery, my body is finally learning how to rest and actually rest. Not freeze. Not dissociate. Not brace for impact. Just be still. Present. Safe.

It’s like living for decades in a house with the windows sealed shut, unaware you’re suffocating until someone opens a door and fresh air rushes in. At first it’s overwhelming. And then you realize…This is what breathing is supposed to feel like.

The lies that defined my childhood no longer live here.

The voices that told me I was broken have lost their authority. The fog has lifted. The gaslights are out. I am no longer trapped inside a story written by people who could not tell the truth.

God moved me. Not just mentally…but physically.

To a new state.
A new beginning.
No family nearby. No old friends.

In November, I gave birth to my baby without my husband physically present. He was boarding a plane while I was in the operating room. And yet, I was not alone.

God appointed a village of Christian women—women who barely knew me, and yet loved me without hesitation or expectation. One of them was in the OR with me, video-calling my husband so he could witness the birth of his son from the sky. Others cleaned my home while I was still in the hospital. They printed photos, framed them, and placed them around my house so I would come home to beauty instead of emptiness. Strangers brought meals twice a week for 5 weeks after my baby was born.

They showed up quietly and faithfully, without keeping score.

My baby is almost two months old now, and I still haven’t had the energy to write proper thank-you notes. And they haven’t disappeared. They still call. They still check in. They still want to sit with me, walk with me, laugh with me. (Actually, eight days before my baby was born, I wrote and article here about not knowing how labor was going to look not knowing anyone, having kids, and my husband flying… and now I can look at that and see at all God provided).

I had to unlearn something deeply ingrained in me: the belief that love must be repaid to be deserved.

At first, receiving felt wrong. Dangerous. Like I was failing some invisible test. I waited for resentment to surface—for disappointment, for distance. For attacking me for being an ungrateful, spoiled brat that could never do anything right.

But it never came.

They kept showing up.

God moved me here.
And He picked my friends.

This season feels quieter. More ordinary. And that feels like grace.

I’m entering this new year not with a mission to expose, but with permission to live fully. Not driven by survival, but instead anchored in safety. Instead of being frozen in trauma, I’ll be standing in the real freedom that Christ has given me.

For the first time in my life, I can breathe.

And that finally feels like home.

And maybe this is what it means to truly rest at the feet of Jesus…to lay down every version of myself that was built to survive…no explanations required. No roles to play. No wounds to justify. Simply to remain as I am…loved, present, and at rest.

…Megan