God Heals in Layers

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. — Psalm 147:3 (NIV)

I used to think healing was an event. Something that happened once, dramatically, and then it was over. Like the woman at the altar call who falls to the ground weeping and gets up a different person. I believed in that kind of healing because I’d seen it. And as the “go-getter”, “on to the next thing” kind of person that I am, I used to think that if I hadn’t moved on and forgotten all about the issue, I hadn’t healed. Each time I experienced such heart-wrenching moments, I have wanted desperately to be rid of the pain so badly that I felt a little angrier each time I felt the stab of pain return. I often would just want to be done with the pain quickly and move on with my life.

But that’s not how God healed me. Not even close.

What I’ve come to understand, and it took me years to accept this, is that God heals in layers. He doesn’t rip the bandage off all at once. He doesn’t expose every wound in a single sitting. He goes one layer at a time, with the patience of a surgeon who knows that rushing the process could do more damage than the original injury.

And I think the reason so many of us get frustrated with our own healing is that we mistake His patience for absence. We think if He was really working, we’d be further along by now. We’d be over it. We’d have stopped crying about that thing, or reacting to that trigger, or flinching at that memory. And because we haven’t, we assume something is wrong with us.

Nothing is wrong with you. God is just not in such a hurry as we are.

I remember an incident that happened a few years back. Some had said something that was untrue about my husband and me to a group of people, and I think they didn’t know we would hear about it. The people they spoke to came and reported the incident to us, keeping us informed (Thank God for good friends). We were really hurt, but we forgave and let it go, didn’t tell the person and didn’t have a conversation about it. I restored the person to me by giving room in my heart, giving myself the right excuse to justify letting the person back in, and swallowing it. I even embraced and loved the person so much, and then a few years down the line, the person did it again and on a grander scale. Oh! I was so broken-hearted. I even saw myself closing up my heart cos the pain! It took me over a year to let this go, and as I type, I sense there are still some areas Jesus needs to revisit cos why do I type and still feel a twinge of pain in a nook somewhere? Aside from my heart being hurt cos I felt my love was thrown in my face, my pride was also hurt, cos I allowed it happen to me twice; these are already 2 levels of healing I can visibly see. I can only imagine the other layers God sees.

And there’s a moment in Scripture that I keep coming back to. When Jesus healed the blind man in Mark 8, He did something unusual. He touched his eyes, and the man said he could see people, but they looked like trees walking around. His sight was partially restored. And then Jesus touched him again, and his vision became clear.

Why would Jesus, who could speak a universe into existence, heal someone in two stages? He wasn’t struggling with the miracle. He was showing us something. He was saying, sometimes I restore your sight gradually. Sometimes you see clearly only after I’ve touched you more than once. And neither the partial seeing nor the second touch is a failure. It’s the process.

That’s what healing looks like for most of us. Not a single moment of breakthrough, but a series of gentle encounters with a God who keeps showing up to the same wound until every layer has been tended to.

I remember a season where I thought I had dealt with something from my past. I had prayed about it. I had forgiven. I had moved on, or so I thought. And then something small happened, a comment, a situation, and the whole thing came flooding back. And I remember feeling so disappointed in myself. Like, God, I thought we were past this.

And what I sensed Him saying to me, quietly, was: we dealt with one layer. Now I’m taking you deeper. Not because the first healing didn’t count, but because there’s more underneath that you weren’t ready to face yet.

That reframed everything for me.

Because it meant that the tears I was crying weren’t a sign of weakness. They were a sign that God trusted me enough to go further. It meant the wound resurfacing wasn’t a setback. It was an invitation to let Him into a room I had kept locked.

And I think this is where we need a different understanding of healing. One that makes room for the slow work. One that doesn’t shame the woman who’s still processing something that happened ten years ago. One that understands that the heart is not a simple organ, and the God who made it knows it has layers that only time and tenderness can reach.

The truth is, some of the deepest healing you’ll ever experience will not happen in a single prayer meeting. It will happen on a Tuesday afternoon when you realise you responded differently to something that used to destroy you. It will happen when you notice the trigger has lost its power. It will happen quietly, without an audience, and you’ll know that God has been working on you in ways you couldn’t see.

So if you’re still healing, please hear me. You are not behind. You are not broken beyond repair. You are in the hands of a God who heals thoroughly because He loves you too much to heal you halfway.

Let Him take His time. He knows what He’s doing.

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I hope you flourish,

Eva