The Words that Saved Me

When correction doesn’t sound gentle, but comes from love anyway

Proverbs 27:6 — “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

Hebrews 12:11—“No discipline seems pleasant at the time… but later it produces peace.”

Galatians 6:1—“Restore one another in a spirit of gentleness.”

The Lesson I Didn’t Want to Learn

There are moments that change us... that don’t look holy while they’re happening.

They don’t come in worship services, or altar calls, or quiet mornings with coffee and devotionals open.

Sometimes they come in the form of a message you didn’t want to read.

Words that land hard.

Words that tell the truth.

I grew up in a world where survival was the only language anyone spoke.

Love was unpredictable. Safe today, unsafe tomorrow.

I learned to stay alert — to read the room, to sense the shift, to prepare for impact.

I still do.

When you live like this long enough, you start thinking that coping is the same as healing.

That motion is the same as growth.

That endurance is the same as strength.

I didn’t realize I was still that child in the courthouse parking lot — bracing for the next rupture — until someone loved me enough to tell me what I couldn’t see.

The Message That Broke the Pattern

She didn’t raise her voice.

She didn’t shame me.

She didn’t call me names.

She simply said the one thing I wasn’t ready to hear:

“Your actions are affecting my peace.”

And then:

“You can’t help someone who isn’t ready to change.”

I felt defensive at first.

Hurt.

Exposed.

Not because she was wrong —

but because she was right.

She wasn’t telling me I was unworthy or broken beyond repair.

She was saying:

I see who you really are, and this is not her.

And I think God echoed her words in a voice I couldn’t ignore:

“It’s time to let go. It’s time to heal. Come home to Me.”

There was no begging.

No bargaining.

No promising to do better “eventually.”

Just a quiet surrender.

A release.

A return.

When Healing Stops Being Personal and Starts Being Spiritual

We like to believe that our pain only hurts us.

That our coping harms no one.

That what we do to survive is private and isolating.

But pain spreads.

It touches others.

It leaks.

And sometimes the most loving thing God can do is send someone who refuses to let you drown softly.

Someone who steps in and says:

“I will not watch you lose yourself.”

Someone who reminds you that conviction is not cruelty.

Conviction is care.

What God Taught Me Through Correction

It wasn’t rejection.

It was redirection.

It wasn’t abandonment.

It was alignment.

It wasn’t her walking away.

It was God calling me closer.

To Him.

To myself.

To the woman I was always meant to become.

I am learning now to welcome accountability, not fear it.

To let correction soften me instead of harden me.

To see truth as love, not attack.

Because sometimes God doesn’t speak in whispers.

Sometimes He speaks in the words that hurt before they heal.

Encouragement for the One Who Feels Exposed

If someone has spoken a hard truth to you recently — pause before you run.

Ask:

“Is this correction actually care?”

Ask:

“Is God trying to get my attention?”

Sometimes the words that feel like breaking

are actually the beginning of becoming.

Let them in.

Let them work.

Let them save you.