For When Healing Doesn’t Move in a Straight Line

A Wounded Healer’s Prayer Inspired by Philippians 2:5–11

For When Healing Doesn’t Move in a Straight Line

A Wounded Healer’s Prayer Inspired by Philippians 2:5–11

Author’s Note: I got some disappointing news at the doctor yesterday. Nothing catastrophic. But enough to shift things again. I will need a minor surgery. It feels like a few steps forward, and then a couple back. And I am realizing, again, how hard it is to hold things together when there is no consistency. When healing does not move in a straight line.

Philippians 2 shows me that Jesus does not cling to control. He empties himself. And I am slowly learning that this kind of surrender is not weakness. It is what it means to have the mind of Christ. Even when I do not want it to be.

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a wounded healer’s thoughts …

I want healing to make sense.

I want progress to be steady.
Up and to the right.
Clear improvement.
Measurable change.

But that is not how it has been.

It has been uneven.
Unpredictable.
A mix of good days and harder ones.

Moments where I feel like I am moving forward.
And then moments that pull me back again.

Mountaintops.
Valleys.

And I am finding that what is hardest is not just the physical part.

It is the uncertainty.

The not knowing what tomorrow will feel like.
The quiet work of adjusting… again.

I am tired of trying to hold everything together.

Philippians says that Jesus “emptied himself.”

And if I am honest, I do not love that.

I would rather hold things together.
Hold control.
Hold some sense of certainty about where this is all going.

But the way of Christ is different.

It is a releasing.
A letting go.
A trust that forms not in control, but in surrender.

And I am not very good at that yet.

Where in your life are you trying to hold things together that feel like they are slowly slipping?

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For When Healing Doesn’t Move in a Straight Line

A Wounded Healer’s Prayer Inspired by Philippians 2:5–11

God of Love,
I am tired of trying to hold everything together.
Tired of adjusting to new information.
Tired of thinking I am moving forward
only to feel like I have been set back again.

I got the news yesterday.
Another step I did not expect.
Another layer to carry.
And I can feel it in me.
The frustration.
The disappointment.
The quiet question of
how many times do I have to recalibrate?

I want healing to be linear.
I want it to make sense.
To move in one direction.
To feel like progress instead of this back and forth.
But this is where I am.
In the unevenness.
In the mountaintops and the valleys.
In a body that does not follow the script I would have written.

And you meet me here.
Not above it.
Not outside of it.
Right here.
You, who did not cling to power.
You, who did not hold tightly to control.
You, who emptied yourself.

Jesus, I do not know how to live like that.
Everything in me wants to grasp.
To stabilize.
To make things predictable again.
But the mind of Christ
is not about holding on.
It is about letting go.

So here is what I have.
Not strength.
Not clarity.
Just this small, honest surrender.
Take what I am gripping so tightly.
The fear.
The need for control.
The expectation that this should be easier by now.
And gently open my hands.

Teach me the way of kenosis
not as an idea
but as a way of living inside this body, this moment, this uncertainty.
If healing is not linear
if this is what the path looks like
then stay with me in it.
On the good days.
On the setback days.
On the days I do not know what to expect.

And when I feel like I am losing ground
remind me
that you are still present
even here.
Even in the emptying.
Even in the letting go.
Even in the not knowing.
Because if this is the way you walked
then I trust
you know how to walk it with me.
Amen.

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