When Writing Brings You Back to the Wound

The unexpected cost — and gift — of telling your own story

📖 “To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” — Isaiah 61:3 (NKJV)

📍 Story Moment: Somewhere between the outline and the tears — Auckland, 2026, in the middle of a book I didn’t know would undo me.

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be.

I mean that. I genuinely didn’t know. I thought I was writing about healing. I thought I was documenting what I’d already been through, wrapping it up neatly in chapters, offering it to others with a tidy bow. I thought the stories were finished. Done. Behind me.

They weren’t.

💔 Every time I sit back down with one of them, God seems to lean over my shoulder and say, quietly, here’s something you haven’t fully dealt with yet. It catches me off guard every time. I’ll be reading back through what I wrote — sometimes years ago — and suddenly the tears are back. Not because nothing has healed, but because healing has so many layers, and sometimes you don’t find the next one until you go looking for the words to describe the last one.

We cannot teach what we do not practise. I know that. I say it. I’ve said it to others more times than I can count. I just didn’t expect it to apply quite so personally to the writing of a book about healing.

It does, though. It really does.

🕯️ The book started on my website, actually. Someone told me years ago to write my stories down — so I did. I put them there, page after page, story after story. They were available. They were out there. I thought that was enough.

Then a friend said to me, gently but firmly: it’s not the same. People need something they can sit with. Something they can feel. Something they can write in. A screen isn’t the same as a page you hold in your hands.

I resisted for a while — I’m good at that too. Eventually I relented.

So now I’m taking those stories off the website and putting them into a framework. Now that I’ve got the framework, it’s a bit easier — I can see where things belong, what fits where. The framework was the hard part. Once that was in place, the path cleared a little.

🌱 It’s still a process, though. Going back into those old stories and rewriting them to fit the book — they sit differently now. Some things have moved. Some wounds I thought were fully resolved turn out to have another layer I hadn’t yet reached. So I work through it, and then that becomes another element in the story — the story gets richer for it, even if the writing gets harder.

That’s the journey part of it. That’s what I keep telling myself on the days when it feels like too much.

📖 “The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” — Isaiah 61:3 (NKJV)

That’s what the book is really about, you know. The creative keys God has given us — the singing, the worship, the dancing, the drawing, the writing. The ways He provides for us to express what we don’t have words for. The Bible has always known that creativity is a tool for healing. The garment of praise exists precisely for the moments when we don’t feel like praising, when praise feels like the hardest possible thing to choose. It becomes an act of worship when you do it anyway. An act of faith. A key.

I’m trying to put all of that into a book. Five parts. Part 1 is done.

That’s progress. I’m calling it progress.

🕊️ There’s one more thing I have to confess to these pages, because this is the place where I try to be honest: I overthink things. Terribly. I’ll read through a chapter to check for errors and come away with seventeen new things to change, then I’ll read it again — and again. There’s always something that could be a little better, a little tighter, a little more precisely worded.

I know what that is, underneath all its good intentions. It’s fear. Fear dressed up as diligence. Fear of not being good enough — and that fear, if I’m not careful, will keep me from ever actually publishing anything at all. The enemy knows that. He uses it. He uses the procrastination too, and they’re really the same thing: fear wearing different coats.

So at some point, I have to say: this is finished. Lay it down. Don’t go back.

I’m learning that. Slowly. With more grace for myself than I used to have.

We’ll get there. One part at a time. One story at a time. One act of courage at a time.

Part 1 is done. The rest will come.

✍️ Story in a Sentence: “I thought I was writing about healing — until the writing started healing me.”

🪨 My Life Verse in this season:

📖 “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” — Philippians 1:6 (NKJV)

**💡 Reflection:**

You don’t have to have it all figured out to begin. Your story matters — even the parts that still hurt, even the chapters you’d rather skip. Take a moment with these questions and let the Holy Spirit lead you gently…

• Is there a creative gift, a calling, or a story God has been asking you to pick back up — something you put down because it felt too costly? 🤔
• Where has the fear of not being good enough shown up in your life dressed as perfectionism, procrastination, or over-preparation? Can you name it honestly before Him? 🤔
• What would it look like to put on the garment of praise today — not because you feel it, but as a deliberate act of faith? 🤔

**🎺 Affirmation:**

You are not behind. You are not failing. You are in process — and process is exactly where God does His best work. The unfinished page in front of you is not a sign that you’ve fallen short; it’s an invitation to keep going. Your story, offered imperfectly and honestly, can open doors in another heart that nothing polished ever could.

🕊️ “If this is your story too — even a fragment of it — know that you are not alone. God sees. God knows. God redeems.”

**🙌 Prayer:**

“Lord, I lay this story — all of it — at Your feet. The beautiful parts and the broken ones. Take it, and let it be of use…”

Father, thank You that You don’t ask me to be finished before You can use me. Thank You for the stories — even the ones that still bring tears, even the ones I thought I’d already healed from. Thank You that when I go back in, You go with me.

Forgive me for the times I’ve used perfectionism as an excuse not to publish, not to step forward, not to be seen. Help me to recognise fear for what it is and to choose faithfulness anyway.

I want to finish this book. More than that, I want to be faithful to the calling You’ve placed on my life — to help others find the creative keys You’ve given them, to see beauty rise from ashes in real, tangible, holdable ways. Give me the discipline to write, the grace to let go, and the courage to say: it is finished — and mean it.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

There’s something quietly sacred about sitting with an unfinished thing and choosing to trust the One who is not finished with it — or with you. The book will come. The healing will deepen. The story will find its readers. Not because you are perfect, but because He is faithful. Keep going, Trixi. Keep going.