You’re Not Stuck — You’re Just Making Choices From a Wounded Place

Time does NOT heal all wounds

How are y’all feeling after the last blog? Are you still hanging in there with me? I hope so. And I truly pray you know this by now: I love you far too much to let you remain in emotional bondage.

Helping God’s people heal is not something I take lightly. It is an assignment—one I carry with reverence, responsibility, and a whole lot of intentionality (in case you haven’t noticed 😉). Wholeness is not some mystical concept reserved for a select few. It is possible. It is attainable. And it is found in Him.

Can we be honest for a moment?

The last five years have kicked us in our… well, you know. And most of us have not taken the time to truly process what we’ve lived through—let alone the things we already had packed away long before the world shut down. We kept moving. We kept functioning. We kept surviving. But healing? That often got pushed to the back burner.

So this year, in the Lord's year 2026, I want to invite you to choose differently. Choose to dig in. Choose to unpack. Choose to intentionally invite God into the spaces you’ve ignored, avoided, or learned how to live around. And if you don’t know how to do that—or where to even begin—this is where you stop white-knuckling it alone and invite someone into the process.

Yes… that’s where I come in.

Now let’s talk about choices.

Because when we really examine how we decide, most of us are not making poor choices because we’re reckless, rebellious, or spiritually lazy. We’re making them because we’ve been deciding from an internal operating system that was formed long before we ever realized we had agency. Long before we had language. Long before we had permission to ask, “Is this actually true?”

Somewhere along the way, our discernment became filtered through survival instead of safety, fear instead of faith, and adaptation instead of identity. And no one ever sat us down and said, “Hey… you do realize you’re allowed to update that system, right?”

This is where we pause—and tell the truth without dramatics or self-condemnation.

Many of the choices you’ve made—relationships you tolerated, boundaries you negotiated away, dreams you talked yourself out of, cycles you keep finding yourself back in—were not made from freedom. They were made from conditioning. From learning how to survive emotionally, relationally, spiritually, and sometimes even physically in environments where your needs were minimized, your voice was inconvenient, or your worth was attached to performance.

And survival has one primary job: keep you alive—not make you whole.

Survival will always choose what’s familiar over what’s healthy. Every single time.

So if you grew up learning that love had to be earned, you learned to choose people and situations that kept you proving your worth.

If you learned that speaking up led to conflict or rejection, you learned to choose silence and self-abandonment and call it peace.

If your identity was shaped by trauma, neglect, rejection, spiritual misuse, or constant striving—then yes, your worldview makes sense.

That doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It means you adapted.

But here’s the loving truth we cannot skip over: what once kept you safe may now be keeping you stuck. And compassion that never leads you toward healing eventually becomes permission to remain unfree—and that is not God’s heart for you.

Identity Is the Lens — Not the Accessory

Identity is not something you add once life settles down. It’s not a cute accessory you put on when you finally feel confident, healed, or “ready.” Identity is the lens through which you interpret God, yourself, others, and every choice placed in front of you.

When you don’t know who you are—or when your sense of self is fragmented—you don’t experience decisions as opportunities. You experience them as threats.

Every choice feels heavy, final, and loaded with consequence.

Every open door feels suspicious, like there must be a catch

Every closed door feels personal, like God just changed His mind about you.

So you start telling yourself things that sound practical—even spiritual—but are actually fear dressed up in church clothes:

• “I don’t really have a choice.”

• “This is just how life works.”

• “I should be grateful for this, even if it hurts.”

• “If I choose differently, I’ll lose everything.”

Beloved… that is not wisdom.

That is a wounded identity working overtime to stay regulated.

Jesus didn’t come only to forgive sin. He came to restore sight—to help you see God rightly, see yourself rightly, and therefore choose rightly.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”— John 8:32, ESV

Notice He didn’t say time would set you free.

He didn’t say busyness, spiritual avoidance, or “being strong” would set you free.

He didn’t say pretending something doesn’t hurt and calling it faith would set you free.

Truth does.

And truth always begins with identity.

You Don’t Lack Choices — You Lack Alignment

This is the reframe that changes everything: you don’t actually lack choices. What you lack is alignment.

Alignment with who God says you are.

Alignment with what God says is available to you.

Alignment with how God designed you to discern, decide, and abide.

When we believe lies about ourselves, our world shrinks. Options narrow. Fear gets louder. Discernment becomes distorted. But when we intentionally partner with the Lord to expose those lies and replace them with truth, something powerful happens—our decision-making matures.

Healed people don’t just choose faster.

They choose wiser.

They stop asking, “What will keep me accepted?”

And start asking, “What keeps me obedient?”

They stop asking, “What feels familiar?”

And start asking, “What is fruitful?”

They stop asking, “What if I mess this up?”

And start asking, “Lord, what are You inviting me into right now?”

“Abide in me, and I in you… for apart from me you can do nothing.”— John 15:4–5, ESV

Abiding doesn’t just change what you choose. It changes the place inside you that choices come from.

Healing Is Not Optional If You Want Freedom

Let me say this gently—but firmly—because it matters: you cannot out-pray an unhealed identity. You cannot out-serve a dysregulated nervous system. And you cannot keep calling survival instincts “discernment” and expect freedom to follow.

At some point, you have to partner with the Lord on purpose—not just for relief, but for restoration. You have to let Him name the lies, heal the roots, and retrain how you think, feel, and choose.

That isn’t weak faith.

That is mature faith—applied, embodied, and lived out.

Because when your identity is healed and anchored in Christ, choices stop feeling like traps you’re afraid to step into and start feeling like invitations you’re discerning with peace.

And that, dear one, is where life begins to open—not because circumstances magically change, but because you have.

A Prayer for Exchanging Lies for Truth

Father God,

We come before You honest and open, no longer pretending we’re “fine” when we’re fractured inside. You see the choices we’ve made and the wounds that informed them. You see where our identity was shaped by pain instead of promise.

Lord, we invite You into the places where lies took root—lies about our worth, our voice, our capacity, and our choices. Expose what is false with gentleness and truth. Replace every lie with what You have spoken over us before the foundation of the world.

Teach us how to abide—not strive.

Heal us so we may decide from wholeness, not fear.

Restore our identity so our choices reflect Your heart.

We surrender our old decision-making systems and receive Your wisdom, Your peace, and Your truth.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

💛 This Week's Heart Work: Audit Your Internal Operating System

Take some time with the Lord and sit with these—don’t rush them:

1. What messages about myself did I absorb in childhood that still influence how I make decisions today?

2. Where do I tell myself I “don’t have a choice,” and what lie might be underneath that belief?

3. What would change if I truly believed God had good options for me—not just survival ones?

4. What is the Lord inviting me to exchange in this season—lie for truth, fear for trust, striving for abiding?

Journal. Pray. Be honest. Healing loves honesty.

P.S. — If You’re Ready to Heal and Choose Differently

If this post hit a nerve, let me lovingly remind you—that’s not condemnation—it’s invitation.

✨ Pier of Hope™ officially went LIVE on 1/8/2026 (hallelujah!!!). This Spirit-led membership is for the ones who are tired of pushing, performing, and powering through. It’s designed to help you slow down, build emotional awareness, and gently address the roots of burnout, people-pleasing, and self-neglect—so you’re no longer making life decisions from a wounded place. This is not a devotional library or passive content to keep up with. It’s a guided healing pathway that meets you where you are and walks with you toward wholeness, one intentional step at a time. You can read more about it here!

✨ Boundaries of Love: Masterclass happens on January 20, 2026, and this is for those of you who are realizing that your lack of boundaries isn’t a character flaw—it’s a learned survival strategy. We’re going to talk about boundaries from a biblical, emotional, and practical perspective so you can finally understand why boundaries feel hard, where things keep breaking down, and how to begin responding differently without guilt or fear. Click here for more info!

✨ Then, on January 31, 2026, we go deeper with the Boundaries Breakthrough Experience—an intensive for those who are ready to stop intellectualizing healing and start integrating it. This is sacred, focused space to identify root patterns, receive clarity, and begin shifting how you show up in relationships, decisions, and daily life with greater confidence and alignment. Ready for more? Click here.

✨ And if you’re ready for deeper, structured transformation, Shift. Heal. Grow! ™ begins February 13, 2026. This is for the ones who are done circling the same mountains and are ready to rebuild their inner world with Christ at the center. Check out all of the details here.

You don’t have to stay stuck.

You don’t have to decide from pain anymore.

And you absolutely don’t have to heal alone.

With love, truth, and just enough holy sass to keep you moving forward,

Adrienne K. 💛