Surrendering Your Healing Journey
Guest Post by Mary DeMuth
I surrender my healing journey
Taken from The Freedom of Surrender by Mary DeMuth. Copyright (c) 2025 by Mary DeMuth. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press.
Artist’s Note: The journey through healing is arduous, so I created my own “healing island” pathway with the forest of fortitude, castle of confusion, lake of loneliness, river of restlessness, mountains of mourning, beachhead of bewilderment, and, finally, the garden of gratitude. Since I’ve walked such a journey, it wasn’t hard to uncover these “places” I’ve trod. There’s also the importance of an island, which can feel quite isolating. In my own healing journey, I’ve often felt alone.
The paralyzed man remained unhealed for nearly four decades, and we encounter his story just before Jesus asks him an important question. “One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, ‘Would you like to get well?’” (John 5:5-6). Jesus interacts with him on the sabbath at the Sheep Gate, where crowds of broken people gathered around the pool of Bethesda, hoping for a cure.
Jesus’s question is curious. Wouldn’t anyone want to get well? Interestingly, the man never answers the question. Instead he says, “I can’t sir . . . for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me” (John 5:7). He’s referring to something akin to the “stirring of the waters” where, if you were lucky, you’d be the first in the water and be healed when it churned (or an angel visited it). Instead of answering, the man gives an excuse—quite a logical one at that.
Even though the man didn’t respond, Jesus still chose to heal him by commanding him to rise, pick up his mat, and walk. In an instant, he moved from lame to ambulatory. And then he spent the rest of his life walking out that healing.
Jesus asks you a similar question: Do you want to get well? Do you want to be set free from what happened to you yesterday, the year before, or farther back? To heal means unfamiliarity—facing the kind of scary adventure that is unpredictable.
To surrender the healing journey is to let go of the expectations for how the pathway will look. It means looking realistically at what happened back then, then giving God permission to do something new.
“To surrender the healing journey is to let go of the expectations for how the pathway will look. It means looking realistically at what happened back then, then giving God permission to do something new.” — Mary DeMuth
The Lord knows what we need. He knows the intricacies of what we went through when we were hurt. He sees the whole of our pathway and leads us gently from grace to grace. He is best equipped to uncover what is best for the moment, and he knows the broken parts of us that need addressing in his perfect timing. What a good God we serve!
Know this: Jesus wants to heal you. He wants to move you from unable to able, from little strength to greater strength. He loves you and knows what is best for you. Even if you can’t answer the question about wanting to get well, he chooses to heal you.
PRAYER: Lord, I surrender my healing journey to you. I admit that sometimes I’m scared to open myself up to you, and there have been times when I’ve prescribed my healing journey to you rather than wait on your perfect timing. I praise you for taking me this far. And I anticipate with joy the ways you are going to set me free. Thank you for being a God who loves to heal his children. Amen.
about the author
Mary DeMuth
Mary has written over fifty books, including The Most Overwhelmed Women of the Bible, 90-Day Bible Reading Challenge, and The Freedom of Surrender.
Through her podcast Pray Every Day and her speaking events around the globe, Mary seeks to help people heal from past trauma and live re-storied lives as followers of Jesus.
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