How Did I Get Here?
Some thoughts on shame, trauma, and the question God actually asks
The Question That Won’t Let Me Sleep
How did I get here?
The question that wakes me up at 3 am.
The question that ruminates through my mind when my thoughts are swirling around from one thing to the next.
The question that settles into a dysregulated body that's desperate to remember what safety feels like.
The question that makes my heart flutter, and breath catch at the smallest of things.
The question that I ask when I look at my life today, and all the things that I wish were different…how did I get here?
This morning was another one of those mornings where my body just wouldn't sleep past 3 am. I tried really hard to go back to sleep. I was able to find an extra hour from 2–3, but that was it. I know all the tricks, all the ways my body likes to fall back into a sleep rhythm, and not one of those worked today, which means I found myself up just after 4, outside, walking the dogs. The neighborhood was still asleep.
The only sounds were the dogs sniffing every blade of grass and the occasional bird convinced morning had already arrived.
I wished my mind would be that quiet.
Instead, it kept asking the same question…how did I get here?
It's interesting to me how quickly this can happen, and yet it seems like it's been forever. As I look back at the last four years, I have to remind myself that even though Joe's death was traumatic and created this massive, crater-sized hole in my life, these patterns have been simmering for years.
What I've been realizing is this: Joe's death didn't create all of these beliefs. It exposed them.
Trauma has a way of pulling old stories to the surface, the ones we've believed for years without realizing they were quietly shaping us.
The Voices I Carry
I hear voices from the past who make comments about my weight. "Gosh, your legs are like tree trunks." Or my favorite, "You'll never lose the weight after having a baby." Or how about, when I was in the middle of a panic attack, "Just get your ** together. You have four kids depending on you to be strong." Or, "You're not smart enough to get into that school, just go to the state school." Or how about, "The way you say things comes across like a . Try being nicer." Or the ones that cut straight to the bone: "Mom, you were supposed to be protecting me. We would have been better off if you had made that decision vs. the one you did."
It's funny how words work. They can be spoken in a moment and carried for decades.
Most of the people who said those things probably don't remember saying them. Some may have never intended the weight they would carry. Others may have been speaking from their own wounds. But our nervous systems don't stop to ask whether a comment was fair or deserved.
They simply file it away.
This is who you are.
This is how the world works.
Stay safe.
We don't just remember what happened to us. We build our lives around what we begin to believe because of it.
I don't resent these comments. But I see how they've shaped the way I move through the world - then, and even more now.
The older I've gotten, the more I've realized these aren't separate struggles. They're all speaking the same language.
My body tells the story.
My work tells the story.
My relationships tell the story.
Even my prayers tell the story.
My weight has become a shield. It sits on my body and holds me back from living life at times - from wearing the shorts, feeling comfortable in sleeveless shirts, from really enjoying sitting by the pool, to even what I wear to the gym. My body carries the weight of years of hearing that I'll never lose it from having a baby, and somewhere, deep down, I believe it. Somewhere beneath everything I know to be true, there's still a younger version of me who believes those words more than she believes the mirror. I don't want to, but I do. The weight, in and of itself, is also something that provides an excuse for things. No, I can't do lunges because my knees hurt. Ehh, no thanks to the lake day, I don't want to be in a bathing suit. Run? Not unless dinner is ready, or something is chasing me. Why do I look in the mirror and hear a voice saying: You'll never lose it. Just accept it. This is your body now.
Panic and anxiety. If the Lord has commanded us to not be anxious (Phil. 4:6), then why do I have anxiety? Why does my body scream when certain things happen in my environment? Why do I get dysregulated at the sound of a song, or the scent of a certain cologne? Why does my heart flutter and my hands shake and my stomach turn when I make a bad decision, or I lose something? I've quoted Philippians 4:6 to other people. I've prayed it. I've memorized it. I've wanted it to be true in my own body. So why does my nervous system still respond before my faith has a chance to speak?
Why do I hustle so hard? Am I trying to be faithful… or am I trying to prove something? If I work hard enough… produce enough… receive one more promotion… maybe someone will finally believe I'm smart. Maybe I'll believe it too. Do they not see how smart I am? Where is that next promotion? I am capable of this, but I wasn't picked. Why? Is it because I don't have the right education to back up my work?
Did I say the right thing? Did I say the wrong thing? Don't be too direct, you'll come across as a **. But don't be wishy-washy either, clear is kind. How can I be clear, and kind? How can I tone down or temper my words to be less direct? Oh, you value direct communication…but not that much.
The one from my child has hurt the most. Because if they really knew all that I had protected them from, or made decisions to allow myself to be hurt, and them not see it, then they would know…but if I told them, I wouldn't be protecting them then. So, how do you reconcile that?
Tracing It Back
I've spent years feeling guilty for how my body responds before my faith gets a say. I assumed that if my faith was stronger, my body would respond differently. That if I trusted God enough, my heart wouldn't race. That if I believed Scripture deeply enough, I wouldn't wake up at three in the morning or jump at the sound of a song or carry tension in my shoulders.
But maybe my body's first response isn't evidence of weak faith.
Maybe it's evidence that trauma is real.
And maybe healing isn't pretending my nervous system doesn't exist, but inviting Jesus into the places it's still trying to protect.
I started noticing something. It finally hit me. None of these things were random.
My anxiety wasn't random.
My relationship with food wasn't random.
My drive to prove myself wasn't random.
Even the way I replay conversations in my head wasn't random.
They were all connected. Every one of them could be traced back to something I had believed about myself.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped responding to what was actually happening around me and started responding to what I believed about myself.
How much of my life has been built around protecting myself from things that aren't happening anymore?
I wonder how many of my decisions have been made by a frightened version of me instead of the woman God is still forming.
Whose Voice Has the Authority to Define You?
As I kept walking this morning, my mind wandered to Genesis. I don't even know why. Maybe because I had spent the last hour asking, "How did I get here?" Maybe because somewhere deep down I knew God wasn't nearly as interested in my behavior as He was in the story underneath it. And I couldn't shake the feeling that He wanted to answer my question with one of His own.
Who told you that? I gasped when I thought about it.
God's first question wasn't… "Why are you hiding?"
It wasn't… "Why did you eat the fruit?"
It wasn't… "Why did you disobey?"
It was… "Who told you that?"
Here's why I love "Who told you that?"
Because it's not God arguing. It's God investigating.
Back to Eden
Adam says, "I was naked."
God doesn't say, "No you weren't."
He asks, "Who told you that?"
God traces shame back to its source.
He doesn't begin by correcting behavior.
He begins by exposing the voice.
That is such a beautiful picture of how He still works.
God wasn't asking because He lacked information. He was exposing the source of their shame.
Not: Why do I believe this?
But: Where did I learn to believe this?
And maybe even more importantly… Does the voice I've been listening to sound anything like the voice of Jesus?
That's a question that lingers…
Your Turn to Ask
So maybe the question isn't… Why do I hustle?
Maybe it's… Who told me I had to earn my worth?
Maybe the question isn't… Why do I hide in oversized clothes?
Maybe it's… Who told me my body was something to be ashamed of?
Maybe the question isn't… Why do I replay every conversation?
Maybe it's… Who told me I was too much?
See what's happening? Jesus isn't arguing with your behavior. He's tracing it back to the lie.
Healing isn't only learning to think differently. It's learning to recognize which voices have been narrating your life… …and deciding whose voice gets the final word.
One comment.
One criticism.
One disappointment.
One betrayal.
One accusation.
One loss.
One shame-filled moment.
Until one day you wake up and realize you've been living inside a story you never consciously chose.
And that's why the question "Who told you that?" is so liberating. Because if the story was learned, it can be unlearned.
Lies lose their power when they're finally brought into the presence of truth.
And if Jesus is the one asking the question, He's not asking to condemn you. He's asking because He's about to tell you the truth.
I still wake up at three sometimes. My nervous system doesn't suddenly forget everything it's learned. I still catch myself believing old stories. But now, when those voices get loud… I've started asking a different question.
Not… "What's wrong with me?" But… "Who told me that?"
Because I've realized something.
Shame has a voice.
Fear has a voice.
Trauma has a voice.
Performance has a voice.
But none of them sound like Jesus. He has never once agreed with the lies I've believed about myself.
Instead, He keeps inviting me to lay them down… one question at a time.
A Better Question
Here’s something I didn’t expect when I started asking ‘who told you that’ instead of ‘what’s wrong with me.’ The question changed. The feeling didn’t. Not right away.
I still hear it. What's wrong with you. Some mornings it's the loudest voice in the room before I've even opened my eyes. And somewhere underneath it, quieter, but no less real, you are wonderfully made.
Both of those are sitting in my head at the same time. Which one is true?
Not which one do I feel. Feeling and truth are not the same category, and I've spent years treating them like they were. I know which one I feel. I haven't felt wonderfully made in longer than I can remember. But feelings were never given the authority to rule on what's true. They just show up the loudest and demand the front of the line.
Knowing is different than feeling. Knowing doesn't ask my nervous system for permission first. I can know I am wonderfully made on a morning I feel like nothing of the sort…the same way I can know it's Tuesday even on a day that feels like it should be Friday. The feeling doesn't get a vote on the fact.
This is agency. Not a nice idea about free will - an actual, daily authority I have that I spent years forgetting I had. Every time the old voice shows up, I get to decide, on purpose, which one I'm going to believe. Not once. Every time it shows up again. The feeling is loud, but it isn't in charge. I am, and more than that, I have access to Someone who already settled the question before I ever asked it.
So I don't wait to feel like it's true before I act like it's true. That's the part I had backward for years. I thought belief was supposed to follow feeling. It doesn't. Belief leads. Feeling, eventually, follows behind it, sometimes slowly, sometimes a long way behind, but it follows.
None of this happens in one sitting, and I've stopped expecting it to. The lie didn't move in overnight. It took years. One comment, one moment, one quiet agreement at a time. The truth doesn't work faster than that just because I'd prefer it to. What's being asked of me isn't a single decisive moment. It's showing up again tomorrow, and the day after, choosing the same true thing on purpose until it stops feeling like a decision and starts feeling like the ground I'm standing on.
Some days I can't do that alone, and I don't think I'm meant to. Some days I need someone else to say the truth back to me when I can't get there on my own, to point me toward it, or on the harder days, to walk me straight into it. But sometimes it's more than sitting with someone or having a hand to hold. Sometimes the lie has to actually leave my mouth. Said out loud, not just turned over silently in my head one more time. Because there's something that happens when a voice I've been carrying alone finally gets spoken into a room, it gives Jesus room to use someone else to say back to me, "that's not true."
But the words don't come easy. Getting them out loud is its own kind of naked. It's one thing to know God already sees the whole thing.
He does. He always has.
It's another thing entirely to let another person see it too. To let the words leave my mouth and sit in the room between us, where they can't be taken back or softened or explained away. That's exposure. That's vulnerability in the most literal sense the garden ever meant it. Adam hid because he was naked and afraid. I stay quiet for the same reason. Some of these things I've never said out loud to another person in my life. Saying them costs something. But staying hidden costs more.
A friend brought up Peter to me not long ago - stepping out of the boat, walking on water, actually walking on it, for as long as his eyes stayed on Jesus. It wasn't the water that sank him. It was the moment he looked away from what he knew and started looking at what he could see instead. And even then, he wasn't left there. Jesus didn't let him go under and call it a lesson learned. He reached for him before Peter finished sinking.
Moses had a horrible here. Daniel did too. Joseph. Joshua. The woman at the well, who came for water in the middle of the day so no one would see her, and left telling the whole town who she'd met. The Bible is full of these stories, but here’s the amazing thing we also see: None of them stayed where they started.
I used to think "here" was a place. Somewhere I had actually landed. A verdict on who I turned out to be after everything: the trauma, the choices, the years of it all stacking up into whatever this is.
I don't think that anymore.
"Here" is a feeling. And it's real, I'm not going to pretend it isn't, or rush past it like it doesn't have weight. Some mornings it still has its hands around my throat at three a.m. But a feeling isn't the same thing as a fact. Most of what makes "here" feel so permanent isn't actually true. It's just old. It's a lie that's had a long time to settle in and start calling itself reality.
So some mornings I still wake up at three, and it still feels exactly like "here": stuck, not enough, the same story on repeat. But now I know to ask a second question underneath the first one. Not just how did I get here. But is "here" even true, or is it just old?
More often than not, it's just old.
So I'm learning to follow that first question with a better one.
Who told you that?
And slowly, not all at once, but slowly, a truer answer keeps finding its way to me. Not a new location. A different lens on the same three a.m.
This is where I am right now. Not arrived. Not finished sorting out which voices get to keep talking and which ones need to be shown the door. Just awake, at three in the morning, choosing, again, to believe something truer than what I feel.
If any of this sounds like your own three a.m., I don't think that's an accident. I don't think we're meant to sort through this kind of thing alone in the dark, each of us in our own separate kitchen, wondering if anyone else hears what we hear.
So consider this an invitation, not just a post. I'm still in it. I'd love the company.
More to come.
If this resonated, you might also find these helpful:→ You Don't Have to Call Yourself Okay — When grief changes who you are
→ When You've Been Trying for Too Long — When God feels silent→ About Laura