How Therapy Revealed God’s Grace in a Way Church Never Did

Grace has been on my mind lately because I’ve been boggled down by shame for years.

I’ve heard teaching about grace, prayed through it, wrestled with it—and sometime recently, along the way, I realized something painful but freeing:

I wasn’t actually living under grace. I was living under law. (Romans 6:14)

As the eldest daughter of Haitian immigrants, who projected their own unspoken wounds onto myself and my siblings, I grew up battling my sense of worth desperately seeking validation and love from others. And when I became a believer, I simply carried that same approval-seeking into my walk with God. I wanted Him to be pleased with me. I wanted to get it right whatever the cost.

Severe anxiety was always there, but I never had full awareness of or language for it until 2018, when I finally learned that the spiral of obsessive thoughts, the constant second-guessing, and the desperate hunger for approval and doing things “just right” had a name.

So even though I heard, from the pulpit, in small groups, in discipleship, that I was “under grace” I still lived as though I needed to obey, think and believe perfectly for God’s approval.

But when my mental health crashed, so did that fragile version of my “faith”.

I backslid heavily.
I battled severe OCD symptoms.
I fell into the deepest depressive episode of my life.
Hope felt completely out of reach.

And then, God led me to therapy.

Where Grace Found Me

Therapy became the place where God’s grace finally made PRACTICAL sense.

My therapist stepped into the shadows of my mind with courage and compassion. She reminded me that my battles were human, not spiritual disqualifiers. And through her, the Holy Spirit spoke loudly, showing me that the shame I dragged around and the lies I believed about myself had no power to change God’s heart toward me. He never required striving or perfection to love me.

For the first time, I was told that God wasn’t demanding I fix myself.
He wasn’t waiting for a “better” version of me.
He wasn’t disappointed in my humanity.

And that’s where the real battle began.

• Could I actually believe a perfect God truly loves me as I am? Messy thoughts, mental health struggles, doubts, backsliding and all?

• Could He really call me righteous while I was still wrestling with my faith in Him?

• Could grace be this wide… this deep… this real?

Grace in the Middle

It took years of setbacks, healing, medication, and most recently, a season of deep stretching. But through every high and low, one truth has outlasted everything:

God’s grace was enough to carry me, is enough to sustain me now, and will be enough to keep leading me forward.

Enough for my weakness.
Enough for my symptoms.
Enough for the flaws and sinful patterns I know and the ones I haven’t discovered yet.

It wasn’t until I truly surrendered—not just intellectualized or forced myself to believe what I didn’t yet feel—that I accepted nothing I do or fail to do can separate me from His love (Romans 8:35). When I asked God to show me Himself and what His grace truly was, real hope returned. Not the naïve idea that “everything will work out,” but the steady assurance that He is with me and that His grace is enough.

Our bills are still high and debt is still increasing.
Our mental health still needs daily tending.
Our future still feels uncertain.

And yet, I have hope.

Because if His grace covers, shields, sustains, and empowers me (2 Corinthians 9:8; Psalm 5:12)… then I can keep showing up. I can keep sowing seeds even when the soil looks barren. I can stand in the tension, in the lack, in the waiting, in the unknown because His grace holds me steady, not my own willpower and fortitude.

His grace fuels me with the joy, strength, and willingness to do what He asks, even before I see the harvest.

Maybe This Is for You Too

I don’t know where you are in your journey.
Maybe you’re tired.
Maybe you’re wrestling.
Maybe you’ve been carrying shame for struggling at all.

But here’s what I know:

Many believers, young, old, new, or seasoned, have never truly grasped how present, practical, and powerful God’s grace is. Because if we TRULY did, our entire posture toward trials, mental health battles, fear, and failure would shift.

We would trust more.
Rest more.

RECEIVE more.
Strive less.

And believe, REALLY believe that we will be okay, that we fight from victory, that we can actually do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13) because God is with us, and His grace is more than enough to make up the difference.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what He wants you to remember today.