N8tivegirl

Healing the Inner Child — Part 5

“Learning to Trust Safe Love”

There comes a moment in healing when survival is no longer the goal—

connection is.

For some of us, love was unpredictable.

Affection came with conditions.

Attention felt earned, not given.

And safety was something we learned to live without.

So we adapted.

We became hyper-independent.

We stayed guarded.

We learned how to love, but not how to receive love.

Healing the inner child means learning—sometimes for the very first time—that safe love exists.

Safe love does not rush you.

It does not compete with you.

It does not require you to perform, impress, or shrink.

It does not disappear when you have needs.

Safe love stays.

This is the kind of love God models for us—

steady, patient, unthreatened by our wounds.

And when we begin to trust that kind of love, something shifts.

We stop confusing chaos with chemistry.

We stop mistaking intensity for intimacy.

We stop pushing away what is gentle simply because it feels unfamiliar.

Learning to trust safe love is not weakness.

It is courage.

It is allowing yourself to be held without bracing for impact.

It is letting joy arrive without waiting for the loss.

It is believing—finally—that love does not have to hurt to be real.

And maybe the most healing truth of all:

You don’t have to earn the love you were always meant to receive.

Prayer of Safe Love and Rest

Lord,

You are my Shepherd, and because of You, I am not lacking.

Where my life once taught me to stay alert, to brace, to survive—

You invite me now to lie down in green pastures

and learn what it means to be safe.

Restore my soul in the places where love felt conditional,

where patience was missing,

where kindness was withheld,

where affection had to be earned.

Teach my heart Your way of loving—

the kind that is patient and kind,

that does not demand performance,

that does not keep score,

that protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres.

Where my inner child learned to run ahead or fall behind,

lead me beside still waters.

Where I learned to doubt love,

teach me that perfect love does not abandon.

Let Your love shepherd me now—

not pushing me forward,

not rushing my healing,

but walking with me

until my nervous heart remembers how to rest.

Surely goodness and mercy have followed me,

even when I didn’t recognize them.

And today, I choose to dwell

not in fear,

not in striving,

but in Your presence—

where love is safe,

and I am finally home.

Amen.