N8tivegirl

Awakening After Survival

There is a moment that comes after survival

that no one prepares you for.

It isn’t loud.

It isn’t dramatic.

It doesn’t look like victory the way we imagined it would.

It feels like a surge.

A quiet, unexplainable pull forward—

as if your soul knows something your mind is still catching up to.

In medicine, they talk about a surge near the end of life.

A burst of clarity.

A sudden strength.

A moment when the body seems to rise before it releases.

But there is another kind of surge.

One that happens after trauma,

after grief,

after endurance has wrung everything it can from you.

It is the surge that comes when the old version of you has died—

not physically,

but spiritually, emotionally, fundamentally.

Jesus called it being born again.

Not returning to the womb,

but crossing a threshold you can never uncross.

This awakening doesn’t feel like gain at first.

It feels like loss.

You stop craving what once fed you.

You outgrow rooms that used to feel like home.

Some relationships can’t follow you across this line.

And that hurts.

Because survival bonds us to people, patterns, and identities.

But awakening loosens those bonds.

This is the moment when dry bones are asked to live again—

not by effort,

not by striving,

but by surrender.

There are seasons when the field looks barren,

when nothing appears to be growing,

when it feels like God has gone silent.

But roots are forming underground.

The surge is the signal that life is returning

where death once lived.

It is frightening—

because resurrection always costs something.

You don’t get new life without letting the old one go.

Survival taught you how to endure.

Awakening teaches you how to trust.

This is where control loosens its grip.

Where self-protection finally exhales.

Where you stop fighting to stay alive

and allow yourself to become whole.

Surrender isn’t weakness.

It’s alignment.

It’s laying down the version of yourself that was built in emergency mode

and allowing God to form you in peace.

And when you do—

something begins to flow.

Not fear.

Not striving.

But life.

Rivers, where there were once fractures.

Healing, where there were once scars.

Clarity, where confusion once ruled.

Awakening after survival feels like standing in front of a mirror

and recognizing yourself again—

not as who you were forced to become,

but as who you were always meant to be.

This is the surge.

Not the end.

But the crossing.

The goodbye that makes room for beginning.

A Prayer for Awakening After Survival

Heavenly Father,

I come before You with gratitude and reverence.

I thank You for the greatest gift of all—

salvation through my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus, You promised that You would not leave me alone.

You promised the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So today, I ask You to baptize me anew—

to fill me, saturate me, and strengthen me

with Your Holy Spirit and with fire.

I desire to be Your disciple, Lord.

Not in word alone, but in surrender and obedience.

Teach me to follow Your voice.

Shape my heart to reflect Yours.

I choose forgiveness today.

I release those who caused me pain, trauma, rejection, shame, or harm—

not because it was deserved,

but because I refuse to carry what You never asked me to hold.

And I ask You to forgive me

for every judgment I have kept alive in my heart.

Breathe on me again, Jesus.

Strengthen my inner being by Your Spirit.

Dwell deeply in my heart through faith,

that I may be rooted and grounded—securely founded—in love.

Give me the grace to comprehend

the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth

of Your love—

a love that heals what survival could not,

and restores what trauma tried to steal.

Holy Spirit,

fill me until overflow.

Let rivers of living water rise within me.

Where there was death, bring life.

Where there was fear, bring peace.

Where there was striving, bring rest.

I lift my hands in worship.

I give You praise, honor, and glory

with all that I am and all that I am becoming.

Thank You, Lord Jesus,

that You have baptized me with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Thank You that Your love has been poured into my heart

by the Holy Spirit whom You have given me.

Thank You that You anoint me with power—

to walk in freedom,

to do good,

to bring healing where oppression once lived.

I receive the work You are doing in me.

I surrender to the awakening You have begun.

I pray this with thanksgiving,

in the holy and powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.