You Might Not Get the Closure You Prayed For, But You’ll Find Freedom
Best-selling Christian author, Rebecca Simon on why closure is always denied to us in the human realm and why we need to look beyond this world to get what we truly desire.
Closure is one of the things we convince ourselves we need in order to move on. We wait for the apology that never comes, the explanation that never arrives, the moment that finally makes it all make sense within our hearts. We look back at the people who left, the dreams that dissolved, the love that slipped through our fingers—and we wait for something to come along and soothe the ache of what was lost. We wait for clarity. We wait for justice. We wait for peace.
So often, it never comes the way we hope. Those we cared about disappear without answers. Circumstances we prayed for change without warning. Relationships we gave our whole selves to dissolve without dignity. And in the absence of closure, we’re left standing with all our questions. The story feels unfinished, and we feel forgotten inside its chapters.
But maybe closure isn’t something the world was ever designed to give us. Maybe what we’re waiting for from them is something only God can provide. Because the truth is, human closure is often conditional—it depends on someone else’s willingness to reflect, to return, to redeem what was broken. But God’s healing doesn’t hinge on someone else’s honesty. He is not limited by what they refused to say or how they refused to show up. He doesn’t need your past to make perfect sense before He begins to bring His love into your present, and that is a deeper grace than most of us realize.
Closure, in the way we imagine it, seeks to neatly organize every painful ending. But sometimes God isn’t writing a conclusion—He’s writing a continuation. He isn’t just interested in what you walked through; He’s interested in where you’re going. And in His eyes, you don’t need the full picture of what happened in your past in order to step into your future. You just need to trust that the author of your story knows how to finish what He started.
God’s version of closure looks different from the one we try to force. It doesn’t always come with words or reasons. Sometimes, it looks like peace in the middle of unanswered questions. Sometimes, it looks like no longer needing to understand why they hurt you in order to forgive them. Sometimes, it looks like waking up one day and realizing that what once wrecked you no longer defines you. That’s the kind of healing only God can do—not by explaining everything, but by redeeming it.
We forget that healing isn’t always a return to what was. Often, it’s a release. A letting go of the hope that the past could ever be different, and a reaching toward the belief that what’s ahead could still be beautiful. God doesn’t promise to fix every broken thing the way we want, but He does promise to walk beside us, to carry us, to create something new out of all the pain.
If you’re waiting for closure, let this be your reminder: maybe you don’t need one more conversation. Maybe you don’t need all the answers. Maybe you don’t need to keep going back to the past, hoping it will finally give you something it never had the capacity to hold. Maybe what you need is permission to move forward anyway—to trust that God is guiding you.
You may not get the kind of closure you once prayed for, but in time, you will get something better. You will get healing. You will get wholeness. You will get to keep your softness, your hope, your faith. You will step into a future that isn’t built on what broke you, but on who restored you.
One day, you will look back and see it clearly: God didn’t give you closure. He gave you freedom.
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