Gentleness Is Not Dangerous 2 Corinthians 10:5 - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

There are days when nothing is wrong, and yet everything inside me tightens.

Peace arrives quietly—no warning, no demand—and instead of resting in it,

I interrogate it.

I search for cracks.

I bruise it with questions it never asked to answer.

My mind becomes a courtroom where gentle thoughts are put on trial, and I am both the accused and the executioner. I speak to myself with a cruelty I would never inflict on another soul, as if tenderness toward myself is an act of rebellion that must be punished.

Being loved through presence and consistency does something strange inside me.

It is not the chaos that scares me—I know how to survive that.

It is the staying.

The showing up.

The quiet reliability of someone who does not disappear when things soften.

Consistency touches old nerves.

It presses against memories that were learned too early that love could be withdrawn without explanation.

That safety was temporary.

That calm was only the pause before the next fracture.

So when someone meets me with care, with patience, with a steadiness that does not waver, my body reacts before my heart can respond.

I flinch at what feels good.

I brace for what isn’t happening.

I prepare for loss in the middle of presence.

And when I want more—more closeness, more reassurance, more depth—I turn against myself.

I call my desire selfish.

I shame my longing.

I punish myself for wanting to feel the love I was never consistently given.

Because somewhere deep inside, I learned that wanting was dangerous.

That asking invited rejection.

That hoping too loudly meant being disappointed publicly.

These lessons were carved into me in childhood—in moments where love fractured, where care came with conditions, where I learned to read rooms instead of trusting hearts. They followed me into relationships that mirrored those early wounds—romantic and not—where I mistook endurance for strength and silence for safety.

Even now, as I choose differently, these patterns rise like instinct. They whisper that peace is borrowed, that love demands repayment, that I should prepare for grief before joy settles in too deeply.

And yet—I am not the same woman who learned those lessons.

When my thoughts turn brutal, when my mind becomes a battlefield, I anchor myself in Jesus.

I return to the truth of His voice—steady, gentle, unwavering—a voice that does not accuse, does not rush, does not abandon.

He does not ask me to punish myself for desire.

He does not confuse longing with sin.

He reminds me that love is not earned through suffering, and peace is not a test I must pass.

Through the long road I have already walked, through the griefs I have survived, through the versions of myself that learned to stay small to stay safe—I have never lost my worth.

Healing, I am learning, is not the absence of fear.

It is the courage to stay present when fear tells me to flee.

It allows care to unfold without rehearsing its ending.

It is choosing to believe that consistency can be real without demanding proof through pain.

Some days I move forward boldly. Other days, I move forward trembling—both count.

I am learning to sit with peace without interrogating it.

To let love be what it is instead of what it once wasn’t.

To stop mistaking familiarity for safety and discomfort for danger.

I am learning that triggers are echoes, not prophecies. That my nervous system is remembering—not predicting. The presence in front of me deserves to be met as itself, not as a shadow of what came before.

I am not broken for struggling.

I am not weak for being triggered by kindness.

I am not greedy for wanting more than survival.

I am a woman relearning how to receive.

A woman untangling old scripts with faith as her anchor.

A woman standing at the intersection of who she was and who she is becoming.

And through it all, Jesus remains. Not as a distant observer, but as a steady presence—reminding me that I am not behind, not lacking, not undeserving.

Peace does not need to be punished.

Love does not need to be survived.

And I do not need to sabotage what is gently trying to stay.

I am allowed to heal without hurry.

I am allowed to want what is good.

I am allowed to rest without preparing for ruin.

I am deserving—not someday, not when I am finished healing, but now.

And I am learning, slowly, to let that truth remain.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5

Lord,

I come to You with a heart that is tired from fighting itself.

You see the way my mind turns unkind when peace draws near. You hear the words I say to myself that I would never speak aloud. You know how quickly I dismantle calm because somewhere inside me I learned that safety does not last.

Lord, I confess that consistency still frightens me. That being loved through presence awakens old wounds I did not choose, but learned how to live with. When someone stays, when care does not waver, my body remembers abandonment even when none is happening.

I ask you now—meet me there.

Heal the places formed in childhood where love felt conditional, where wanting more felt dangerous, where silence taught me to stay small. Heal the broken relationships that reinforced those lies, both the ones that held my heart and the ones that shaped my identity.

Lord, forgive me for punishing myself for longing. For treating desire like a weakness instead of a sign that I am alive.For believing I must suffer to be worthy of love.

Teach me how to receive without bracing for loss. Teach my nervous system what my spirit already knows—that not all love leaves, that not all peace is temporary, that I do not need to earn what You freely give.

When my thoughts become a battlefield, anchor me in Your truth. Silence the voices that confuse memory with prophecy. Remind me that triggers are echoes, not warnings from the future.

Help me stay present when fear urges me to retreat.

Help me trust what is gentle without demanding proof through pain.

Teach me that healing does not require perfection, only honesty and surrender.

Lord, I place my becoming in Your hands.

I place my fear, my hope, my tenderness, and my desire to love and be loved before You.

Remind me daily that I am not behind, not broken, not undeserving.

I am Yours.

I am held.

And I am allowed to let peace remain.

Amen.

Gentleness Is Not Dangerous 2 Corinthians 10:5 - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

Gentleness Is Not Dangerous 2 Corinthians 10:5 - Personal blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.