What to do When Your Progress Feels Invisible

There’s a certain kind of exhaustion that comes from doing all the “right things” and still feeling like you're stuck. I know it well. It’s the kind of weariness that lives in your bones and it’s the kind that comes after years of giving your best, chasing healing, checking the boxes, and still wondering why everything still feels so hard.

For most of my life, I’ve chased success in one form or another; not out of pure ambition, but out of shame. Since I was a teenager with a baby boy on my hip, I’ve been running from a past I never signed up for. I thought if I could just outrun the mistakes, maybe I could rewrite the story. So I worked full time while I earned degrees, I clapped from the bleachers at every ball game and volunteered at every homeroom function and I had a host of beautiful friends. I tried to be the mother, the student, the employee, the friend, the believer who had it all together. But deep down, I was still that girl who felt like she had to prove she deserved a second chance. And, some days can still like that too when spiritual warfare starts!

And when I would finally slow down long enough to breathe, the shame would sneak back in like a thief. I’d pray for peace, feel a flicker of hope… then crash again under the weight of guilt and self-doubt. Over and over. I couldn’t see it then, but I was stuck in a loop: striving, shaming, surrendering, and then starting the whole thing over again.

Maybe you know that loop too.

For years, I mistook obedience for performance. I thought if I was at every school function, if I never lied or cheated, if I paid the bills on time, then surely I’d earn peace. Surely God would see my effort and grant me some quiet and stability. But when nothing changed on the outside, I started to wonder if I was just broken beyond repair. If maybe, deep down, God wasn’t interested in helping someone like me.

The lie was loud: “You’re doing all this, and it still doesn’t matter. You are not enough.”

But here's what I’ve come to learn, that the seed doesn’t sprout the same day it’s planted. Some of your greatest growth is happening beneath the surface, in silence. Just because you can’t see progress doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

God was moving in my life all along. When I thought He was quiet, He was protecting. When I thought He was absent, He was providing. I didn’t always feel it, but my kids never went hungry. Doors opened that I had no business walking through and Grace kept meeting me in places I tried to outrun.

Even now, in recovery and faith, I still have days when I feel like I’m just going through the motions. I finally mustered the courage to step back into a professional space, thinking it was part of my redemption story… only to realize the leadership was toxic, and I had to walk away for the sake of my mental health. And once again, I found myself wondering, what’s the point? It felt like I had taken fifteen steps back. AGAIN.

But maybe the point isn’t to be famous, rich or recognized. Maybe it’s just to be faithful, helpful and compassionate. Maybe it's to keep showing up, because someone else is watching. Someone else needs to know they’re not alone.

So if you’re in a season where your progress feels invisible, here’s what I want you to remember:

• Just because no one sees it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

• Your faithfulness counts, even when there’s no applause.

• You are not disqualified by your doubt, your past, or your pace.

  
  

And if you’re new to recovery or faith, and you’re thinking, I’ve been doing this for months and I still feel the same, please hear me: Just keep going, there is progress in the dark and giving up is never an option!

Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

You don’t need to fight for proof of your growth. Your roots are deepening, even now. One day, when you least expect it, something will break through the surface and you’ll see just how far you’ve come.

Keep going. You’re not behind. You’re just becoming.

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Next up: “When God’s Timing Feels Like a Letdown.”

Until next time… 💛

Andrea