Permission to Hurt: Healing Without Losing Your Faith (with Ps. Benny Ho)
Have you ever been in pain…and someone tried to
explain it,
rebuke it,
cast it out,
or pray it away…
before simply sitting beside you?
Have you ever been told you just needed more faith—when your body was exhausted?
Or left a healing space feeling more ashamed than whole?
I think in many church spaces—especially in Asian culture—there can be so many voices telling us what God is saying, what our pain means, what we should do next...
And somewhere along the way, we quietly lose permission to simply hurt.
But what if healing sometimes looks like:
permission to lament.
permission to wrestle.
permission to seek therapy or medicine.
permission to discern.
permission to not be instantly fixed.
In this week’s episode of Tender & Wild, I sit down with Ps Benny Ho, founder of Faith Community Church in Perth, mentor to church leaders across Asia and beyond, and honestly, one of the safest leaders I know.
Most people know him as a senior pastor, speaker and mentor to leaders.
But to our family, he’s also just the uncle next door, the kind man who found a beach house for us in Perth to recuperate in when I was in the throes of severe trauma symptoms and chronic pain.
He's the kind of person who carries authority without ego, wisdom without harshness, conviction without control—and somehow makes you feel safe enough to exhale.
Together, we explore what trauma-informed, integrated faith can actually look like, and what happens when pain is mishandled in church spaces.
We talk about:
Why trying to “fix” pain can deepen trauma
Why faith is not measured by visible outcomes
Prayer, therapy and medicine working together
Boundaries, agency and spiritual safety
Why some suffering cannot be quickly explained
What apology can look like in church leadership
And why you are allowed to walk away from unsafe systems
If church hurt you in the middle of your pain, I really hope this conversation feels like a balm to your soul.
You are not weak.
You are not rebellious.
You are not faithless because you are still hurting.
And you do not have to choose between faith and safety.
You deserve both.
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