I never thought that I would have to face again what was my reality over 10 years ago, but God is a redeemer and doesn’t just like to sweep things under the rug.
This past month in Mozambique, The Lord began to reveal to me that it was time to clean up a specific area of my life, that I had brushed off so long ago. Well it all started in middle school, when I experienced bullying. People placed many labels on me, ditched me, and found joy in my distress.
Entering high school, I found a voice and stood up for myself. Things got better so I though things were all fine. Although, I had walked through forgiveness towards the people that hurt me, that was just one layer of it. The negative residue from the situation, affected my identity more than I understood at the time. Over the years, overlapping into college, I continued to encounter unhealthy relationship that were verbally destroying more and more of my identity.
So now, I find myself before The Lord faced with the reality that I never truly processed what happened. This all came up, when one of my squad mates told me that she didn’t like me and that she avoided me because everything I did irritated her. I was so shocked because I hadn’t heard something like in forever,it felt like middle school all over again. I thought I would just brush it off and continue to press into loving her but without noticing it, insecurity slowly began to spread like a virus in me. I have come to a place where I sometimes doubt if people truly like me and now things people say feel more like jabs.
There is clearly still a wound that The Lord wants to heal and through that situation with my teammate, Jesus revealed my identity has been partially rooted in who people say I am and not solely on who Jesus says I am.
I believe I have hit this point of brokenness so that Jesus could show me that I need Him to replant my whole identity in Him. Jesus says “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John15:4-5 )
If I allow myself to be rooted in what others think of me, how then can I bear any fruit ?
Though I wish to say that things are all better and that there has been complete redemption now, the truth is that I’m still a work in progress. However, I can confidently say that change will come about soon.
In all of this, I am thankful God is walking with me through this, because at some point of our kingdom journey, we must face brokenness to see that we ARE because Jesus IS.
