“Oh yes, the past can hurt, but you can either run from it, or learn from it.” – The Lion King
Set me free… the three words tattooed on my back describe the last six years of my life perfectly. I was held captive by so many lies, and I was stuck in an unhealthy life. I had grown up in the church, and I thought that following the rules was what is meant to love Jesus, and I played the good christian, but I didn’t have a real relationship with Him. A lot of painful things happened early on in my life and I couldn’t understand why God had let them happen, and I began to resent Him. I was in my last year of high school when I gave into the temptations of life and set God on the back burner. My whole life the enemy had been setting up traps, but that was the year I actually made efforts to stop feeling anything at all.
Taking You Back to 2010
I turned to the party lifestyle for comfort, and especially after high school and at the beginning of college, the only time I felt alive was when I was drunk. It literally did not matter what day of the week it was, I began choosing the bar over anything else in my life, whether that was a few drinks at dinner or drinking to the point of vomiting. At first I was able to balance school and the party lifestyle, but eventually I stopped caring about anything other than just getting messed up every day and night. I didn’t feel like I was functioning normally unless I was drunk and messed up. When the alcohol wasn’t enough, I would turn to whatever else was available at the time, cocaine, molly, pain killers, or weed.
I would go to raves, concerts, and parties, drunk and on drugs, dancing and not having a care in the world. I thought I was free, living my life to the fullest, partying and making memories. I thought it made me invincible, that it was the only way I could be open and free and the “real me”. That was the lie I had to keep telling my self. It didn’t matter if I woke up in a random guys bed with no recollection of how I got there, or if I started off my day with throwing up all morning, my days became about recovering from my hangover so I could go out and do it again that night, and that’s how I lived day to day.
Meaningless sex was something else that had a huge hold on my life. There were a few good men who managed to come into my life at times, and who influenced me to face the God that I was running from, but the truth of the matter was that I looked to them to fill holes inside myself that only God could fill. It could never have worked out because I wasn’t healthy, and I wasn’t facing or dealing with things, I was numbing them, and I didn’t know the woman that I was in Christ.
When those relationships didn’t work out, most of the time due to an ex of theirs, I was very quickly replaced, and I started viewing myself as a replaceable person, someone easily dismissable, and someone with very little worth. I constantly asked myself questions like, “What is wrong with me?” or “Why wasn’t I enough?”. Instead of looking to God for my self worth, I turned my feelings of inadequacy into a sexual addiction. I didn’t trust anyone, not God and especially not men. I viewed men as all the same, and I treated them accordingly.
I built walls so high around my heart, and I vowed that no man would ever be able to break through them. In my own twisted way I would intentionally go out looking for one night stands so that I could prove to myself that I couldn’t be hurt, that I was in control. Men were easily attainable, and I would prove to myself time and time again that they were all the same. I would leave right afterwards without a care in the world, which only made me more desirable because, let’s be honest, most humans want what they cannot have, and although I let them have my body I didn’t let them have any of my emotions. In my mind, because I could do this without any emotion I was in control, the ball was in my court.
I would tell people “I don’t do repeats” or “I don’t do relationships.” The truth behind it all was that sex had become a game to me, a way to get what I wanted without getting hurt. The reality was I didn’t think that I was good enough or deserved to be in a relationship, and that no man could ever truly love me after everything I had done. The few relationships where I did open up and let a man into my hurt and past, it ended, which only drove me further into feelings of inadequacy and meaningless sex. The problem was that I was expecting a man’s love to fix what was broken instead of turning to God’s love. Sex is a gift from God, it was something that for so long I had held out for, that I had kept sacred, but after a combination of being abused and abusing it, I twisted it into something that it wasn’t meant to be. I didn’t know how to love or be intimate. Drugs, sex, and alcohol always left me feeling empty and always left me searching for more.
A Few Years Ago
I never felt guilt from my actions at the time. In fact I thought I was doing pretty great at one point a few years ago. I was accepted into the Respiratory Therapy Program, I got accepted into a paid internship at a children’s hospital, I was bartending at a decent place and making good money, and I had begun talking to a good christian guy, which didn’t last, but was very eye opening. I told myself that this was my fresh start, and I would clean myself up, break free from my habits, and get serious with my life; but I wasn’t actually dealing with anything, I was just pushing it aside like it never happened. Also those habits and struggles didn’t just disappear.
I was creating another false version of myself where I distracted myself with unhealthy amounts of work and school, all the while my relationship with God was still very much dead. However, God was still pursuing me through it all and eventually I slowly started letting Him back into my life, and began pursuing Him in return. But I felt so much shame from all my mistakes. I felt so much guilt from pushing Him out of my life, I didn’t feel worthy of His love. God wasn’t waiting to throw my mistakes in my face and say “I told you so”, no, He wanted to extend to me grace, He wanted to heal me. So I painfully began the process of facing deeply seeded wounds, and God began healing them with His love, and with that bringing so much truth and understanding into my life.
Now
It’s funny really, the enemy thought that he had won, but what he didn’t realize was that his grip on my life would eventually be what lead me back to Christ. He didn’t realize that the hard and painful parts of my life would turn into a powerful testimony for God to use. My mistakes do not define me. I can’t change my past, but I can change who I am today and who I am going to be. I am a daughter of God, I am redeemed by His blood, and my mistakes are forgiven at the cross. He has restored my heart. I REFUSE to walk in the dark and believe in the lies. I CHOOSE to walk in the light and believe in the truth that I am loved and capable of loving, that I am a beautiful woman of God, that I am worthy, that I am enough, and that Gods will for my life is better than the plans I made for myself.
This last summer, as the life that I had made for myself quite literally fell apart, God moved mountains to present to me a different path, His path for my life, and He gave me the opportunity to experience Him in an entirely deeper and intimate way, and to learn and grow in Him during this next year. He is using my imperfect life to show His perfect love. I have made the choice to live for God and to live the life that He has called me to instead of just living for myself. Jesus has given me new dreams and new desires for my life. The things of this world no longer get to have a hold on my life, because I was created for so much more. I am taking back what is mine; I have declared that I am no longer held captive by the enemies lies in my life, I was made to be free.
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32
Photo Credit: Melissa Flores and Mary Heflin
