“I will declare your righteousness and your salvation every day, though I do not fully understand what the outcome will be. Lord God, I will come in the power of your mighty acts, remembering your righteousness – yours alone.”
Psalm 71: 15-16
When you’re in the midst of a twisting storm, it’s hard to imagine that you will ever see sunlight again. When you have allowed the darkness of the storm to become your reality, you don’t know which way is up or down, or what is right or wrong anymore. Conviction turns into guilt and guilt gives birth to shame. You go out into the dark, stormy night and dig in the dirt, your dirt, and bury that shame as far down as you can. If you can’t see it, it must not be there. But it is. In the midst of digging in the dirt, trying to hide the shame, you’ve just become more dirty. The shame covers you. It becomes you. Slowly, painfully, the hope of seeing sunlight again gets buried along with your shame and your new identity sets in. You’re too far gone. No amount of rain will ever wash you clean.
This dark scene has been my reality for the last decade of my life. My identity has been rooted in darkness, shame and dirt. The enemy whispers that I am black with sin and will never be clean again. My thoughts are tangled around who I think I am, who the world thinks I am and who God thinks I am. What is Truth? I’ve been living in darkness for so long that it’s no longer an easy task to separate myself from the enemy’s truth about my identity. I don’t even know what lies the enemy has been feeding me. Attacks come in a soft whisper, picking at what I believe love is and where I find my worth. “Who would ever fight for somebody like me?” “Who would love somebody with so much baggage?” I tell myself, “If I just give people what they want, they’ll leave me alone.” And isn’t that what I ultimately want – to be left alone?
Loneliness to me has never been “lonely“. It’s where I find my peace. I don’t have to save face for anyone. I don’t have to people please. I can cry, scream, laugh hysterically without anyone lashing out with words that prick my identity like, psycho, spaz, too emotional. I can rest in my own comfort and be. When I’m around others there’s a sense that they know what’s happened to me. I psychoanalyze everyone, thinking that they are only being nice to me because they have to. If they knew the real me, they wouldn’t like me. Anytime I’ve started to open up to anyone with bits of my true self, it’s been thrown in my face. That’s reality. The “truth” is nobody actually wants to get to know the real me. I’m an obligation to others, something to pass the time until the next best thing comes their way. Then, undoubtably, I get pressed into the mud again, the breath being sucked from my lungs, as another leaves me in my dark pit of shame. It’s an endless cycle. It’s entrapment. I’m a prisoner.
It’s not Truth.
Two years ago, one of my best friends sat with me on the floor of a dirty Korean hallway in a fisherman’s village, holding my hand as I started to unearth dark memories. Her unwavering love for me and our friendship kept me afloat as I drifted on top the waves of my sorrow. She was the first person I ever admitted these things to. I hadn’t even admitted them to myself. And I wouldn’t admit them fully for another year to come. But in this moment, I’m thankful that she allowed me to be me. She was patient when I was confused. She listened when I awkwardly laughed through the pain. She held my hand when I cried. She showed me that I could be loved through this. She showed me that I was worthy to be loved.
My prayer is that when I share this with you, you’ll meet me with the same grace and love that she gave to me that day. My prayer is that even when I don’t understand what the outcome will be, that this will be a testament of God’s unyielding love. That this story will not glorify my strength or perseverance, but God’s. I want my testimony to show His beautiful character that pursued me and sought me in the darkest of places. He picked me from the dirty ground, washed me in his righteousness, and is making new things grow from my shame.
This is a story about God’s love for us.
I had an amazing childhood. My parents never let me want for anything. They believed in me, loved me fervently, and I trusted them with everything I had.
My mom and I would have special days together that she called, “Just me and you kid” days. We would spend time talking and dreaming. She let me read facts aloud from my history books on long drives, and encouraged me to write down names of every country I wanted to see. She let me dream big and I always knew she believed in me. She was so patient with me and would call me, Joyful, Juliana.
My dad and I have always had a special relationship. I’m a daddy’s girl, through and through. I would sit on the bottom step of our staircase waiting for him to get off work, and when he walked through the door I would race down the hallway, into his arms screaming, “Daddy! I missed you!” He teased me all the time, scared me to death with his jokes and stories, and always taught me new things. We would take trips to Texas to ride dirt bikes together. Those weekends were my favorite. He would let me play in the mud, explore, and be myself completely.
My parents allowed me to live out my childhood in total freedom.
When I was in high school all of that changed. High school has a way with manipulating you, making you think you have to be something you’re not, do things you don’t want to do to impress others. I became terrified of my parents, scared that they would punish me, condemn me for things I did or wanted to do, or worst of all that I would be a disappointment to them.
I entered into the worst season of my life emotionally separated from the two people who loved me more than anything on this planet. The enemy had me totally isolated and I didn’t even realize it was happening. There was no way for me to know that the things to come would destroy me and all of my relationships thereafter for the next 10 years.
There’s no easy way for me to dive into this. I’ve written a million beginnings and I feel they all fall short. I sit here now shaking. I’ve already cried several times and the words just won’t come out. I feel embarrassed, I feel scared, I feel the weight of shame and lies push me into the floorboards. But I can’t be silent anymore. This story is not for my own selfish gain, but to glorify the work that God has done through lies of the enemy that I believed would strangle me. The enemy brought me false death and my Father gave me free life. That is a story worth sharing.
I was in an abusive relationship. This relationship tore away at my identity. It destroyed my friendships and my relationship with my parents. It isolated me, condemned me and ruined me. I did things I never wanted to do. I acted out of character and became somebody that I was never created to be. And that was just the beginning.
After leaving the relationship, I felt completely empty. I had no friends, I had no identity apart from this guy and I certainly couldn’t talk to my parents about what had happened. How could they understand? It would only hurt them if they knew what I had done.
I can’t describe to you fully the internal pain that comes from suffering emotional abuse. I felt like a fully inflated balloon that was always unable to pop. I walked around emotionally taxed and wasted with no outlet. I needed a release. I needed to let some pressure out of my body, somehow, some way.
I began cutting myself.
The first time I did it I remember thinking, finally. It might sound strange but when I cut, I almost felt hopeful. I literally couldn’t feel any emotional pain. I was numb to the world around me. I walked around in a haze, angry at the world, angry at myself, angry at God. When I cut, I felt something. It felt like freedom. It showed me I was still alive.
It didn’t take long before the marks became noticeable to others at school. One thing led to another, and I was in an office with the school interventionist – The counselor that all the “crazy” kids went. He promised ‘confidentiality’ would be granted and he only wanted to help. I left school that day with every kid thinking I was suicidal. I got home from school that day to a mom who was sobbing and a dad who looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. There was no confidentiality. It was a ploy to see how “dangerous” I was to myself and others. I learned my lesson that day.
Deny till you die. Never open up, because the truth with only make your mom cry, your dad not understand and everyone think you’re going mentally insane.
I pushed everyone away and told them what they wanted to hear. Nobody actually understood. I just wanted people to leave me alone, so I gave them some half-hearted story of being an angsty teen that was just playing around. That sufficed people’s curiosity for the most part and got my parents off my back. Now I just had to continue playing the part, so nobody would ask questions.
What happened next arose because I was at a total loss of who I was and directionless to who I wanted to be. I had no worth, so why should there be an expectation for others to value me?
I got back into a relationship with this guy and it brought me static emotions. At this point, I was completely disconnected from my true self and only lived to serve. My identity was rooted in his truth about me. Words like crazy, angry, not enough, too much, were thrown around. I was never good enough in his eyes. He controlled everything, from what I wore, to my friends, to what I did or didn’t share with my family or others. On the outside we were perfect, but behind closed doors I was isolated and destroyed. I was rotten and dead inside. That was my reality. My “cutting” days became extremely private and I hid my hurt even from him. It was the one thing I had for myself. It was the one truth I had about my identity that actually made me feel.
After months of faking happiness, the destruction became too much and we broke up. This time things were different. I had people who unexpectedly met me in my brokenness. I had friends that were patient with me and tenderly loved me. God reached out during these months and whispered soft truths back into my life. I got a glimpse of my old self and previous freedom. I felt hope stir. I stopped cutting and rested in the glimmer of life’s potential.
But the enemy has a way of hurting you while you’re still down. Before you can even think about fully standing, he’s there to remind you of who you really are. He makes sure you know that he’s always going to be around. That it’s actually him dangling freedom in front of you, taunting you, showing you what you could have had if you wouldn’t have screwed things up.
I met up with this guy once more. He wanted to talk about “us”. Part of me went because I wanted affirmation that he needed me, wanted me, or that I was good enough. I wanted to throw in his face that I was moving on, had friends and was happy. Whatever the reason, I went and saw him.
That night he sexually abused me. The following day, out of anger, he physically abused me. For the next 10 years I emotionally abused myself for believing I had allowed this to happen.
It was my fault. My thoughts were flooded with “if only’s”. If only I would have been strong enough to say no. If only I wouldn’t have been afraid of him. If only I would have been firm in my identity and my worth and would have not needed to seek out his approval or affirmation for who God had already created me to be. I didn’t listen to the voice of my Father and I allowed the enemy to consume me and stake his claim in my life.
I lived out my early adult years clinging to false truth, false life and false love. I searched for answers and contentment in places where the enemy thrived. I pushed God aside, even when I heard Him clearly calling my name. He beckoned me sweetly, and would show up in random moments, proud of who I was despite the lies I continually fed myself. While I was searching for my identity, my God was fighting for me to take His.
If it wouldn’t have been for that hallway in Korea, and a friend that was willing to listen to “something weird that happened to me years ago”, I think this truth would have stayed buried.
After revealing these truths to myself two years ago, I started digging into the impact it’s actually had on my life and how far gone I was. I found connections between my abuse and the way I had treated other relationships: detachment, anger, jealousy, noncommittal, those were all things that I could almost wrap my head around and make sense of my feelings during those times. What I didn’t realize was the vastness of my anger and brokenness that the enemy had created in other areas of my life.
I have spent the last year in counseling uncovering my anger surrounding my abuse and seeking forgiveness. When I started digging up these suppressed memories, I felt so dirty. I felt so so angry. I wanted to run from my guilt and shame, and lash out at every single person who had ever hurt me. But God wouldn’t let me. He surrounded me with a community of people at my church who poured into me. He led me to some of the best women I’ve ever known, that have only spoken life to me. He gave me strength to confront my parents about my anger towards them for not protecting me, and my embarrassment and sadness for breaking their trust and disappointing them. He gave me grace – So much grace that I was able to not only begin talking about my abuse to my family and closest friends, but be able to accept and offer forgiveness.
Because of my abuse, I have left a wreckage of broken relationships in my wake. I’ve hurt people because of my suppressed anger and I’ve allowed people to use and hurt me due to my lack of accountability to myself and my values. I’ve been able to seek out those that I’ve wronged and ask for forgiveness. I’ve been able to offer forgiveness to other men that have wronged me, and to even forgive myself. What’s amazing about forgiveness is that it’s for you. Living in unforgiveness is like poisoning yourself every day with bitterness. It sits within you and sucks the air from your lungs until you’re consumed by it. God met me in those moments of asking for forgiveness and restored so many relationships. He has uprooted me from my darkness, broken my chains and given me new identity in Him. I’m no longer choking on my shame and bitterness toward the world.
I am free.
The lie from the enemy was that no amount of rain will ever wash you clean, but the enemy was wrong. The rain of the righteous has washed me white as snow and has restored me completely. I am no longer digging in the dirt, trying to bury lies, but I’m working in the garden with my Father, planting beautiful flowers in a place the enemy wanted me to believe was forgotten. God has never forgotten me. He has been with me through each moment, preparing the soil for me, being patient on my behalf and watering me with his mercy and grace. His love for me was relentless and fierce. He brought me to this place now, to share my story with everyone on the internet, because right now He’s preparing the way for somebody else to walk in freedom. Don’t you see?? We serve a God who is so loving! Only by His love and mercy have I been redeemed! If it were up to the world, to the enemy, I would still be tormented in my pain and living out my life for my own selfish desires. God has a better plan for my life. I am a testament to His goodness and faithfulness to us all. Not one person is too far gone for Jesus to restore. There is a better way. A way of goodness, and life and love. I am so thankful that my God is so good to me when I am so undeserving.
I never want to forget this story. I never want to doubt God’s love for me ever again. I decided to permanently place His love for me on my body, so I will always remember where my identity rests and who’s I am. I got a tattoo of wildflowers in Nepal. When I was alone in the dirt, God had already prepared the way for me to have life again, to be released from my chains, and to bring life to others. God is life! He is my life and I never want to forget his faithfulness to me.
I hope you are blessed with a heart like a wildflower.
Strong enough to rise again after being trampled upon,
Tough enough to weather the worst of the summer storms,
And able to grow and flourish even in the most broken of places.
Nikita Gill
Thank you all for reading my story. I hope you feel encouraged and alive.
I promise you, I am fully alive now, because I am alive in Christ!
