Skeletons.
Skeletons in the closet.
This is what we are most afraid of showing the world. Our true selves, our biggest mistakes, our hardest battles. We live each day under the Social Media Microscope of comparison and expectation.
Shame. Darkness. This is what most Christian men and women are living in. Shame, from their worst mistakes, from a sequence of really horrible decisions, from their hardest ongoing battle. Darkness, because if anyone EVER knew… if anyone EVER found out, they fear that people would never look at them the same again and that they would never be accepted in the church.
That is the biggest lie that the enemy tells American Christians EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
That is the biggest lie the enemy told me EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
The enemy wants us to live in darkness and carry our shame in secret, but God, our loving Heavenly Father, wants us to walk in the light, waving a flag of victory over the kingdom of darkness.
I grew up in the church. I went to church every Sunday. I sang in cantatas and went to youth events. I went through confirmation and made the decision to join the church. But did I really?
In 6th grade my grandfather killed himself. His death affected me in ways I wouldn’t understand until years later. I went through my 6th grade year the best I could. Since I was smart enough I could float my way through it without anyone really noticing anything was wrong.
I began 7th grade determined that it was going to be better than the last. At the time, I had reached my Junior Black Belt in Taekwondo and decided to close that chapter and start a new chapter. I began riding horses. During the time I started this new hobby I began to make new friends as well.
I didn’t really want to be home so I would spend all of my time down at the barn working, riding, and training. I loved it! I remember the first time I ever cantered a horse it was the most joy and freedom I had felt in a long time. I loved my time at the barn so much that I began to ride the bus straight from school to the barn, which introduced, again, a new set of friends into my life.
The more and more I hung out with my new friends, the less and less I went to church with my old friends. I would spend weekends at friend’s houses and before I knew it their families and their families’ lifestyles became my new normal.
No longer was I surrounded by a Christian mother and a Christian father who taught me right from wrong and lived a lifestyle honoring to God. Instead I was surrounded by parents and aunts and uncles that would drink alcohol, do drugs, smoke cigarettes and allow their children do the same. I remember how foreign it felt at first, but being with my friends meant I wasn’t sitting alone at home wrapped up in my own thoughts and feelings, so I stayed.
I always said no when they offered me anything, because what would people think if they ever found out? After spending so much time flying under everyone’s radar I realized that they never would. This lead to years of doing things “under the radar.” I was the good girl. The straight A student. Key Club Leutinent Governor, FFA Secretary, Lifeguard, Sonic Carhop, friend, sister, daughter. I was everything that people needed me to be and I did it with a smile on my face and a kick in my step.
I found myself so wrapped up in what people needed and striving to be person they knew I could be that I cherished the time around the friends who didn’t expect anything from me. Who just wanted to chill with me, drink a beer with me, smoke weed with me. They just wanted me to chill and I just wanted to be numb.
This balance worked for a long time, until 10th grade when a friend from school invited me to her Pentecostal Church. It was there that I met a God unlike anything I had ever heard about in my Methodist church. It was there I met a God that would pursue me to the ends of the earth. It was there that I had a Holy Spirit encounter unlike any other. It was there that I CHOSE to give my life to Christ. It was there that I committed to getting help for my eating disorder. It was there that I decided to stop doing drugs because they were wrong. It was there that I decided to stop numbing my pain with alcohol. It was in that Pentecostal Church that I saw the Truth for the first time in a long time. I truly believe that Truth saved my life.
I began to live my life for Christ and live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I began to read my bible and surround myself with friends who lived life reflective of Jesus. I sought help for my eating disorder and brought it into the light with my family. I no longer did any drugs and my drinking slowed down significantly. I loved my new friends. I loved the new life Jesus gave me!
Life happens. Life tests your faith. Following Jesus is a choice. As a newly saved Christian I didn’t always make the right one. That’s why God gives us grace.
Fast forward to 2007, the summer after my senior year. I decided to throw a party to celebrate our recent graduation. My parents were out of town, so like any irresponsible, short-sighted 17 year old, what could go wrong?
Everyone came. Everyone was having a great time. We played drinking games until early in the morning. We reminisced on all the memories throughout our high school journey. When you look at the pictures you see wide smiles on the faces of recently graduated high schoolers surrounded by their closest friends.
What you don’t see is the 17 year old girl who was raped that night.
Nobody did.
For years, it was my deepest, darkest secret. It became the heaviest burden I would ever carry.
The enemy convinced me that because I chose to drink I deserved what happened to me. I tried sharing what had happened to me once and it was turned into a joke. In that moment I vowed never to share it again. I chose to drink and rape was my consequence.
My relationship with the Lord got pretty distant during that time. My relationship with a lot of people in my life got distant, especially my family. I began dating an old boyfriend, trusting he would never hurt me the way I had been hurt. This is when my codependency with men began.
On the surface I refused to show anyone that anything was wrong. I began turning to alcohol again as a source of numbness. I began partying and became this other version of “Kayce” that my friends became all too familiar with. Alcohol couldn’t take anything else from me so I might as well use it for what it was good for, having fun and being numb!
I left for college a different person than the girl who walked across the stage 3 short months before. East Carolina was the farthest distance I could get away from Davidson County and I couldn’t wait to leave.
For years, I lead what most would call a good life. I made good grades, graduated with honors, got a good job, bought a house. All the things the American Dream says you are supposed to do, but it was never enough.
I battled on and off with my eating disorder through this time. I exercised rigorously never feeling that it was enough. I consumed copious amounts of alcohol and over the course of a night out turned into a completely other human being. I got into numerous co-dependent, ridiculously unhealthy relationships convincing myself each time that what I was going through was nothing compared to the last, so I should stay. It’s what I deserved. I even tried to control my life through sex at one point. That’s when I knew something was really off in my life. Nothing I did could numb the emptiness I felt inside.
And then in 2013 I was invited on a mission trip to Honduras.
I went on a trip with 26 strangers to Central America and I truly believed I finally slowed down long enough for God to reach me. God got to me alright. In an orphanage in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, God reached me through the story of a 12 year old girl who found me and cornered me with a translator one afternoon. She told me things she had never told anyone before. She told me she didn’t know why she was telling me this, but I knew why. God was breaking my heart for her, just like his heart broke for the things that had happened to me.
I came home from that trip a different person. I had a heart for orphans and missions. During my time in Honduras I got a tiny glimpse of God’s heart and I wanted more. I wanted more of Him. I wanted more of the Holy Spirit. I wanted the healing promised throughout the Bible.
I went to counseling. My drinking slowed down again. I was completely delivered from my eating disorder. Things were going great!!!
I had a great life! I had great friends! I got to stand beside countless friends as they married the loves of their life. I held babies as they entered the world. I was the best insurance agent I could possibly be. Once again, I found myself being everything to everyone except for Jesus and my family.
What was I running from?
Freedom, apparently!
The enemies lies flooded my mind everyday. In 2016, the Lord called me to apply for The World Race. So I did, but let’s be honest, I didn’t expect to actually go. How could I? I had too much to do at home to travel the world.
My friends saw right through this and told me time and time again they thought I needed to go. That Jesus had something for me out here. After receiving a dream from the Lord (the kind of dream you don’t ignore), I said yes to The World Race.
Training Camp rocked my world! Literally! Flipped it upside down. I had a lot of undealt with crap. What had I gotten myself into?
At this point in time, my drinking had slowed down significantly. Unfortunately, when I did drink I would go all out, never fully understanding why. Showing my butt (that’s a nice way of putting it) every so often. By the time I left the States I was convinced I had a drinking problem. I was convinced I was an alcoholic. I was covered in so much shame I didn’t even know how any of these 46 people I would be living in community with would ever love me once they knew the skeletons in my closet. You know what though? They did!
I gave up alcohol this year in hopes of figuring out all my “stuff.” What I didn’t realize was that alcohol wasn’t the problem. Alcohol was just the counterfeit solution to my problems. What I didn’t realize was that I was not only carrying my own guilt and shame, I was taking on the problems of those around me. Over the years of keeping my trauma in the dark I became a people pleaser. I became a fixer. I would try and fix people and carry burdens for others that only Jesus is meant to carry.
You see, I didn’t have a drinking problem, I had a Jesus problem. The enemy held me in bondage for years because of the decisions I made and the consequences that resulted from them. Jesus was right there all along, waiting and wanting to set me free, but true freedom can not come from following anything else other than following Jesus and I wasn’t following Jesus.
No matter how hard I tried I wasn’t TRULY following Him.
For years I followed the enemy’s manipulation of the Lords truth. I grew up planted in the church and in the truth. Through the years I made a sequence of bad decisions. I kept my ongoing battles a secret for years at a time. I unintentionally opened a door (multiple doors for that matter) for the enemy to twist and manipulate the truth that God intended for good.
The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. The enemy hates my faith, he hates your faith. The enemy hates my relationship with Jesus, he hates your relationship with Jesus. He uses lures of the world to pull us away from our relationship with The Father. His secret weapon; a counterfeit abundant life.
The only abundant life can come from living a life for Christ and following the truth He gives us. I have struggled for months wondering what my life will look like when I get home. Will my friends love this “new” me? Will people still want to hang out with me if I chose to never drink alcohol ever again in my life?
For years I have loved to drink more than I have loved serving Jesus. I thought I could have both, little did I know that was a lie straight from the mouth of the enemy. You can choose to serve alcohol. You can choose to serve God. But you can’t serve both.
This year I have laughed harder and loved deeper than ever before without the scars of shame and guilt caused by consuming copious amounts of alcohol.
This year I haven’t been consumed with debilitating anxiety and sickness. Instead I have been consumed with overwhelming joy and peace. The things I did last night are things I WANT to do again.
I don’t need alcohol to numb my pain. I don’t need alcohol to be me. I don’t need alcohol to have fun. I don’t need alcohol for people to like me and hang out with me.
A lot of times we say “change your playmates and your playground.” I don’t think this is entirely true. I can change my “playmates” and my “playground” all day long, but it wasn’t until I changed who I was following that my life actually began to change.
The first thing I found when I radically said yes to following Jesus was forgiveness. I would like to say this came easy for me, but the truth is he forgave me long before I ever forgave myself. I couldn’t outrun God’s grace no matter how hard I tried and neither can you!
A year ago I stopped running and said yes to what Jesus had for me, The World Race.
Months after saying yes to The World Race I said yes time and time again. I said yes to going through an inner healing. I said yes to processing. I said yes to sharing the things God revealed to me with my family. I said yes to restoring broken relationships. I said yes to walking in freedom. I said yes to walking in victory and along the way I said yes to forgiveness.
The enemy has sought to steal, kill, and destroy my life time and time again. I’m not giving him that power over me anymore. My prayer is that you won’t either!
In order to do that we must stop opening doors that let the enemy walk right into our lives and take a stronghold in it.
In what ways has the enemy taken control over your life?
Jealousy?
Envy?
Lust?
Pride?
Sex?
Drugs?
Alcohol?
Pornography?
Masturbation?
Adultery?
Anorexia?
Bulimia?
Self Condemnation?
Religious Rituals?
Money?
Vanity?
Materialism?
Sometimes the things we pursue freedom in make us a slave to sin. Jesus calls us out of captivity. He calls us to a life of freedom and abundant living. I had to stop giving the enemy dominion over my life and choose to give it back to Jesus.
It’s all about choice.
I chose Jesus over the partying, what do you need to chose Jesus over?
If any part of my testimony resonates with you, if you feel like you are living in shame and darkness, if any of the things listed above have control over your decisions or everyday life, I want you to know that Jesus wants you to be free and I am here for you.
I am where I am because someone reached out their hand and said, “I think God wants to heal something in your past that is holding you captive.”
… and you know what? I think God wants to heal something in you! He wants to heal things in all of us. Time and time again, bandaging every wound and forgiving every mistake.
If you want to be free there is a way!
Love,
K
