This is my story. This is what my past is made of. Redemption wins, thank you Jesus for that truth. This was written earlier this year but I decided it needed to be shared here as well.
Hide it. Hide all the things that are difficult and not pretty about your life. People will judge you. God expects, no, rather demands perfection. Don’t let others know you have sin in your life that you struggle with regularly. Keep up the image of a happy and holy life or it will ruin the way you are able to witness to people. Know all the right things to say. These are all things that I was actually told. For years and years these things would ring through my mind when I was struggling with something. I was fearful to tell people when I was facing things and because of that I weathered many storms feeling completely alone.
It started when I was five years old and had a meeting with the pastor of the church we attended. I wanted to get baptized (because I really REALLY wanted to go swimming in the pool in the front of the church) and in order for that to happen we had to meet to talk about Jesus. I remember very clearly sitting in his office that afternoon playing with the Jonah puzzle while we had our little chat. The pastor asked me who Jesus was, why he came to Earth, what he did for me, and why I wanted to be baptized. I told him all the Sunday school answers he wanted to hear. (Then I asked if I could wear my flippers and goggles in the baptismal pool.) I understood that Jesus was God’s son and that he came to take away our sins, but I still wasn’t sure how that all worked. I didn’t yet understand the concept of grace, which is why what the pastor told me next changed my outlook on life. He looked at me and told me that if I wanted Jesus to love and forgive me I had to be good. I’m sure what he intended for me to get from that statement was different than what I heard. In my mind I heard if you aren’t good enough Jesus won’t love you anymore. That was such a heavy burden placed on little shoulders.
For years after that I tried to be perfect to earn God’s love. I tried to hide it when things weren’t perfect. When things started getting tough at home and the abuse began I didn’t tell a soul for fear of people knowing that my life wasn’t good. I also thought that if people knew that they would blame me, because I felt like it was my own fault, most of the time. Many a night ended in me going for a run crying out to God begging for things to be different, for things to be good, so that it would be easier for me to be viewed as good. Things didn’t get better or easier for a long time. They actually got a lot worse. And I felt utterly, despairingly alone. I endured physical, mental, and verbal abuse. Constantly being told in various ways that I wasn’t skinny enough, smart enough, pretty enough, athletic enough, talented enough, or good enough at anything. I’ve always been skinny, I am knowledgeable about many things, I am pretty, I am a swimmer and enjoy playing sports, I play guitar and can sing well. I am good at many things but when the people who you’re supposed to be able to trust the most tell you that you’re not, you start to believe them.
Thankfully, I really truly became a Christian when I was 14. God started bringing people into my life who explained grace and showed it to me regularly. Around that age is when things within my family started to go even more downhill. But when I opened up to the few people that I trusted about it I was hushed with empty sayings meant to comfort me but keep me quiet about it all. I was told that I was supposed to just deal with it by keeping it to myself and that I was supposed to just let it continue because I was “just a child.” Hide it. Be ashamed of it. That was the message I was getting. I hated it, feeling rejected and like no one knew the real me, the girl whose life was totally different from what everyone else saw.
I left home when I was 17. It wasn’t by choice, and it was hard. Looking back on it now though, it was the best thing for me. I’m so thankful for the people God brought into my life to be family for me and who helped me through. I’ve come to see now that keeping silent about things then didn’t do me any good. It made the issues I was facing so much harder because I thought I was alone, that I was the only one who had to deal with things like that. I wish I had someone who had faced similar things and was a few years down the road from where I was step up and tell me that you’ll get through, to tell me to reach out and talk about it all, not to stay quiet and bottle it up. I’ve fought with myself so much over writing and posting this where others can see, but as I’ve prayed about it, I know that there will be girls who read this and maybe will be willing to reach out to me. I pray that God will use me to help others facing the things I did and that I would be able to point them to Jesus and love them well through it. I read where God says, “I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born,” and am comforted that there is a reason that my life has had pain. I know that Jesus will use it for his glory and pray that my story helps to heal the wounds of others.
Today as I write, I sit in a warm home with people who love me, one of my best friends lounging on my bed just hanging out with me while I write. I see all around me the blessings and favor bestowed on me by the GRACE of God. It has been a long and hard road to be able to see and feel valuable and worthy of things. So I’m stopping the masquerade. I’m letting down the walls that I’ve built up so high in an attempt to protect myself. I will no longer keep the not pretty things about my life hush hush. Not to say I’m going to go shouting it all from the rooftops, but I won’t pretend it didn’t happen any longer. No more hiding.
I’ll leave you with a portion from the book I’ve been reading and re-reading lately in my quiet time entitled Confessions of a Boy Crazy Girl. Jesus has been using this book to remind me of my relationship with him that is more satisfying than any others.
“I will live like I am deeply loved this year. As I write this resolution, my head nods yes and my heart screams no. Connect my head and my heart, God who is love. You outdid Yourself the day You sent Your only Son into this world so that I might have life through Him. And all this evidence of love mounted up when I didn’t even care for You in the first place. Surely You, the God with scars, won’t be surprised when I tell you that life’s not fair, and people wound, and I often feel more afraid than deeply loved. You whisper that perfect love casts out fear. And isn’t that what Your love is? Perfect? Solid as the thickest, deepest, most immense iceberg off the coast of Antarctica? And didn’t I read that usually only one-ninth of an iceberg is visible above water? So it must be that I have seen only the tip – the smallest tip – of the iceberg of Your love. Root and ground me in this unbelievable love of Jesus so I can begin to understand how wide and deep and high and long it is.”
