Thirty seconds of insane courage. Someone once told me that’s all it takes. Just thirty seconds. You can do anything for 30 seconds, right? Turns out it has taken me way longer than just thirty seconds to find the courage to write this blog, let alone post it.
Words are hard. Have you ever noticed that? Speaking them. Writing them. Sharing them. Reading them. Words hold such power. And although they are hard, I think they can be equally as healing. Two years ago, I drove home from, arguably, one of the worst nights of my life. I had been drugged and raped just hours before, and I found myself silently crying and swearing to myself that under no circumstance would I share what had just happened. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of h shaming myself into silence. Hours later I crawled out of the shower convinced that I had finally scrubbed the last bit of evidence of what had happened off my body. I threw away the clothes I had been wearing and somewhere in the process tossed away my voice as well. I put what had happened aside and for weeks went with my new normal. School was still great. My friends were still great. My job was still great. What had happened, well, that would somehow be buried beneath all the “great,” too, right? About a month and a half after that night I found myself in a hospital room begging a doctor to save the baby that I had just moments before found out I was carrying. I felt hopeless. Scared. Embarrassed. As I drove home later that night I found myself making another pact that this, too, would be a secret I kept. I let shame silence me once more.
Fast forward a year to when I was accepted onto the World Race. When picking my route, I went with the one that included various locations where human trafficking was a big problem. My heart ached for the men, women and children who experienced such atrocities, and I knew God was telling me to go. My mind began to swim with all that I hoped to do. All the ways that I just knew God was going to work through me on the trip. SURPRISE, it is me who has been worked on more than ever during my preparation to leave. I dreamed of the women I would talk to. I took comfort in knowing that I could share of the redemptive love of Christ, and how He could make every story, no matter what it entailed, somehow work for our good. I wanted to share this so badly, and I truly believed with my whole heart that this was truth for everyone I would meet. Everyone except me. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but somewhere along the way I realized the hypocrisy in my thoughts. How could I go and tell all these people that God can and will redeem every story when I didn’t believe that for myself? How was I to encourage others to share what they had experienced when I wasn’t willing to do it myself? This required me to stop and really think. I had to stop and think about why I wasn’t talking about it. I had to think about why I would let people see and know me, just not that part of me. And the answer to my question came in the form of shame and guilt. What would people say if they found out? Would they blame me? Would they somehow think that I had done something wrong? Would they see me with disgust instead of love and grace? And the answer to this was a hard pill to swallow: they might. They might blame me. They might think I did something wrong. They even might look at me in disgust, but at the end of the day, whose opinion am I worried about? I realized that I had been letting shame silence me for all this time, and I could not let that happen anymore. Because it is not my shame to carry. I did NOTHING wrong. And in that realization, I began to find the freedom that can only come from leaning in to God and trusting that His plan is so much greater than our own. Because of this realization, it has come an even greater passion of mine to serve others in listening to their stories. Taking the time to care. Encouraging others to not let shame silence them, but instead speak of the redemption that we can all find in Christ.
At training camp, I was blessed with the role as the Beauty for Ashes coordinator for our squad of 50. In this role, I will be able to listen, encourage others, and hopefully help to show the people I come across the freedom that comes in sharing their stories.
So, thank you for listening to mine. Thank you for allowing me to have that 30 seconds of insane courage. My sincere hope is that you also find your own.
XOXO,
Maddie
