Hi everyone! Stef here, with only 40 days until I meet my new roomies for 3 months.
Just a quick little warning, I have a feeling you’re going to get a little bit of everything in this blog. I also have no idea what the title will be. Here I go!
To begin, I am one of the many flawed individuals living on this planet.
Over the past couple of years, when I was probably 14-18 years old, my life was very quiet. By that I mean I didn’t do many things to get in trouble; my grades were decent, I enjoyed going to church and my relationship with God resided over other normal high school “activities.” I didn’t enjoy partying or drinking and I had a good friend group.
I was head over heels in love with being so personal with Christ. He was my rock and on most days I strived to live out my very best version of the Christian life I wanted to live.
I thought my testimony had already been made, my sister and I came from a broken “home” of substance abusers and alcoholics and we were placed into our forever family when I was just 11 years old. Instead of being separated in foster care, we were lucky enough to be placed somewhere I was sort of familiar with. After a phone call and arrangements were made, my aunt and uncle so graciously took in my younger sister and I. Ever since then, they have been the ones who have shown me the love of a family I had dreamed of.
I resumed the middle of my 6th grade year in a new county, again (7 hours away from the place I was taken out of) and the years of counseling, heartbreak, tears, and feelings of rejection had just begun. They were hard is the easiest way I could say it. But things got better.
I’m not going to get into the depths of it all because most of you were there through it. Heartbreak and the pains of rejection are a hard thing to overcome, but we did it.
Fast forward back to how I said my life was pretty “quiet” from the ages of 14-18. By that I mean when I was 14 years old was probably around the time where drama with my biological family had slowed down. It was easy to forget about and move forward when it’s not being brought up every 5 seconds. So we tried our best to.
In this part of my testimony I was the victim, I have learned over the years that the things that happened during my childhood weren’t my fault.
Everything changed the summer after my senior year of high school. I began hiding a relationship from my parents, one they did not approve of because of how it ended the first time. I moved out into an apartment that the enemy has used to make me feel badly towards myself, just driving past it makes me sick to my stomach. I hid more things from my family. I pushed them away when they told me things I didn’t want to hear. My family. The family that has done everything for me and wants nothing but to help me be successful and most importantly, happy. I was in an unhealthy relationship that consumed my entire life and I gave up hopes and dreams I had for so long just to have the smallest piece of it still intact. I regret all of these things, the hurt I caused my family and the relationships I ruined along the way. Especially the most important, my relationship with our Heavenly Father who was (and still is) a father to me in the times I needed one the most, before my uncle had the chance to step up and be the Earthly father I so desired.
Some things stick with you forever, even after all the abuse I went through as a child I find myself forgetting or even remembering (if I had previously forgotten) details of traumatic events. However, I will never forget the look of heartbreak in my dad’s eyes when all of the secrets I was hiding came to the surface. I broke the heart of the man I cherish the most in this world, who not only believes I can do anything I set my mind to but who has always held me to high standards because he swears He has bigger plans for me. Geesh I’m crying just writing this.
My point is, in this part of my testimony I wasn’t the victim at all. I brought all of those things onto myself and had no one else to blame.
Which is a beautiful thing. “What?????” – Let me explain.
For so long I have been looking at this year in my life as something horrible, telling myself “I will never be able to come back from this.” I WAS SO WRONG!! I won’t be able to return things to la la land where everything is great because I broke boundaries that I will regret for the rest of my life but I will become stronger than that year. I am better than the things I have to overcome. I have an amazing support system and a clear path ahead of me. A path that I am determined to walk.
This is just another beautiful side of my testimony, a side that I caused but a side that I will be able to share with other people who have felt the same as I did. I will be able to overcome this. Whatever it is that you’re struggling with, you’ll be able to overcome it too.
I wanted to share something before I ended this tremendously long blog.
I recently started to reread the book Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst and found some things I had actually highlighted in her chapter “Tearing Out the Old” but totally forgotten about. Things that hit me much harder this time around because I actually needed to hear them.
These are her own experiences, but it’s crazy how much they feel like my own.
She begins her chapter with:
“After my dad left, I tried to prop up what was left of me so I wouldn’t collapse into the broken place inside. Good grades. Achievements and accolades. Fun friends and good times. Boys who made me feel special. I tried to steady myself with anything that helped me feel better.”
Bam. Felt that. Did I overlook it when I first read it a couple years back? Yes.
She goes on to use a metaphor of how she tried getting around fixing a broken board in her house, if she were to not act on it then the second floor of her home would fall through and more damage would be done. She relates those broken boards in her home to feelings.
“I couldn’t keep my old broken beliefs, nail a little Jesus truth to the side, and expect stability.”
She found herself tying her identity in circumstances (which she acknowledges are completely unpredictable and ever-changing).
Bam. Felt that one too.
“The exhausting manipulation and control it takes to protect an identity based on circumstances will crush our hearts and hide the best of who we are behind a wall of insecurity.”
A light turned on in my brain when I read that. I have been living the majority of my life clinging onto changing circumstances. When I was in a relationship I would consume myself in it, always be worried that the other person is unhappy and do anything to tip toe around the actual problem. My mood would fluctuate with the good/bad events that took place day to day.
I was a temporary girlfriend. A temporary friend. A temporary employee. A temporary student.
But I will always be a daughter of the King.
Sincerely,
Stef
