Things to write about:
- Character
- God’s calling (gender specific)
- Past abuse of body, heart, and soul
- Being so abundantly blessed by the long overdue conversation with Mollie
- Redemption: what it means, what it involves, how future redeemed relationships will look
- Guarding my heart, not becoming attached to a brother as anything more ahead of what is actually happening in the situation
- How to relate to Christian brothers and unsaved men
- Waiting on God’s will, dying to my own will
- Being transformed from a Proverbs 7 woman who lures to a woman who waits to be pursued
- Things with mom: difference of personalities and view of the world, how I treat her verses how I treat other people when she is the one who provides the most for me, learning to love even though we never see eye to eye and sometimes liking is difficult
I find myself wishing that somehow my current self could travel back in time and have a self-to-self conversation with the me of about 15. That’s pretty much when I started coming into my own and making more significant decisions than I probably had ever made before. The timing was unfortunate since at that time my world was shaken with the loss of Craig and most of the significant decisions I was making dove into the world of withdrawal, secrecy, destruction, and abandonment. I wanted to die only because I had no clue how to cope with life and the chaos around me but I could never lose the spark of hope that somehow stayed lit within me enough to actually do it. Plus, since part of the chaos included the disastrous relationship with my mother and the many times that she threatened suicide, I knew I could never be selfish enough to lay the burden of burying their second child on either of my parents. I recall one particularly terrifying car trip where my mother was talking about how she felt like she had nothing left to live for and in her anger and misery she nearly drove us both into a concrete wall. I can’t understand her pain because I know that hers was greater than mine and much different, but I remember that moment and how I felt. That moment wasn’t the beginning of the cycle of self-destruction, but it was very much so the fuel needed to continue on and drastically escalate the intensity of how far I would dig myself down. It’s a catch 22: my mom apologized for that dangerous outburst the following day by buying me a ceramic dragon that I liked (because materialism is definitely the way to address deep-rooted conflict) and writing a note about me being the only reason she’s still here and that she would never do something like that with me in the car. So great, not only was the moment completely warped since my misery stricken mother was going to take down the only thing that she claimed was worth living for in her own grief, but there is also the weight of being told that you’re the only reason your own mother sees for not ending her own life. But all in all, it’s okay because now she realizes that she wouldn’t ever do anything to end her own life while I’m with her. Great. So what does a 15 year old do after losing her brother and basically her own mother? Well what I did was build a cocoon of pain within myself. I harbored all the hurt inside and kept it as my own. Somehow it’s okay to hurt if you’re causing it yourself, so I used my suffering as its own antidote. The aftereffects of this are still apparent today because I still struggle with internalizing pain and emotions and I’ve actually grown to somewhat relish physical pain. I’ve developed a decent pain tolerance so if ever I’m tortured, I’ll have a tool to my advantage, but mostly this development is another thing to add to the “Why Melinda Is Messed Up List.” I went from the extreme control over food that led to unnecessary weight loss while my brother was struggling with drug addiction to binging on food as a maladaptive coping mechanism. While I was binging I was causing my own pain, filling the emptiness of Craig’s loss with the fullness of a bloated stomach, and lavishing in the misery and guilt that followed a binge. Then I started dating, giving everything up so that I could further the cause of making myself a shell. I don’t want to get too graphic because I don’t know who may end up stumbling upon this and I want to protect people, but I’m also not going to leave out what are intrinsic details.
One of the many realizations of this Christmas break was that I’ve never really had a home. I’ve pretty much bounced between shelters and more than ever now as I grow spiritually, I’m realizing how empty my should-be home is. In the very much so persistent group get-togethers with friends over the past month, I’ve been blessed with what a home would feel like to at least some degree. Ironically, this took place entirely (with the exception of one night) outside of my own home. Thankfully this wasn’t a perfect sense of home, though. Even in feeling the joy of companionship with friends, I still felt the pang of being separated from the Lord in my heart. He drew me to Him throughout the insanity of late-night (early/late morning) games, movies, road trips or other exploits we partook of over break. I needed to step away from comfort from friendship and worship and talk with the God of true comfort and perfect love. I don’t know what His will for me is, but I know whatever situation He puts me in, whether He draws me to somewhere close to serve Him or calls me to some far-off place, whether I stay single or whether He has a husband and a family in store, whether the road will be marked with suffering or with ease, the most important thing is to chase after Him and praise Him for what He has given (everything). This is advantageous for immediate application since I’ve just spoken of how my home now isn’t really a home.
My heart is aching. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I’ve got so many open sores in my heart and I know that the Lord is healing them but I’m not sure that the scars will ever quite go away. That’s probably a good thing though, it will help remind me of what the Lord has delivered me from and continually bring me back to a place of humility and thanksgiving when I on my own would be full of pride and ungratefulness.
I have spat in the face of the One who loved me so much that He stretched His arms over the cross for me and took all of the blame that I deserved. I forfeited my heart and my body over to men. I’ve used sex as a numbing agent, as a tool to mar myself much as I would have with a blade to flesh. I’ve also used it when I fashioned myself “in love” and decided that because the relationship made me feel good more than I was feeling terrible, it was a good thing, that I could love, and that because this was a good love and not a defacing one, this time the sex would be redeemed. What are all these lies?? How on earth did I continue to listen to them for so long? For four years I wandered around ignoring the open arms of the Lord beckoning me towards Him. I chose other means to satisfy my wicked heart; abusive, selfish, depraved methods of continuing hiding the greatest need of them all: to have a committed relationship with God through His Son, my only Savior, Jesus Christ.
What are the repercussions of my past sins that continue to lay on my heart? Well first off, I am free from the condemnation that should follow my debauchery because when Jesus died on the cross, He bore the weight of ALL sin. So just as much as God forgives me for my daily faithlessness, my lack of love towards His people, for my pride and my selfishness, He has forgiven me for my literal adultery. I struggle in general with accepting His grace, either out of pride (I feel like I need to earn it) or in this case, because I’m so greatly tormented by the stain of sin that I truly don’t know how to release myself from it. I know that God is working at that in me through the Holy Spirit and eventually I will truly be free from all remnants of the sin as I am already free from condemnation.
I’m working on having less concern for what my body looks like and feeling down about how I look. Instead of worrying over physical beauty, my heart yearns to glorify God with how I rule over my body and my appearance. I want to die to the worries about what other people think about my appearance and die to abusing food to abuse myself. I know that I am a beautiful creation outside of any physical consideration. In Proverbs 31, the picture of a Godly woman doesn’t describe her physical appearance whatsoever, but rather detracts her beauty from her character and how she serves the Lord and those around her. I know that seeking to glorify God in my daily habits will be more effective in working out body and eating issues (and pretty much all issues) way more than trying to focus on the issues themselves. When I try to make myself feel better via the self-esteem route or simply try to alter how I eat, it works for a short time but then ultimately fails. This goes back to the heart verses fruit approach to change. If I want any change to happen, I cannot manipulate the fruit to get the results that I want. The fruit is growing off of the tree of my heart and if my heart continues to be misguided, no matter how much I try to produce healthy, good fruit, I will continue to yield rotten fruit. However, if the goal is to glorify God, to point to the cross in my identity rather than my own feelings of esteem, good fruit will begin to birth from within. God is so good.
No comments:
Post a Comment