If you can't say it .... Whisper it.. but please don't keep it in...

I remember the first time I wrote the words on paper about being sexually abused by a relative, I remember writing it down in such a way that when I looked upon the words I took a black sharpie and scribbled over and over and over it until the whole journal was a blackened mess.

I remember the first time I opened my mouth and shared the story of my life to a girl in college on the night before I was leaving University upon the demand of the Dean of Students.  Well, he gave me the option of a curfew or I could leave.  I choose to leave.

From the moment I told that girl to the next moment I would speak about anything in regards to the truth of my past would be almost two years.  Then I would be called a liar and it was too easy for my family to believe, as I had lied so very much about all things.

That was over two decades ago.

I remember the first time I stood at a conference and talked in front of hundreds of people and shared about how I had been healed from mental illness and the trauma of abuse.  Shared about a God who cares so very much for my soul.  Shared about the One who delivered the Gerasene Demoniac, who called forth to life a pile of dry bones, who healed sickness and disease and filled the hurting with hope.

It is interesting for me to think upon my story.  In a moment, in the most beautiful and powerful moments of my life, my Lord did heal my mind. In a moment, in the most miraculous and astonishing displays of love and power and redemption one whose mind had divided and divided and divided was made whole.  Having separated myself through disassociation, I had given way to schizophrenia and I lived lost within myself.  On one night, in one moment.. He healed my mind.

I will remember for all times what it felt like in that moment.  For the first moment in my life to feel different inside my head.  There aren't the words to fully express what that moment was like and how thoroughly it coursed through me and blazed new trails before me that I could walk upon.  It would be a few more years until the shame of the past would follow suit and I would openly talk about what it felt like to be mentally ill and then to be healed.

That moment was and still is forever upon me.  I am not the person I was before the moments that one night when Jesus took my  hand and liken unto the Gerasene Demoniac set my mind right.

That moment was true and fabulous and magnificent.  And now I walk  not as a pile of dry bones but being a member of an exceedingly great  army.  Ezekiel 37:10  and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

The thing about my story though is also liken to the Gerasene Demoniac.  While I follow Jesus I was left to then live my life out within community, within family.  Daily live my life out.  I was made whole and complete and then  He taught me how to live.  

Some days are better than others.  Some days are really hard.  Some days are full of grace and some days I cling to what the remembrances of grace were...  some days truth is easy to touch and sometimes lies scream a reality that is hard not to...  But always... always and forever I know so thoroughly my redeemer lives.  

He has given me a life no one thought I would live and upon the days where living that life is hard, the journey more steep than I think I can manage,  I remember the night the stars sung their songs and the one who knit me together in my mother's womb, reknit me together in places so vast and amazing.

I need to remember that One.  I need to remember Him daily.  Walk with Him daily.  Hold His hand, lean on His strength, listen to His heart beat daily.

I sit on  my bed with my favorite comforter over my knees and my lap top in front me.  I sit in a house that has babies asleep and teenagers watching television.  I sit as a mom, a wife, a daughter, a girl...  I sit and think of our life, our loves, our frailties, our joys and our sorrows.

I think upon you and your journey.  I think how if in any way my story can be a source of strength, encouragement, or comfort then I think that it must come forward in  words that need to be shared, and hearts that need to be heard.

You inspire me to share, to remember, to call forth into life... to continue to journey having been healed now forever being made more and more whole.

Bless you... bless you and may courage f ill your soul... may words find their way forth from your heart and your life into your  mouth and into expression.  May healing and love and joy and triumph be yours daily, majestically and simply but always daily.