The trauma of abuse is cruel. Let's be honest. Images of despair and hopelessness, heart break and torment can flood my being. And because each human being's journey is different I will speak for myself and hope that it speaks your language as well.
Before I go forward I must state
this... in no way shape or form would I ever diminish anyone else's
journey or experience. Each path is unique. Each one of us as
individual as our finger prints. I will however share the things
that I know have made me the most well and whole. Some might be
offensive. Especially if you have gotten identity in victim or
survivor status. Again in no way shape or form do I mean to offend.
Travel your path. I have traveled mine. The elements of my healing
and the needs of my heart have found solace and strength in places
and truths that have crossed my path. Glean from them what you can,
remembering this at all times, there is now no condemnation for those
that are in Christ. Your greatest calling in life is to stand boldly
and confidently before the throne of grace, as a son, as a daughter.
You can do so when your heart doesn't condemn you. Where it does and
when it does that is just an opportunity for you to discover where it
is that you need more grace.
I have made those discovers. I have
submitted my heart to the need for perfected love to come and cast
fear away. I have walked the roads that seemed so steep and so hard
that to navigate them seemed too crazy to even attempt. Oh wait I
was even told so... I was told that to think that the healing I now
walk in was crazy, by “professionals.”
Those I loved would be told that maybe
in 2-5 years I could be more functional but they weren't saying there
was hope for anything more. That death sentence wasn't good enough
for me. It wasn't what I wanted my life to be, it wasn't the life I
wanted to live, it wasn't the journey I wanted to walk. Whether it
would take a life time or whether it would take a moment I embarked
upon a path without a clear promise but with a very clear plea.
“Father make me well.” I wanted to be well, and I was willing to
walk wherever and however to get there. There were days that were
beyond difficult, hey, there still are.... But I walk. I've walked
and I walk. (More on that specific story later.)
The journey that has made me whole has
been rooted and grounded in spirit and in truth and in love. Two of
the verses I rest my head upon and my whole life stands on are from
John 8, “If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples
of mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you
free.” That verse coupled with 2 Corinthians 3:17, I love the
Amplified version of this verse. “Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (Emancipation from
bondage, freedom.)”
There was a season where I felt
overwhelmed by my past.
Where I thought I needed a “special
grace,” to be made whole.
I thought that it would take more from
God to heal me.
In those thoughts I had stepped into
pride.
The cross of Christ stands for healing
and redemption! Period! So when my dear friend, Leigha, referring to
a teaching our mutual friend does concerning a Styrofoam cup, ( Our
friend will hold up a Styrofoam cup and say that our hearts are
liken unto a Styrofoam cup, they were made to contain and hold
something... for our hearts that something is the Love of God. We
were created to be made full of the amazing love of God for us. But
life and circumstances come and poke holes in “our cup,” and
that which was supposed to be contained and that which was supposed
to be full now isn't.) spoke the words she would speak my heart would
be set free in the most majestic ways.
The lies of the enemy for need of
special grace were showed up for what they were. Now where sin
abounds grace abounds all the more, and those that have been forgiven
much understand to the depths that they needed grace and healing and
forgiveness. But it isn't some hoop that has to be jumped through or
something that needs to be attained to.... it is a free gift. And it
flows and flows and flows as a river of grace and love and freedom.
So what did she say? The most
beautiful thing anyone ever told me as one who walked through severe
trauma and abuse and did not want to identify my life with it, or the
identity of having survived it was this, she looked at me and said...
“Mims, we all have holes.. what causes them in each of us is
different.” We all have holes. Some might be bigger. Some might
be smaller. Some might be more holes than cup, but that which would
heal one hole will heal all holes. Christ. The cross. Redemption.
It is the
truth of Isaiah: For
[the Servant of God] grew up before Him like a tender plant, and like
a root out of dry ground; He has no form or comeliness [royal, kingly
pomp], that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should
desire Him.
He
was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man
of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with
grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide
their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His
worth or have any esteem for Him.
Surely
He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and
carried our sorrows andpains [of punishment], yet we
[ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God
[as if with leprosy].
But
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our
guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to
obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him,
and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made
whole.
It is the truth of Calvary. It was the
truth that made the Gerasene Demoniac sit up clothed and in whole in
his mind.
I know the agony of feeling like your
mind has a tourniquet upon it and there is a handle that life, that
self, that others, that the demoniac just has to turn and it squeezes
and hurts all the more. I know in whom I have believed and I stand
convinced... (1 Timonthy 1:12) He is capable. Where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is freedom. He is capable. He who set the
Gerasene Demoniac into his right mind, clothed and whole, is the same
that He was yesterday, today and forever more.
I only know to lean. And when in life
it gets hard and the path in the wilderness seems like it will never
end, I have learned to lean all the more. For that is the promise of
scripture. I will emerge. I will emerge leaning. But I will emerge.
So will you.
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