I’ve been thinking about this past quarantine/ongoing pandemic. There’s been a lot of pain and suffering. There’s also been a lot of healing that I didn’t expect to happen. I think God has been so gracious in bringing to light the monsters under my bed: body issue problems, problematic tendencies, poor coping mechanisms, and the underlying wounds where my past has bled into my present. It’s when I realize that I have a hand in ending my own misery with the strength of Jesus that I decided that this would be a time for growth.
I'm not sure how honest I want to be about some things, and I’m giving myself the space to share as much as I want with no obligations to anyone else. Most recently, I’ve been dealing with something from my past that really bothered me. I never told anyone about it, and I think the one person I told brushed it off completely. It wasn’t like a recurring, haunting presence in my life. It was like a shirt with a small tear in the middle. You don’t throw it away because well the hole is so small anyways, but whenever you wear it, you notice and remember.
I always thought to myself how I would ever tell people. What would their reaction be? What would they say? How would they respond? I think I told myself that only when they could validate my pain then my experience was real. The reality of others was the key for me to allow myself to feel hurt. Otherwise, I was being dumb, overdramatic, and misunderstanding the situation. It really bothered me to have flashes of the past like that.
Something really helpful someone told me once was: Grace, you learn well from other people’s experiences. I never looked at it like that, but it was true. I was able to see stories and take lessons into my own life. It happened as I was reading the book, Open Book by Jessica Simpson, who I had no clue about at the time. I just heard it was a good book, and I was amazed 1) by her ever present faith in God’s guidance and 2) the experience she had in telling her family about something that hurt her. I was floored by #2 because it made me confront something awful inside me. It wasn’t the fear that my family or friends would invalidate my experiences. It was that even if they gave me everything: all the support, love, and validation and it still wouldn’t be enough. I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
So, that meant that this cure I was chasing wasn’t even real.
Luckily, one of my friends who I briefly shared this with, told me something that brought me so much peace and clarity. God’s validation was enough. God knew what happened. God was part of that plan. God knew their intentions. I didn’t need to know everything. It was resting in God’s hands and heart, and the burden wasn’t mine to bear. No, He didn’t inflict the suffering or choices made. He did take that awfulness and made it something so much more beautiful in me. I was able to give myself that peace through that. I also believe that I am so much more resilient because I realized that my life doesn't need to go onto the ‘X Factor’ where I’m only allowed to feel things based on everyone’s opinion.
I belong to God.
I’m not saying don’t share things because there is so much joy, blessing, and healing when things are brought to the light within the community. Be encouraged to reach out to someone who loves you and will listen to you. Be blessed by their prayers. Let them weep with you. Let your pain be shared.
I think what I meant is for me that I needed to acknowledge that others would not give me what I was looking for even at their most loving and best selves. What I was looking for truly could only be given by God. One day, I might share the full story with some people close to me, but I have a different kind of peace when the memory does flash in my head. I can’t describe the difference, but it just feels lighter on me. It doesn’t lead me into a spiral of unhelpful thoughts. It’s peaceful. Yeah, it’s just more peace.
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