On risk and safety and things that cannot be promised

     Not too long ago, I found myself in a place where I knew the next step on this journey.  I knew what I needed to be willing to do, but I wasn't sure if I was, in fact, willing.  All I saw was massive amounts of risk.  I saw every possible way, whether realistic or not, of this step going wrong...the ways I could be hurt...the bottomless pits I could fall into...the undoing of me that might not be un-undone.  I just stopped.  As I stayed there, stuck in the fear, I thought a lot about safety and risk and a very brief conversation I had via email with my pastor a couple years ago was brought to mind.
     This pastor and I had an ongoing conversation at the time, and he was offering me help for the wounds of my past.  It was something I'd never had offered to me before.  In fact, he was the first person to really even acknowledge there were wounds to begin with.  As I considered his offer, I wasn't sure I wanted to accept it.  I wasn't sure I could accept it.  I wanted him to promise me that if I accepted this offer for help I would be completely safe, never to be hurt again.  I wanted a guarantee that he knew he couldn't give me.
     The reason he knew he couldn't offer me the guarantee I wanted was not because he didn't want to help me or to see healing in my life.  It was because he knows his own humanness and the humanness of the person he knew could help me.  He understood that he and the other person are not perfect, that mistakes happen, that hurt can happen even with the best of intentions.  He understood that there was risk in accepting the offer of help he was holding out to me.  He assured me that the hope was the risk would end in healing rather than hurt, but the only promise he could offer me, the only guarantee, was a God who cared more deeply for me than I could imagine and who would always be with me.

     As I considered the step in front of me, I felt all the same fears I felt when my pastor offered me help.  I struggled to see beyond the risks I would have to take, all the ways this step forward could go wrong and send me backwards.  I found myself wanting a promise again...a guarantee that the risk would be worth it, that the worst case scenario's that played in my mind would be avoided, that I would be safe.  I wanted a promise that no one could make me.
     You see, on this side of heaven, God uses real, imperfect, broken people in the lives of other real, imperfect, broken people to bring about His purposes, His plans, His healing.  Yet when I see the real, imperfect, broken people He puts in my life, I see risk.  I see the lack of safety.  I want to start building walls to protect myself from the very people He has sent to be His hands and His feet in my life.  I start asking for promises no human can make and forget every promise He has kept, and is keeping, and will always keep.  I see the real, imperfect, broken people and fail to see the perfect, loving, big, faithful God who sent them.

     So now, as I continue to work through this step I have in front of me, I see the risks.  I don't feel any safer.  However, instead of looking for promises that can't be made, I remember the promises He's already given...promises of redemption and freedom and restoration of years stolen.  I remember the promises He's faithfully kept...promises to love me, care for me, always be with me.  I look again at the real, imperfect, broken people He has placed in my life, and this time I see His hands, His feet, His heart reflected by them.  Though every step of this journey brings with it some level of risk, some feeling of safety missing, I remember the One I am promised and, with arms locked with my real, imperfect, broken people, our arms together locked with our promise keeping God, keep pressing on.

The pieces I hold in my hands

     About a year ago, I was in a really terrible place.  In the middle of the darkest part of that place, a very dear lady used a word that has become a developing image in my mind.  She used the word "mosaic."  This image has been really helpful and powerful.  I'm not just some broken mess that God will put back together the way I used to be, left as a fractured version of what I once was.  God is going to use all the broken pieces to make something completely new.  He will redeem each broken piece, perfectly place it in new fashion, held in place with the glue of His faithfulness and grace and love.  Unlike being put back together the way I once was, this mosaic, glued together with God's redemption, is whole despite being made of a lot of brokenness.  Each piece is there.  Each piece tells it's own story.  But the story of redemption and healing is told by the whole work of art as the mosaic is seen in it's entirety.

     Last week, this imagery developed further in my mind.  I have been really battling between knowing that what happened is not my fault and believing what I know.  As I spoke with the same lady who gave me the image of a mosaic, our conversation moved the imagery forward.  Now I hold all those broken pieces of me in my hands...the very pieces God would use to make the mosaic of me.  I know what those pieces are.  I know what they hold in them.  There are so many, a few overflow pieces have fallen out of my grasp.  God has been working with those shards of brokenness so gently and faithfully, and I have seen the hard work of healing begin in those small fragments.  The bulk of the broken is still in my hands though.  I hold them tightly closed and can feel them hurting me, all those sharp edges digging in as I squeeze them in an effort to protect something though I'm not really sure what.  I found myself realizing I need to be willing to open my hands...to see the broken, to see the hurt, to offer it all up to God and let Him be with me in every broken piece as He redeems each piece in the making of the mosaic.  It's hard to heal something I won't even let be seen or known.

     

     I didn't really know where to go from there though.  I just kept thinking about it all--how far I've come, how God has been faithful up to now, how I have always managed to get through the hard places I never thought I'd emerge from, how keeping these pieces in my hands was hurting me.  Then I went to a ladies gathering at my church that focused on prayer.  There were two ladies who led it.  One of them, in the beginning, described the picture she has in her mind as God's invitation to come to Him in prayer.  She described God sitting on the throne sustaining the universe with His power while at the same time she runs into the throne room, dirty yet fearless, where He pulls her onto His lap.  She is, after all, adopted into His family as His daughter.  He wants to hear what is on her heart that has sent her running to her Father, and seeing His power and knowing His goodness, she can pour out her heart to Him, and He listens and cares and loves her.  

     I could see it.  When it was me in that picture, though, I was entering the throne room dirty and bloody with fists clenched.  I haven't figured out the fearless thing, so I cower, mostly with shame, while He looks at my hands and takes them in His...you know, the hands that bear the scars of the depths of His love for me, the ones that remind me He understands, the ones that were pierced so my broken pieces could be made new.  He asks me to trust Him.  When I remember who He is and His character, I know He is trustworthy.  

     Yet I find myself like my own kids who come to me with scraped up hands sometimes.  When they fear the cleaning of the wound will be too painful, they hesitate while I assure them I can only help them if they show me what's been hurt.  I see in me the same hesitation as I fear the pain to come in opening my hands to the One I know is trustworthy.  I waver between opening my hands and closing them once more.  I remind myself daily of who God is, of His faithfulness and goodness, and I try to open my hands once more and trust that He will meet me in each broken piece as I keep working towards healing, walking this journey with Jesus and the people He has walking this with me here.  Now the battle between what I know and what I believe is a little less fierce as I begin to believe what I know.  So I fight to open my hands...my hands ever so gently cradled in the hands that were broken for my healing.

Hands

I hold all these broken pieces in my hands

I know what they hold but don't want to see them

So I clench my fists tight while the sharp edges cut me

As blood flows from the wounds I pretend that I don't see

Trembling as I grasp these shattered pieces I've never named

I fold in on myself as I wear this crushing shame

Yet You look past my shame and welcome me with steadfast love

You know the brokenness I hold and still call me to come

Tenderly You wrap my hurting hands in Yours

You remind me who You are and ask me to trust You once more

As I close my eyes tears fall to the ground

Safe with You I slowly open my hands as my heart pounds

Willing to give You these jagged shards of abuse

Believing You, my Abba my Healer, will know what to do

And as I crumble under the weight of this grief

You draw me close in Your arms and You weep with me

The battle within

     My last post was about understanding that what happened was not my fault and yet struggling to let go of that guilt.  I know it doesn't make much sense...this wanting it to be my fault.  It seems like a good thing to have that guilt that isn't mine lifted from my shoulders.  I know it's supposed to be a good thing.  I just don't know how to let it be good.  Letting it be good, letting that weight be gone, means accepting what happened for what it is, and I don't know how to do that yet.

      Since I first understood why it wasn't my fault quite a few months ago, this battle started raging between what is true and what I have always believed.  Being able to insert my own "yeah but" and writing my own fault into what happened eased the tension of the battle for a while, making it bearable.  Bearable wasn't easy by any means.  I wrestled and fought and broke, but I wasn't wearing out.  There was something about the "yeah but" blame I put on myself that gave me strength to keep fighting this battle between what was true and what I've always believed.
     Then, in August, a story broke in the news about USA Gymnastics covering up allegations of sexual abuse, protecting their coaches at the expense of their underage gymnasts.  It was a really hard story to read because it was my story.  They featured four coaches.  One of them was mine.  I was not part of the article other than being among the group of "his victims" mentioned.  I poured over the article and the documents linked in it.  I learned things that have been huge in my story.  I learned that a lot of parts of my story that I thought were true were actually lies.  It was crushing.  I had a lot to grapple with.  And in the process of taking in this new information, processing the truth that was now informing all these lies that I never knew were lies, I found myself unable to say "yeah but" to the statement that it wasn't my fault.  I found myself unable to write in my own blame like I used to.  When all my "yeah but" statements couldn't stand up to what I now could see as true, I fell apart.
     In the months since the news broke and I couldn't find a way to blame myself, the battle inside me between knowing it wasn't my fault and wanting to make it my fault has intensified.  I have struggled immensely in every way possible.  I can see the truth.  I know that everyone who says it was not my fault is absolutely right.  I know they are.  I know when they call "it" abuse, they are calling it what it is.  But something in me won't let myself believe what I know is true.  Something won't let me accept the truth for what it is, so the battle rages, and now I am weary.  That strength found in the "yeah but" is gone, and I'm losing the fight.  I'm exhausted.  I know I should surrender, but I can't.  I don't know why.  I don't know what in me won't let me stop fighting this battle.  I know I won't win it.  The truth will win.  It has to win because God is a God of truth, and He fights for what is true.  Truth will win, and I will lose.  It's supposed to be good, bring freedom.  I can't see that from where I am though.
     In light of all that I just shared, I have a poem to share with you that speaks of this battle.  I know this post is not very hopeful, maybe a bit confusing, definitely messy.  In all honesty, though, abuse is confusing and messy, and healing is confusing and messy.  Maybe the hope lies in knowing that you, my fellow survivor sisters, can see you are not alone in the struggle.  Maybe the battle inside you is over a different truth than mine right now, but either way, you are not alone as truth and lies battle within you.  I know truth winning is supposed to be good, but it doesn't feel like a good thing right now.  So when you struggle to be okay with what you know is good, you aren't alone in that either.  One other thing I do know...God is with us even in these battles between truth and lies, and somehow, when truth wins and we feel utterly crushed, God will be with us then too.  I'm banking on Him fulfilling that promise.  I can't lose this battle if He won't.

The Battle Within

 For as long as I can remember I've believed all these lies

I knew they were wrong while they ate me alive

So when I finally heard the truth for the first time

It was too hard to believe it might actually be right

Yet little by little it gently whispered in my ear

Planting seeds so one day I might believe it when I hear

It was not your fault and you are not to blame

You don't have to carry the weight of his shame

But that day, it has not yet arrived

And the lies I've believed continue to strive

They twist all the racing thoughts in my head

And I can't make sense of this struggle I dread

But as the truth now starts to close in

All the wild thoughts are beginning to spin

I find that all of the words that I need

Are the very same words I simply can't speak

And this truth brings no freedom

No it is harsh and oppressive

So I push hard against it

Fight to hold on to the pieces

Of what's left of my numb heart

But here it is still falling apart

And this battle rages beyond just my mind

It wars in every ounce of this body of mine

I am weary and I just want to be done

But something inside won't let me give up

Still I lose a little more of the battle each day

As my strength fades and begins to give way

But there's no rest for my weary soul

For in the safety of these lies is a comfort I can't let go

I can't let myself risk the hurt that will come

When the truth overwhelms and the lies are undone

I fear the broken silence when the strivings finally cease

And I can't imagine a place where abuse can find peace

So beaten down I fight a battle I know I can't win

As truth demands to be known while lies refuse to give in