"God, please make it go away!"
This was my desperate prayer for many years. That short prayer were the only words I could come up with to ask for help. Of course the "it" is the abuse from my past. I didn't have that word though. I just knew it was really bad stuff, and everyone who knew about "it" told me it was in the past and should not be part of my life anymore. They even had a Bible verse to prove it to me. After all, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). I was so young in my faith and just in general that it seemed clear enough. I thought they had to be right. They knew more than I did it seemed. So if it had passed away, I had to make it go away. That was the only option I had.
I prayed for years for it to go away. I didn't know what else to ask God to do with it. I tried to pretend it wasn't there, that it didn't matter, that I was fine. But it was there, it did matter, and I wasn't fine. I pushed it down as deep as I could and spoke of it to no one. The longer it stayed in the dark recesses of my heart, the bigger it seemed to get and the stronger it seemed to grip me. So I prayed all the more fervently "God, please make it go away!" Still it remained.
Then God brought some new people into my life. These people believed me. They have faithfully walked this really hard road called healing with me for the last couple years. It's been a rough journey at times, yet they have cared and remained.
I was talking with one of them, a very dear, wise woman, last week. I was telling her that in these last couple years, I have come to understand that making it go away isn't the only option I have. There is an option where it stays. I don't have a firm grasp on that. I don't understand it, but I know it exists. I also know it is the option I should be choosing, but I still want it to go away. I know I shouldn't, but I do. As we were talking, she said something that really hit me hard. In fact, I almost burst into tears when I heard her say it (and I do not do tears).
She was talking about what it means when God says in the book of 1 Peter that He has given us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and a sound mind. As she took some time to talk about this spirit of love He has given she said "I don't have to make it go away because I am loved with that part of me." I do not have to make it go away. Why not? Because I am perfectly, wholly, beautifully loved...ALL of me...even the broken, shattered, messy part that bears the wounds of abuse. Wow! That truth...
I don't have to make it go away because God loves me with it. Because I don't have to make it go away, because I am loved deeply and fiercely with it, I can pour out my heart to God...all that is broken and bleeding and wounded. He comes down to meet me in the middle of this painful mess because He loves me with it. He doesn't want me to make it go away. He wants me to take it to Him. He loves me with it. He redeems me with it.
My mind went back to that verse that has haunted me in all the worst ways...the old passed away, the new has come. The old passing away does not mean the abuse disappears and doesn't matter. It highlights the the place where the present and the eternal touch. I am already made new. Yet, I live in this body affected by sin. I am called to renewal in the present while having already been made new in the eternal. The old that passes away...it doesn't disappear. The old is the pieces God uses to make the new mosaic that reaches completion when my journey on this earth is finished, and I am home with my Abba Father in heaven for eternity.
I am already new in Christ, yet He is making me new each day. He sees the mosaic completed in His eternal view, yet He is making the new mosaic out of the old right now in the present. He doesn't make the old disappear. He redeems it all while it is already redeemed. I don't have to make it go away.
For me, "it" is abuse. I think we all have an "it" though if we're really honest with ourselves. That one thing we feel we must hide or pretend isn't there. The thing we have pushed so far down into the darkest parts of us we won't even let God in. "It" could be something we have done, or something done to us, or a combination of both. That makes no difference. Whatever your "it," you do not have to make it go away. You are perfectly, wholly, beautifully loved with it, whatever "it" may be. It may be old, but it does not disappear. God uses it to create in you the newness He already sees. He will meet you in the middle of the mess "it" has left behind. He loves you with it. He redeems you with it.
Dear one, you are redeemed even while being redeemed. You are new even while being made new. You do not have to make it go away. You are deeply and wholly loved.
