Lately, I've been struggling. This time, I didn't fall...no, I was swallowed whole by the earth, left in a pit surrounded by darkness. I did not simply lose my footing along the ground, I got lost in the ground. It's been rough, and rough is really a vast understatement. I'm not quite so far down in the pit as I was. I am slowly finding my way out...sometimes climbing myself, other times being lifted up by those around me, and most certainly God fits in there too (though at times I'm really not sure how...it's like that sometimes...we know God is doing something but we can't see it until we're out of it...it's like that now).
Not too long ago, I posted about what God had been teaching me about coming to Him openly, honestly, with my questions and the truth of my own brokenness. As this amazing freedom hit me, I felt so much lighter. I had a renewed strength to keep fighting this battle, to press on through the difficulty knowing I can take it all to Him. Then I was swallowed by the earth into a pit of utter darkness.
In the pit, I found myself giving up. I was ready to quit and told those close to me I was done, it was over. This darkness was too much, this journey too difficult, this sacrifice not worth it. Oh how much they spoke words of encouragement to me. Their hope couldn't pierce my darkness though. I'm not sure how I got to where I am now, still going, pressing on, surely being held up by the ones who pray for me and love me and hope for me when I can't find hope myself. I'm here though. I'm still fighting though with much less vigor. I'm fragile and weak, but I'm still moving.
I think sometimes there are lessons to be learned while in the dark. God has been opening my eyes and heart to lessons about this whole honest brokenness thing while I have floundered these last weeks. There is more to honest brokenness than simply coming before God and laying it at His feet while clinging to the hope and promise of redemption.
There is someone who often stands in my way. No that person is not the devil. While he may want me to stay locked in the darkness, he does not and cannot hinder me from going before the throne of Grace. The person who stands in the way of going honestly to God is............me. Yes, you read that right...ME! It turns out that in order to be honest with God about my brokenness, I must be honest with myself about my own brokenness first. I cannot take brokenness to God that I am not willing to accept and own as, well, my own.
I've mentioned this before. I am apparently very good at minimizing the abuse I endured and the effects it has had in my life and in me as a person. I never knew I was doing this. It was how I survived, though. I still frequently do not realize I'm doing it until it is pointed out to me. It is what kept me hanging on to my sanity all these years when no one believed me and those very few I tried to get help from minimized it themselves.
It makes sense if you think about it. I told what happened a few years after it stopped but was not believed at all. I was told I was making it worse in my head than it really was. I was told it was my fault. I was threatened with being kicked out of my church (all my very tiny group of friends were there and being kicked out would have meant losing them all...it was a really big deal) if I couldn't stop having panic attacks, flashbacks, episodes of losing time. I was told I was a "new creation in Christ so the past didn't matter and shouldn't effect me anymore." They were basically saying that my claim to have a relationship with Christ was false because of the effects of the abuse. In order to keep my fragile world in order, my past had to not exist. Of course that can't happen, so I had to find a way to live with it like it didn't happen and didn't matter. So I made it nothing in my head. But it is not nothing.
When I was swallowed up by the earth, left in a pit of utter darkness, I came a little closer to seeing how broken I really am. One little part of my brokenness stared me in the face in the depths of that pit, and though I wanted to run, I had nowhere to go (it was a pit after all). I tried to ignore it by deciding to give up completely. [Again, I'm not sure what or how I got out of that despairing, but I did. I am weak and discouraged and scared, but I am not despairing.] I realized I have been working hard to ignore just how broken I am.
In the recent weeks as I've floundered and struggled, my brokenness has been so big, and I have been so frail and small in the face of it. It seems too much to bear on my own, and indeed it is. I was reminded as I read a blog I follow, that as I walk in the truth of my own brokenness, I have to remember Who Christ is in my brokenness. He is in my brokenness with me, though it is quite easy to forget that when my brokenness feels so big and I so small.
I cannot bear up under the weight of my brokenness, but Christ can bear it for me, with me, as I learn to be honest with myself about my own brokenness, so I can then take my brokenness, with brutal honestly, before the throne of Grace where I find grace and mercy in time of need. He has promised to be with me, to be present with me, in my brokenness, just as He has promised to listen to the desperate pleas as I pour out my brokenness honestly before Him.
I'm not exactly sure what learning to be honest about my brokenness with myself will be like. I'm quite terrified of what lies ahead actually. But I have learned, in the middle of this recent darkness, that if I am going to find healing, I must first own the broken fully. He has promised to be in the broken with me and lead me to healing as I go through it. I'm sure it will be messy. I know it will be difficult. I will likely fall into a few more pits. But I know that I will only get to healing after I walk through the broken.
Making my way through the broken will hurt, but I will be going with the Healer. There are also a few close and dear friends He has placed around me to remind me the Healer is with me in the broken when the hurt seems unbearable. So, with fear, frailty and faith, I go...with the Healer through whatever hurt my brokenness will bring.
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