On being invisible

     I think this post is likely going to come across sad and hopeless, but please stick with me.  There will be another post coming in the next few days or so that will bring hope to this post.  So please read but also remember...hope is coming!

     Something happens when a child is abused.  It happens from the very first instance of abuse regardless of whether that abuse is brought about through words or hands.  I'm not sure how it happens, but I am certain it does.  So what happens?  The child becomes invisible.  They are desperate for help, for rescue, for safety, for hope, but it almost never comes because suddenly no one can see them.  I know.  I remember when I became invisible.

     I was 13.  I'm sure my coach had been setting the stage for a while, but I remember vividly when it started and got serious.  It started with words.  I don't remember them exactly, though I do remember the conversation and what he was talking about.  I also remember changing that very instant.  I couldn't put my finger on it then, but I can now.  I became invisible, and I could feel it.  I now had a secret.  I was now touched with shame.  I needed help, but I could not ask for it.  I didn't have words for what was happening.  I'm not sure how it all happened specifically.  I felt the difference, but no one around me could see it.  Somehow I disappeared, and no one came looking for me.  

Invisible

A world full of people but no one can see

The girl living among them with dark secrets deep

She needs someone's help but on her own she can't say so

And her help will never come because she's become invisible

At school her teachers say their doors are always open

But she's afraid of what it will cost her if she were to walk in

With good grades they don't see her, that she's slipping away

So when school's over, they send her home as she dies more each day

At home she has parents but life is not okay

Their marriage breaking, her silence a huge price to pay

Because they are too busy with the hurts that they bear

To see that their daughter, though present, is no longer there

She kept growing up but she never outgrew

Whatever kept her invisible and always out of view

But the sting of loneliness never went away

Instead it became her companion day by day

A world full of people but still no one can see

The one standing in the midst of them waiting to be seen

She is out in plain sight but they can't see...me

     While the cloak of invisibility is forced on a child when abuse begins, it doesn't automatically come off when it stops.  I never stopped being invisible.  Even now, many years later, no one looks for me when I hide or disappear or don't show up.  I'm forgettable which keeps me invisible.  There is one or two people who look for me, but that's not the norm.  I'm still invisible.  

     But invisibility pulls me in two different directions.  Part of me wants to stay invisible.  There is a strange comfort there.  It feels safe when nothing else does.  It's lonely though, so at times I wish I could be seen.  I've been invisible for so long, though, that I'm not sure how to change that.  I do know it would be risky.  If people could see me, they would see my secret.  That thought is enough to push me back into the safety of invisible.  But then I get lonely and wish I could be seen, and that scares me.  Do you see the struggle?  

     Being invisible doesn't mean I don't know anyone or have no friends or never leave my house.  I do, but sometimes the loneliest place to be is in a room full of people...quiet because I'm not sure how to fit in and never spoken to because I'm invisible to those who are there.  

Look Through Me

When they look through me they look past a wife

Nothing to notice, no need to look twice

Just a woman standing by the one who loves her

Overlooked and invisible, never someone to remember

When they look through me they look past a mom

Trying to gather my noisy kids, they want me gone

Exhausted and worn by the daily tasks

Of pouring into my children and caring for me last

When they look through me they look past a friend

Someone to listen when their world's crashing in

Someone to care for them when life hits roughest

Even though when I'm not there they never notice

When they look through me they look past a woman

Small, scared, and broken, convinced I am less than

Longing for a friend who sees past all they look through

But going it alone because that's how I've made due

When they look through me they don't see what they miss

A chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus

To reach out to the forgotten, to the very least of these

And bearing my burden with me, a chance to see the broken redeemed

     It hurts to be invisible, to always be forgotten.  My sweet survivor sisters, I want you to know that I see you.  I pray for you.  I hold you in my heart even when I don't know your name.  I have not forgotten you even when I don't actually know you.  But as hopeless as it seems being invisible, hold on my dear ones.  There is One who sees us when no one else can and when no one else wants to.  

     

Perception is not reality

    This post talks about a lie my coach worked very hard to get me and everyone around me to believe.  There is a bit of redemption in this post though.  This is my twenty-seventh post.  Twenty-seven was my coach's favorite number.  He gave me a necklace once with that number on it.  It had personal significance to him.  Now it has personal repulsiveness to me.  I literally hate the number twenty-seven.  I was thankful that when I was twenty-seven years of age, God blessed me with a child to ease the dread I felt as that year approached.  Now, I reach my twenty-seventh post...a post about breaking free from a lie my coach served up on a silver platter, that I spent too many years believing.  No more.  Post number twenty-seven...one more chain broken.

     My coach used to frequently say "perception is reality."  He said it to all of us on the team, but he particularly said it to the older girls, namely those of us in middle school.  He would explain that what people perceived to be true is what they believed to be true, so what they perceived was reality.  To us kids, it sounded really cool and made sense enough.  We bought into it.  We believed it.  I believed it.  And I didn't know how much I believed it until over 15 years later.
     My coach fully believed this when he said it.  He wanted those around him to believe it too.  He created a perception of himself that he needed others around him to buy into in order for him to get what he wanted...me.  This saying of his really played off of people's natural tendency to bring their own perceptions and preconceived notions to any given situation or circumstance.  I couldn't see the manipulation in it until almost a year ago, and even now I struggle to understand it all and how someone could so carefully construct an environment where that kind of thing went unnoticed for years.
   
     But here's the thing...

Perception is NOT reality!

     About a year ago, I first realized how incredibly manipulative and calculated he was in his use of that phrase and setting up the reality he wanted others to perceive in order to get his way.  As time has gone on though, I have come to understand how deeply I have held on to that lie of his and how not true it really is.  

     

     In every situation and circumstance I encounter, I bring my own perspective, ideas, and beliefs.  I let those perceptions color how I view the situation or circumstance.  I may, for example, get cut off in traffic.  I bring my own beliefs about how one should drive and who drives the way the other person did, that I make judgments about what is real in the situation.  I perceive the driver to be a jerk and careless and inconsiderate.  But I don't have the whole truth.  I may not be aware that the person is rushing through traffic to make it to the hospital where a loved one has been taken following a life threatening accident.  The person is not a jerk or careless or inconsiderate.  They are scared out of their mind and preoccupied with awful thoughts and questions.  They are in a situation that deserves compassion not judgement and anger.  My perceptions were not reality.  They were a version of reality, but they were not the full reality.

     My feelings can also alter my perception of what is real in a situation.  For example, a friend could say something in a conversation that I found hurtful though she did not intend to hurt me and did not know I may react like that.  Given the past I have, I assume I have done something wrong to make my friend mad at me.  My feelings color my perception of the conversation, and I believe I have angered my friend somehow.  What I perceive to be true, is not actually reality.  My friend just made a comment without realizing it would cause me pain.  I never made her mad.  My perceptions were not reality.

     This also comes into play with God.  It is so easy on this journey to feel like God is far away, that He has left me all alone, that He doesn't care.  Those feelings, those perceptions, are not reality.  No matter what I feel or think, God has promised to be with me.  How I feel on any given day does not change this.  Anything I perceive that is the opposite of Him being with me is not reality, no matter how real it feels.  No matter what I think or feel, God says He cares about me, and He loves me.  I cannot lose that.  It is mine not by my own merit but because He loved me from the beginning of time.  My perceived feelings about His love and care do not tell the reality of His love for me on those dark days when I feel abandoned.  When I feel He couldn't possibly love me and doesn't care one bit, my perceptions are not reality.  

     In day to day life, in situations and circumstances that involve other people, it is so hard to keep my perceptions from coloring my view of things.  I don't always have the other side to the situation.  I can't always find out the side of reality I can't see from my vantage point.  Sometimes, my perceptions are all I have.  Other time, what is real is so different from how I have perceived things to be that it is hard to accept what is reality when I find it out.  It just isn't easy to remember that my perceptions are not always right when other people are involved.  I try to remember, though, and to hold my perceptions loosely.

     God gives me a weapon against my perceptions of Him.  He gives me His promises, His truth, that will always fight the lies my perceptions try to tell me.  When I feel He is far from me, that He has walked away and left me in my darkness and hurt, I have His word and the promises that He will always be with me to fight what I perceive to be reality with what really is reality.  This is one of the best gifts He has given me on this journey...His truth to fight the lie that perception is reality.

My perceptions of God cannot nullify His promises to me.  

He is faithful to His promises whether I perceive Him to be or not.

Perception is NOT reality!

     Let us all remember, in any circumstance we are in, there are other perspectives, other truths, other sides to each story that must be mixed with our own perspective and perceptions in order to see the full reality. Hold your perceptions loosely. Remember what you perceive to be true may not be reality at all.

     My precious sisters, there is tremendous hope and comfort in this! What we perceive to be true, is not always so. Cling to His promises, especially when they scratch and chafe against the perceptions you hold in the moment. Take comfort in knowing that what you perceive to be reality really isn't. He is still with you, even when you feel alone. He still loves you more deeply than you can imagine, even when you feel discarded. It won't change your feelings. I won't pretend that it makes it easier. Sometimes, though, it brings a peace and comfort in the harsh darkness that helps you press on. His promises push through your perceptions, dear one. They always will.

Denial, noise, truth...ramblings

     A fair warning...this is a lot of rambling.  It goes down a few rabbit trails and seemingly different paths, but if you'll be patient and stick it out, I think I can tie it all back together the way it is in my head.  The all over the place nature of this post is just where my head is.  I'm sorry for that.  I hope you'll be willing to keep reading to see how it all comes together and hopefully makes sense.    

     It's a new year.  People like to make new year's resolutions to make each year better than the one before.  It's more a formality than anything realistic though.  Resolutions are made knowing they will be broken, yet we still like the hope we feel in formulating a plan to make changes and live life on our terms.
     Life doesn't live on our terms though.  We wind up facing circumstances that are messy and hard and ugly and broken.  We end up torn between what we had planned and what is unfolding before us.  We find ourselves at the mercy of truth, and sometimes what is true is what we never wanted or asked for.  So we try to escape the truth we didn't want because that somehow feels more comfortable and more in control (even though we aren't).

     I have spent more years than I care to count trying to escape a truth I never asked for, never wanted, never had a say in.  I grew up with heavy secrets to keep.  I had to leave a room where the unspeakable took place and enter a world where I was "normal" and "fine" and just like every other kid I was around.  So I learned very quickly and rather young how to deny the truth of my life even while knowing what the truth was.  Denial became my truth without my ever knowing it.  Denial meant I survived.  It was good and necessary in those years that the truth tried to kill me.
     Life is different now all these years later.  I'm not living in the nightmare I once was trapped in.  In fact, the tides have turned.  The truth that would have killed me then is what now can bring me freedom.  The denial that was necessary for me to keep living, now keeps me from healing.  But moving past denial is proving to be a terribly difficult fight...denial is a vicious and ruthless opponent.

     I'm sure you must think it strange to talk about being in denial.  After all, when we think of denial, we think of holding fast to a lie that something did not happen when in fact it did.  That is denial, but that just scratches the surface of it.  I don't have the ability right now to explain it all, but I will try to briefly explain the denial I am battling at the moment.
     I do not deny that the abuse I endured happened.  If asked if I was abused as a child, I would shake my head yes.  I keep my distance from it though.  I minimize it.  I do it without thinking.  I've been doing it so long I don't know I'm doing it.  I hold my past at a distance, refusing to let it be real.  I will shake my head in agreement that it happened, but I cannot let the words escape my mouth.  That makes it real.  There are words I have in my head that I know are part of my story, but they are so awful and repulsive that I actively look for definitions anywhere that will define them out of what happened to me.  I know what applies as truth to my story, but I won't accept the truth.
     Not accepting what is true as true and minimizing the parts I will admit to is another level of denial that I am losing my fight with.  It's a fight I can't afford to lose though.  I have to win this fight if I am going to find healing.  But I am stuck, going in circles with denial while feeling truth pull at me, quietly requesting I sit and rest from the dizzying circles I dance with denial.  My feet keep moving though, and I feel the tension rise between denial and truth.  I know I have to be honest with my truth to myself in order to take my truth honestly to the One who can redeem it.

     As I dizzy myself with denial, truth keeps finding ways to make her presence known.  The last few months as I have struggled greatly feeling stuck and falling into some rather deep, dark pits that I wasn't sure I could get back out of, I have had this noise in my head grow louder and louder.  The more I see the denial I am stuck in and realize even more how badly I need out, the louder the noise gets.  It is particularly loud in the evenings when the house is quiet and my family is settled in for the night...deafening, frightening, always there.  It isn't audible noise, but the word noise is the best description I have for this stuff inside my head.  
     I'm not completely sure of what is in the noise.  There is a mix of a lot of things.

• there are words...inexpressible, and sometimes incomprehensible, words
• there are feelings...but I don't do feelings, I just DON'T
• there are tears...liquid terror, instant anxiety attack
• there is truth...all the truth I have not yet accepted
• there is _________...more that I don't have words for or can't understand yet

     And the noise is relentless!  It leaves me restless every evening, moving about my house on edge.  I know I should listen to it little bits at a time.  I know it has a purpose.  There is something or lots of somethings in my head, making all this noise, that need to be heard, spoken, felt, grieved, walked through, but I want nothing more than to drown it out.  It screams at me, so I scream louder with meaningless, mindless activity every night to ignore what is begging for my attention.

     Then I struggle desperately to fall asleep.  My mind refuses to unwind, to settle, to quiet.  My body, tense with the fight between the noise screaming at me and me screaming over it, refuses to relax.  Sleep is a fight which drains me instead of refreshing me.  My body begs for sleep, but my mind won't let up until my body empties itself of all it has, and my mind is forced to shut down.  Then sleep comes but never rest.
     The noise fights to be heard.  It knows it holds the truth.  But I'm terrified of what it has to say.  I don't know how to listen to it.  I can't understand the screams.  I cannot sit still.  I fear the noise will break me if I knew what it wanted.  What if it wants more than I have to give?  My stores are already so depleted.  So I pray and read Scripture and seek to be filled, but the noise just wants more and more and more.

God I am empty!  I know You can see!  Can You see I am empty?

     Now it's a new year.  I see more clearly than I ever have how entrenched in the mire of denial I am.  I know now more than ever how desperately I need to face the truth.  It's a battle.  It's raging fiercely within me every.single.day.  

     Denial spins me around while the noise screams at me that truth must be heard and walked through.  I know that I will not have to walk through it alone.  I know somehow God will meet me in it.  I know He is there waiting for me, for He is the God of truth.  Yet still each day, I drown out the noise as I dance with denial and truth tugs at my heart to just sit and be still.

     So this year, I have a goal (for lack of a better word).  I want to learn to listen to the noise.  I want to sit down with my truth and begin to accept it, piece by piece.  It will mean learning how to hear what is true, feel what is true, speak what is true, grieve what is true, walk through what is true, all while clinging to the God of truth who promises to be with me in the pain of what is true.  I know it will not be easy.  I know it will be a process and involve a lot of hard work.  This year, I want to find God with me in the terror of truth and learn, in the midst of all the hurt, to rest in His arms of love and comfort.  I know the only way to healing is through the hurt of truth.  As much as this terrifies me, I press on.

If you want to walk with me

     This post is meant for those who are not survivors themselves but have survivor friends walking out the journey towards healing.  I don't know much about relationships or friendships.  I haven't really had much practice to be honest.  I have been walking this journey though.  As I have walked this road, I have started to learn what is helpful for me.  As I have begun to learn what is helpful as I press on, I have also thought a lot about those who start to walk with me only to walk away.
     I have said before that many have walked away over the years.  Some have walked away from me completely while others are still friendly but steer clear of anything of substance in order to avoid what they know is deep in my heart.  Both types of walking away are painful.  I struggle with it every time it happens which is more often than not.  It seems to me that there is one overarching factor in why people who seem so genuine in their care and desire to walk this road with me soon walk away or pull back sharply.
     This post puts those thoughts out of my head and into words, written words for others to see.  It scares me though.  It feels so out of character for me.  I don't stand up for what is helpful for me, for what I need.  I have gone back and forth for days and days about whether or not to post this at all.  It feels wrong to say what I will say in this post, but I believe that this is part of learning how to use the voice that was taken from me, MY voice.  I also think it is information that should be considered by all who are not survivors but want to walk with a survivor.

     Here is how it seems to happen.  I throw out a few hints of my past and the journey I'm on.  When someone hears my story, even just parts of it, they feel a tug at their heartstrings.  Abuse is an awful thing of course.  This pull on the heartstrings leads many, I think, to want to do something.  Not knowing exactly what to do, they offer their support, their friendship, their willingness to "be there" for me as I pursue healing.  It looks like compassion, but I fear it is often times more along the lines of thinly veiled pity.  I, however, put up the deposit and let them in.  I know it will cost me, but I hope the cost is worth it.  A friend is such a treasure on a journey that is often quite lonely.
     At first, they are there.  They start off strong, and their friendship is a comfort on a hard and difficult road.  But as time goes on, they are there less often.  They seem irritated or distant.  I never seem to heal fast enough, and they get burnt out, usually rather quickly.  They tell me they've done all they can or that I know what I need to do and we no longer need to bring this up, I can do it on my own.  The look of what initially appeared to be compassion turns to a look of emptiness since the compassion was pity, and pity runs out.  I didn't heal like they thought I would.  More than that, they didn't know walking with me would cost them too, and now that they do, they realize they weren't willing to pay the price.  They forget how big God is when they see how big hurt can be.

     I want you to know this.  It certainly costs me to let others near enough to be a friend on this journey, but there is a price you pay for walking with me too.  It will cost you time.  The journey is not a fast one.  It will cost you a comfort you didn't know you had as you come face to face with statistics that now belong to someone you care about.  You will see me, hear of evil you knew existed but never thought much about, and those numbers you hear about will seem a lot closer than they ever have before.  You will see that there are far more of me much closer to you than you realized.  It is an uncomfortable reality to face to say the least.  It will cost you ease as you realize you must fight with me and for me on your knees, helping me carry a burden I simply cannot carry on my own though I have tried and tried again.  It will cost you pain.  If you stick with me, you will get weary and tired, and your heart will hurt as you see me struggle with my past as I press on to my future.  You will find hurts in your own heart you have not taken the time to find healing for (since you likely didn't know you needed healing) and that will cause you pain of your own also.  It will cost you the box you try to fit God into.  It's so easy to put God in a box.  I do it too.  But as you walk with someone whose wounds are so deep, your box will be too small for the God who can bringing healing to such depths.  It is challenging to have that box shattered.  I know.  He's been shattering my box this entire journey.  This is a good cost, but it is not pain free and is so vital to count.  If you aren't willing to give up your box to keep God small, you won't be able to walk with me.
     I can try to explain the cost to you in words, but the price is much higher than I can adequately describe.  While the price is high, the reward is great too, but you must be willing to see your investment to the end.  I am not sure if you can get your cost back should you choose to walk away.  I know I can never get back the price I pay to let you walk with me.  That is what makes it so frightening to let you near me.  I can't make you stay.  I can tell you that if you keep pressing on with me, the return for your investment will be worth far more than you can dream.  If you see this through, you and I both will have a reward well worth the price we both pay.
   

If You Want to Walk With Me

You say you want to journey with me as I go

But first there are realities that you must know

Don't be shocked when your willingness I fail to believe

Because there's a price that I pay which you cannot see

If you want to walk with me

The price that I pay is costly and steep

And once it is paid can never come back to me

But I'm not the only one with a high price to pay

For there's a cost to you also to journey this way

If you want to walk with me

Your eyes will be opened to a harsh reality

Well known to all though most choose not to see

Where darkness and evil reign without limitation

And you'll wish you could believe my truth is mere fiction

If you want to walk with me

The lifeless statistics that you've always known

Will begin to take on a life completely their own

While the endless numbers turn into the faces

Of those who you love in your deepest heart places

If you want to walk with me

At times the path will leave you beaten and bruised

You'll wonder how much longer you have to push through

For this journey is long and each step is a fight

And the road presses straight through the darkest of nights

If you want to walk with me

My burden is heavy and can leave you quite weary

Time spent on your knees will leave you hurting and bloody

But your company is a treasure I won't take for granted

And there is great hope the return for your cost will be worth it

If you want to walk with me

     When you feel the tug on your heartstrings as you hear the story of a survivor, you just have to step back and decide whether or not you really want to invest.  Take time to consider whether you feel compassion or pity because your pity won't last, but compassion is good fuel for the journey.  I do not know a single survivor who takes lightly the friendship of those who choose to walk with them.  I also do not know a single survivor who does not know the pain of being walked away from.  We know it isn't easy to walk this road with us.  That is why we treasure those who stick with us even when it's dark and difficult and slow going.  We really do believe this journey is worth it or we wouldn't be working so hard at it.  If, after you have considered the cost, you're willing to invest, we trust it will be worth it for you too in the end.

Ramblings about safe

     *There is going to be a lot of rambling in this post.  I hope any other survivors who read this will be able to relate and find some peace knowing they aren't alone.  I also hope that anyone who is walking alongside a survivor who reads this will find more understanding and patience and compassion as they walk with their friend.*

Safe.

     This word, this idea, this concept brings comfort to so many people.  Most people also use this word to offer comfort to others, to calm the fears of hurting hearts.  "I am safe."  "This is a safe place."  "You are safe here."  I think most people really think they mean what they say when offering such sentiment.  It sounds so helpful and so good.  It sounds like what comfort feels like...I think.

     For many people (maybe most people), safe does bring comfort.  Safe does alleviate fears.  Safe does welcome a hurting heart.  For many others, safe is scary.  Safe is where danger lurks unseen.  Safe is where hearts are hurt.  Safe isn't safe at all.  Despite what many people choose to believe, safe is where children are most often abused.  Is it any wonder, then, why there is hardly a place safe enough for survivors to speak?

Safe...family

Safe...friend

Safe...coach

Safe...teacher

Safe...pastor

Safe...church people

Safe...law enforcement

Safe.........I could go on.  Not all of those apply to me personally.  Some of those safe places were not dangerous for me, but I know others who found each of these safe places to actually be far from safe.  Some of these places I never gave the chance to be safe because of the fear and threats that lived in my first safe place.

Safe.

     This concept has been coming up a lot lately as I have been crushed by the weight of my own truth, unable and perhaps unwilling to accept it and work through it.  It has been something I have thought about a lot as it has come up, as people have tried to assure me I'm in a safe place.  I have found that when I hear the word "safe," I cower in fear on the inside and want to withdraw into myself.  I know the intention of those who say it are to ease my fears.  Instead, and I imagine much to their dismay or even disillusionment, it increases my fears exponentially.

     The perfect safe place I dream up in my head is a place where I can be honest, own my truth, speak the hard words, fall to pieces, be loved and cared for in the midst of it and never be hurt again...intentionally or unintentionally.  I know that place doesn't exist in real life, because this world is full of people...none of whom are perfect, and that most certainly includes me.

     Knowing the safe place of never being hurt doesn't exist on this earth means I have to learn to trust the few who want to be safe for me now.  Trust doesn't come easy to someone whose trust was so deeply betrayed though.  It is no easy task to sit with one who says they are safe and to speak through the fear that rises within me at such an invitation.

     I am certain that one or two of my "want to be safe" people know exactly what they are saying when they tell me I am safe with them.  They know they are asking me to put words to feelings I have no words for, to speak of the unspeakable, to utter words of truth that feel like they will kill me.
     There are also a few others who are learning what it means to walk with someone like me, and I fear they will find the darkness too cold and too desperate to stay with me as I find my way out.  I fully believe their intentions are good.  I know they care for me deeply.  But I struggle profoundly to trust them with the deepest, darkest parts of my heart.  I don't know where the line between healthy self-protection and unhealthy isolation falls, so I tend to default to isolation in an attempt to feel safe where safe doesn't exist.

Safe.

     The only place I know I am supposed to be fully safe in my perfect, never to be hurt again kind of way, is in the safety of God.  And yet I still struggle.  For so many years, God Himself wasn't safe to take my brokenness too...at least according to His people.  I was young, so I took what church leaders and church people said and did, and I thought they stood for God and what He thought about me and my past.  I thought He didn't care and couldn't help.  So I boxed up all the things I wasn't supposed to struggle with and buried it.  I kept God out of it.

     I'm learning now that God doesn't want me to bury it, He never did.  I am also finding it really hard to unbox that stuff...hard to let God in on it after all these years.  Of course, He already knows everything that is in the boxes I have hidden away.  He is kind and compassionate though, so He isn't forcing them open before He readies me to handle what is inside.

     It's still hard to feel safe though.  It's hard to unlearn all the wrong things I learned about God from those who represented His name but were afraid of truth like mine and were afraid to walk in it with me.  It was easier for them to make me go away rather than face an evil they wanted to pretend didn't exist.  I was taught about a "God" who was not safe, and now that I know He actually is, it's hard to push past the fear instilled in me for so many years and learn how to feel safe with Him.

Safe.

     It's a daily battle between what I knew and what I now know.  It's a battle between the automatic fear and withdrawal response and the desire for healing which means pushing through the fear with a select few people.  It's a daily battle to reconcile my past and my present in this one small (but feels so big) way.

     When you tell me you are safe and I recoil and hesitate and you see the fear in my eyes, please don't walk away.  Please understand that my fear at hearing that word has nothing to do with you and everything to do with those who came before you.  When you see me sitting in silence battling intense fear and the desire to speak, be patient.  I am begging you.  The cost to speak is great for me, and I have lost the price many times over.

     It's one thing to say you are safe.  It's an entirely different thing to show me you are.  Remind me that you are safe, and wait with me while I learn what a safe place really is.  Tell me as many times as I need that you are safe, and then sit with me as I find the courage to trust you just a little more than the last time we spoke.  Remind me that God is safe and He cares and He heals hearts as broken as mine.  Please be patient with me as I learn to trust Him also.  I am not trying to be difficult or rude or insinuate that you are not trustworthy.  I am working to deprogram years of learning that safe is where danger lives.  I am working at this...but this work takes time, the cost is high, and the pain is at times unbearable.

Safe...safe is scary, but I am not running.  Will you wait with me?

A mosaic of hope

     I have said things have been rough.  It's true.  I have been in a very dark place as of late.  Giving up has been all too tempting.  I've started walking away more than once.  I have to say I'm not sure how I am still hanging on.  I'm honestly hanging on by a thread and the grace of God...in fact the grace of God may be the thread I'm hanging on to.  I'm not sure.  I just know I'm dangling.
   
     In the middle of the darkest of the darkness, I had a conversation with a lady who has been walking with me through all of this.  She is amazing...really she is.  To be completely honest, in the depths of the darkness I have a hard time remembering things.  I forget much of a conversation minutes after it is over.  I agree to get a simple task done but don't realize I never did it until it is pointed out.  It's as if my  brain has so much pressure on it that new information, no matter how small, just doesn't stick.  Even the conversation I had with this woman who is very special to me is one I don't remember much of.  I wish I did.  I know I felt less...I'm not sure, frantic maybe, afterwards.  It was a profitable conversation.  I know that much.  Other than that, much of it is lost...except for one thing she said.
     I cannot remember the conversation leading up to her comment other than the fact that I said there were so many pieces...too many pieces.  In her response she said this...that God is in the business of picking up all those broken, scattered pieces and making them into a beautiful mosaic.  That was it.  It was a simple response.  She probably didn't expect that comment to stay with me, but it has.

     A mosaic.  I'm a thinker, and I have been thinking a lot about this word picture.  It is beautiful actually, and it changes how I think of this journey and the destination.  I have always viewed this journey as working towards being put back together.  I am broken and the pieces need to be fitted back together much like a puzzle.  When the puzzle is put together, I am whole again just like I was before.  The fractures are always there as the past cannot be undone, but at least I would be together again.  As a puzzle put back together, the person I once was would be whole again albeit always fractured.  She used the image of a mosaic rather than a puzzle though.
     A mosaic is a piece of art that is made of a lot of small, tiny, broken pieces.  Somehow, an artist looks at the chaos of broken shards and sees a beautiful picture.  The artist works with the chaotic, scattered pieces one by one, carefully placing them just so until they make a new picture...a beautiful piece of artwork to share with the world.  When you look at the whole, you see the beautiful picture the artist created.  If you look closer, you see each tiny, broken shard and the cracks between them where the glue holds them together.  They are not puzzle pieces that fit together snugly.  They are pieces of a mosaic that have breaks between them and a story in each piece that when seen as a whole is a beautiful picture put together by the mind of an artist.
     Just like the start of a mosaic, I am a chaotic, scattered, mess of broken shards.  Yet, God is an Artist who looks at the scattered pieces and sees a beautiful piece of artwork He wants to share with the world.  He patiently works with each tiny, broken shard of me one by one as He creates a new work of art in me.  He is not fitting me back together like a puzzle to be who I was before only with fractures where the pieces fit together.  No, He is making me NEW.
     A mosaic takes old, broken pieces of chaos and brings them together into a new, whole, beautiful work of art.  That is what God is doing.  He is taking the old, broken pieces of my chaos and creating with them a new, whole, beautiful work of art.  When the Artist is finished, others will see a beautiful, whole piece of artwork that He is sharing with the world.  Those who take the time to look closer will see each tiny, broken piece I will be made of.  Each piece holds a story.  Each piece is necessary to create the art He makes with my broken chaos.  The glue that holds all the pieces together, that shows in the tiny spaces and cracks between the pieces, will tell of His faithfulness and grace and mercy.
 
     I find this image one of hope.  It is an image of something new to come.  God is not simply putting me back together to be a fractured version of who I once was.  He is taking the fractured pieces that are laying on the ground a scattered mess and making me new.  When He is done, the fractures where the pieces don't fit perfectly together will not hold stories of where I broke.  No, those fractures will hold stories of how He put me back together.  The pieces that will be seen will not hold stories of who I used to be.  Instead the pieces of the mosaic of me will tell the story of how where I have walked will mold me into who I become.
     God is not putting me together like a puzzle which even when finished is always broken.  He is not simply a problem solver trying to figure out which pieces fit into the same old place.  He is masterfully putting me together into a new work of art that, though made with broken pieces, does not remain perpetually broken.  He is an Artist putting old, broken shards together into a new, beautiful piece of artwork.  You will see the broken pieces in the finished product because what has broken me can never be undone, but you will see how the brokenness will shape who I am made to be.
     There is no hope in being put back together into a fractured version of who I was much like a puzzle.  There is glorious hope in having my  broken pieces put together into a new work of art by an Artist who sees beauty I can't.  He sees the new masterpiece.  He has a vision that I can't see as He works with each shard of my brokenness.  He is putting me back together not into the old me but into someone new and beautiful made of the brokenness I am living now.

     Redemption is not finishing the puzzle.  Redemption is making a mosaic.  The broken will be redeemed as a new piece of art is made from the old.  This picture has been one tiny ray of light in the depths of this darkness.  This hope is helping me hang on as I dangle.  This is giving me a new perspective on where I am going.  This word picture, this idea of being a mosaic, has lifted me a little bit closer to the exit of this pit I've been stuck in.  I haven't gotten out, but I am not falling deeper anymore.  I can see a little bit of light.  That is enough for now.  That is something I needed.

     My precious sisters, broken and scattered, He is not putting the old you together.  He is not merely fitting pieces of an old puzzle back together so all can see where you broke.  He is taking all the broken pieces of who you used to be and artfully creating a new masterpiece telling a story of how you are being put back together...a story of how where you have walked will shape who you become.  Find one tiny thread of hope to cling to in knowing the old you is not being put together, but a new you is being made from what is broken now.  You, my dear sister, are not a puzzle to be fit back together into the old.  You are a mosaic being masterfully made new.

There is more to honest brokenness

     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.