HAD TO LIVE THEM

For many years I was in denial of my past. Whenever someone was able to detect something not right with me, then brave enough to ask me if the divorce of my parents affected me in a negative way, I would always respond, "No, I am fine." Then I would quickly change the subject.

Meanwhile I had all the signs of depression, fear, sadness, unrealistic thinking, etc. I am sure I would have been asked the same question with regards to being sexually abused. That is if I ever shared it with anyone. But that was something I was not willing to share. Not until I sought counseling and was ready to.

Beth Moore who ironically is the same age as I, had an abusive background similar to mine, minus her parents divorcing. In an interview a question was asked Beth if she ever confronted her turbulent past.

"Yes. I went through a season of uncharacteristic despair in my early 30s. I’d never before looked straight at my victimisation, never allowed my mind to replay the images. Every single time they began to erupt, I pressed them down. But I no longer had the energy to do that. The victim in me took over. I felt like I was jumping off the highest cliff and descending into the bottom of a canyon. While Amanda and Melissa knew I was sad, they didn’t have an idea how severe it was. I was good at hiding it; you don’t have my kind of background and not develop a way to do that."

That is how many of us are or have been when we did not or could not face our monsters head on. We were just children. I survived by stuffing my pain, wearing masks, and isolating myself for so many years. Living with my constant depression which eventually adapted to my personality and I could not remember what happiness once was.

Even though I was born again at nineteen, the thirty three years there-after compared to these last couple of years seemed so distant and uneventful to me.

These past couple of years I have grown so much in the Lord than what thirty plus years could have offered. Even knowing the Lord for that long, my pain from the past blocked so much of what He is offering me now. I was NOT ready! My spirit was not ready.

Wow you may say! It took you that long to break through? Yes. That long.

Can I say those years were a waste? I do not think so. I still had to live them to get where I am today.