I am going to be honest, I fall in all three categories. As much as I try to avoid that deep stuff, you know THE deep stuff, it keeps coming back. Imagine that? It seems to find you in every song you hear, every sermon you hear, every book you read, its like that three year old that says mom, mom, mom, MOOOMM? You can't ignore it, you eventually have to turn around and snap back, WHAT?
Well, that deep stuff has been gnawing at me for a while now, really years, but back in December it yelled that final MOOOMM and I could no longer ignore it.
You know, its the strangest thing to be sitting here at a , for lack of a better cliche term, crossroads and be so hyper aware of it. You know that you can't go back, but you can't just keep moving straight forward because you do have to choose a path, the road is forking and a decision has to be made. So I sit here at this fork (kinda hungry actually right this second at the mention of all these forks) and I realize that I can't make a decision until I talk about it. Sure, I could call a friend (which I have done) and just vomit it all out, but it didn't seem to help. So I am returning here to something I truly enjoy doing, writing.
So here it goes (obviously I need to work on not getting distracted). Back in December, Pastor Steve, did a Christmas at the Movies themed series and one of them was on How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We all know the story and everyone loves it when the Grinch's heart grows three times bigger and he finds love for Cindy Lou Who and the town of Whoville and of Christmas again. Well, it was like a bullet to the gut when Pastor Steve began to talk about that part.
Some people, including Christians, yes even the ones who raise their hand on Sunday and are smiling all the time, have allowed their heart to shrink. For some they choose it intentionally because they don't want to get hurt and some it happens to over time before they ever realize it.
See, I have experienced quite a lot in my short 27 years on this Earth. I struggle, there are people in this world who have it far worse than I ever will and who experience things on a daily basis that my mind can't even fathom. But as true as this is, it doesn't make my hurt any less and it has taken me a long time to believe that.
In my 27 years, I have seen a hospital room more days than I wish to count both as a patient and visiting my dad and I now need my toes to count my surgeries. I grew up in a dysfunctional family, yes I have family who love me to pieces, but it didn't make it any less dysfunctional. I got pregnant in high school and married. I don't remember what a two parent house hold feels like. My mom walked out before I could really even talk and the next wife ended up doing more damage to my dad and my world. I grew up from four years old till 7th grade in a house in which I was given a path to walk and was told not flush the toilet because we might run out of water. I was left at school by this woman because the meat in the back of her car might rot in the extra few minutes she had to wait. I watched my Dad and my Aunt fight for their lives every day with a terrible disease. My dad is still fighting, and my Aunt won her battle and is with her Savior. I have been sexually assaulted. I have watched people that were supposed to love me and supposed to be there to hold me up, take pieces of me without looking back. See, I was always told I was too trusting, and that I have too big of a heart. Well, after enough people and circumstances broke it, I guess it got smaller.
So here I am sitting in Church, and the term I have heard all my life at Christmas (His heart grew three sizes that day) hit me like a ton of bricks. It was then I realized that I have shrunk my heart to avoid pain and heartbreak for so long that I had successfully shut out my Savior. I didn't trust him to be good to me or to take care of me. I had decided so long ago that I was not worth anything really that I had come to believe that God thought the same thing. See I took all that stuff I just talked about and put it all on me. Everything bad that has ever happened was because I must have screwed something up, I must be guilty. It is true that some things like my pregnancy are a consequence of my sin, but see I have deemed myself responsible for all of it. People always leave. I have come to believe that and that I will always mess everything up.
So, for the last few months I have been chewing on this, not moving and not healing, just chewing. Then Pastor Steve starts a new sermon series in April called "Who Needs God?" and another truth hit me and knocked me on my butt. I don't believe in the God of the Universe. (Hold on, I am not done, don't freak out over that line) I have come to believe in a God that I have to live up too and that I have to do everything right for and that if I am perfect, maybe he will show me some sort of favor. See, I have the mentality that for every time I screw up he is going to punish me for it. Which would be all the time, because lets face it, I am loud and brash and emotional and I tend to push people away over little things. I let my emotions get the best of me and end up hurting people around me. I don't think I deserve to be loved by anyone and I feel that I have to earn friendship and love. To be painfully honest, I don't believe that anyone would ever actually love me for me, so I try too hard. So this God that I have been worshiping is not the God of the Bible. He is a perverted version my circumstances and blinders have created that leaves me feeling worthless and unloved and like a perpetual screw-up.
Now, I know y'all are expecting some big revelation and that I am free of this and healed, but unfortunately this way of thinking and these broken pieces are still here. I am no where close to healing. I am working on trusting God, the real God and trying to figure out who He is, the one of the Bible. I believe in him and I believe he died for my sins no doubt, but right now, my prayer is the he be small and reveal his real self to me so that I can get to know the God that loves me unconditionally and knows how many hairs are on my head.
So there it is, all layed out and honest. I do believe this somewhere in my tiny heart that God has a hope and a future for me and my family and that will have to be enough for a now. Because one thing I have become sure of in all of this, He will never leave me nor forsake me and he doesn't require us to be okay all the time or to be wrapped up nice and pretty with a bow. He just asks us to come as we are. So here I am, just me, everything else faded away, praying for my broken pieces to be healed.
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