progress

I've had a lot to think about this week. I had an epiphany several days ago, one of those moments that something picks the scab off a part of your heart you knew was a little hurt, but until that moment you didn't realize how bad it was - or why. The hardest part of having one of those moments is that once you know you can't stay the same with out choosing to stay the same. And with an option like that I feel forced to change, because the alternative is so wrong.

So I'm in the very uncomfortable place of having to address how I have always dealt with loss. I'm having to look at the ways I have learned to anesthetize the pain and emptiness in the parts of my soul that should've been nurtured, protected and loved and never were. And the more I look at, think and pray about it the more I realize how deep this goes...all the way back to my unsafe and neglected infancy when I learned that having needs was bad unless I could find a way to meet them myself.

I guess you could say that I'm a survivor, but It's not something I'm proud of. To be perfectly honest, I've come to realize that I resent that I've been forced to survive and wasn't given the liberty to just live. The self-sufficiency I picked up along the way has kept me "in charge" to the degree that most of the time I don't know how to let God be the one that makes me feel safe, loved and protected. I don't know how to stop trying to fix this myself, and instead let Him come and fill the places of loss. This has effected so much of my life, and I'm just now seeing it. It's been a hard one to look at.

I do take comfort in my experiences that have taught me that God never shows me these deep and difficult things without walking them out with me. He has never left me hanging and has always given me the grace and the strength to learn to be healthy in the areas He brings to the point of change. So here I go, learning to walk with my eyes open about this. I pray He keeps me motivated to continue tending these things until I see the fruit of change.