When we are in this place of the in between, where the Lord has begun revealing the core root of our identity and healing the wounds that brought us to believe and partner with those lies of shame and yet knowing that there is more, but not knowing what the “more” is. So you hang out in this limbo place trusting the Lord to bring you to the next step in this healing journey, all the while feeling the emotions from all that the Lord has revealed. For me it was this recognition that the major relationships in my life were relationships that involved power struggles, manipulation, gaslighting and cruelty. I became aware for perhaps the first time in my life that their thoughts, ideas, beliefs and behaviors never had anything to do with some basic flaw in me. Once I began to see that how those narcissistic traits in them had negatively impacted my life and that there wasn’t anything foundationally wrong with me that caused them to react in this abusive way then I began the journey of healing with the Lord.
The journey established me into a very guttural mourning for all that had happened in my life. The questions with no answers flooded my days, “Why did it take me so long to see it? why did I have to live in that pain for so long?, and why did the actual pain of seeing it trump the pain of living in it?” The Lord in His kindness revealed memories and walked me through them and then would ask me specific questions that would prompt an actual seeing of another aspect of the dysfunctional relationship. Little did I know that I was full blown into the grief stages, mourning a life of ruin and mourning relationships that must die. My emotions were raw and almost any conflict would cause a full on temper tantrum. The emotion of anger typified this season, as the depths of that new reality went deeper everyday. When I thought I had come to the end of the total picture a new facet would be exposed. By this time I had filed for divorce and broken relationships with family members and the repercussions of those two stances flew at me daily. Even in all of pain and conflict, I could feel the real me and all of her strength being redefined.
I feel the anger subsiding as yet again a boundary long fought was crossed in a final power play even last week which caused me to have to defend my ground. In defending it I proved to myself how important my claims are in myself. As the anger began to wane hours later I could feel that every elusive “acceptance” dawning on the very edges of my awareness. Even now I can see the trauma of childhood with all of its scapegoating, blaming, shaming and other mistreatments detaching from me emotionally. In this acceptance of who I became to get my needs met and the relationships I built based solely on that familiarity. I see who the Lord created me to be while sustaining in me my core relationality. I let go of that old familiar dysfunctional me and embrace the new whole me who is relational based in love.
In acceptance I am able to see truth, I wake up and see things exactly as they are for the first time. I see my childhood traumas in a different way; I see that I am lovable and acceptable exactly as I am. I don’t need to become someone else in order to get love. I have stopped beating myself up and I have stopped trying to change myself to please and appease those people who chose control over love. None of the pleasing nor appeasing will ever work as it has its base in control as well. The Lord is now rewriting my past by showing me where and what He was doing in my life while I lived with broken people. He protected my core identity of relationality, creating in me a want to to be in authentic whole relationships, especially with Him and my true family. This truth has rewritten my past and I see I am one whom the Lord chose and the absolute beauty He gives instead of ashes, the price He paid to free this captive was enormous and perfect. My Savior saves me!
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