I know now what I knew not then.
A little girl, a frilly dress, and a building with a steeple. This is how I grew up, this is all I have ever known. Two loving parents, three loving sisters, all of whom told me there was a loving God. I was placed in this story not by choice, but because that's the way life works. Some are born into good families and some aren't. I was born into a good one, and for that I am thankful, but for eighteen years that's all I have let myself know. Most people that I have met throughout the years know that I am a "Christian", it's a pretty easy label(because that is certainly all it is)to live. No matter how broken, lonely, and confused I felt, I couldn't let people see my pain because I thought I would ruin that label, I feared what people would think of me, I feared dissapointment. The truth is, I was just a girl placed in a loving family, a girl told that there was a God who loved her, but deep inside my heart, I didn't believe it. I participated in all of the girls Bible studies, went to youth group every Wednesday night, listened to the pastor and other respected adults tell me things like, "I was fearfully and wonderfully made", or that "God had a plan for my life", but I just didn't know for sure if that was true and so I searched for something that would take away the pain and make me happy. I didn't find that something, I found an eating disorder which linked to a million other problems in my life and definitely one of the hardest things I have ever had to experience, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally.
I battled this from the age of 13 and until I was 15. There were nights when my heart rate was scary low & my parents didn't know if I would make it through the night, there were fits of rage and anger, there were days that I wanted to hurt myself and some days where I did, there were times when I threatened to kill myself and times I wanted to die. There was one too many hospital visits, counseling and nutrition sessions where I wanted to scream, and people who made stupid comments. But, remember, I come from a "Christian" family, so of course I have a prayin' momma who has prayin' friends who have prayin' friends and eventually I got better and there came a point when I acknowledged the fact that God healed me, I couldn't run from Him the way I had been anymore.
My life changed a lot. I began to seek after this God who healed me and I began to realize my life had a purpose. My heart began to change a lot the few months after being released from all those annoying people who told me what to eat, that tried to analyze my feelings, and who made me step on the scale backwards. I wanted more from life after that, and so in short I left the country to serve the people of Guatemala and bring them hope. I was able to tell them how this Great God took me from my darkest night where I wanted to die to that very day standing in front of them wanting life abundantly. I came back from that trip changed, but things went downhill from there.
I started a new school year and had all of my stories to tell, wore a bra I could actually fill out, and people noticed. But again, they only saw the same girl they knew before the eating disorder, the "good Christian girl" and that label was placed right back on me. I began to realize that I still wasn't truly happy. So, I started to engage in some unhealthy habits that ultimately brought me back to a dark place in my life. I wanted people to accept me more than anything else and though I held on to my morals, I had a lot hidden beyond the surface that nobody saw. I made the descision to go to Ecuador on another mission trip the following summer months before and I didn't realize that by the time I was actually ready to leave the country I would be in the middle of a lot of pain within myself and with others, an inner battle I tried to hide. Ecuador ended up being just what I needed, a few crazy wonderful girls who I met came beside me and said, "We're going to do this together" and to this very day we are just as close in heart as we were the night we all cried until we couldn't cry anymore and let everything go. I came back from that trip hopeful which was a good thing, but still the God who had healed me from my sickness didn't feel quite as present in my life as he did before. I pretended that He was though and I made some descisions based on that lie I was living.
I didn't go back to school my junior year of high school because of some personal things I had going on. I chose instead to take online classes and that was one of the hardest descisions we have had to make as a family, but I was in pain and my parents knew that it was the best-descision. I had in mind that it was going to be easier for me to deal with the pain I was feeling if I was away from the negative influences and challenges I would have to face at school. It didn't quite go the way I wanted it to, in fact the past 7 months(second semester of junior year and summer going into senior year) have been some the worst months of my life and everything has changed.
Bad things started happening, one of my bestfriends 7-year old cousins died of cancer. Young lives in my own community have been taken too early. I have had many struggles of my own to deal with and I have questioned God. My whole view of God has been challenged. I don't care if this God healed me from my eating disorder, how in the world could He allow a 7-year old girl to die from cancer? It's like all of a sudden my eyes were opened to this broken world and my whole life didn't make sense anymore. All of this "Christian" stuff and this "religion" that has been forced upon me, didn't make sense to me anymore. Who was this God that I had grown up with? Why wasn't He answering my prayers and showing up when I needed Him? I didn't understand why He would allow me to feeling so much hoplessness in my heart? Because the truth is, I knew there was a God, without a doubt, I just didn't see His goodness anymore. And I didn't know then what I know now.
I read a quotes by Donald Miller that said, "It's funny how you can't ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal. The trouble with you and me is we are used to what is happening to us. We grew into our lives like a kernel beneath the earth, never able to process the enigma of our composition...Nothing is normal. It is all rather odd, isn't it, our eyes in our heads, our hands with five fingers, the capacity to understand beauty, to feel love, to feel pain."
God has brought me through these past several months because my view of Him was warped and my faith distorted. That quote relates so well to what I have been going through- I couldn't ask the difficult questions about life and this God because I was standing in a familiar place, believing only in the God my family told me to believe in. The past several months have made me step back and see things in a whole new way. I wasn't able to process the 'enigma of my composition' because what I have grown up with is all I have ever allowed myself to know. I never searched beyond what I knew, I never asked those questions until now.
Another quote by Donald Miller says,"Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons." I had to leave. I had to leave my home. I had to leave all that was familiar to my heart and find out for myself. And I did. And I wish I would have a long time ago. I have learned much.
I have learned that religion has nothing to do with God and neither does the word Christian. Both are simply words that have no value and the family you are born into has no ultimate effect of your view of God. I have learned that I am my own, I am free, and I can walk my path with dignity, fearlessly touching the hearts of many just by being me-by stripping myself of every fear, doubt, and label and recklessly searching for more in this life, not letting anyone, even the ones closest to heart, shift my feet. I have learned that it's my story and I'm going to make mistakes, it's not going to be perfect, and sometimes I'm not going to know what to do. I have learned I am going to want things that I can't have and have things that I don't want. I have learned that my view of God was false because I thought that for Him to be good, He wouldn't allow bad things to happen.I have learned that this world that I live in and all of it's evils and pains are NOT a reflection of who my God is. God knows all about suffering, He sent His only Son to die on the cross for me, for my messy life. I have learned that He loves me and He does have a plan for me. I have also learned that the people He has sent in my life during this time have been there for a reason and I wouldn't trade that for anything. I have learned that everybody, everybody deserves to be loved. No matter their race, no matter if they are gay or lesbian, no matter if they are an alcoholic, no matter if they are a hypocrite,no matter what. We owe everyone our love, we weren't made to do this alone and spirituality wasn't made to give us a reason for hate, but to rid us of it. I have learned everyone deserves grace and forgiveness.Everyone has a story, why don't we ask them? I have learned that I have to be me and embrace everything that I believe in and everything I don't. I have to be okay with the fact that people may disagree, even my family. But I have to be true to myself and to others. I have learned that it is a dangerous thing to put boundaries on myself, to the the deepest parts of my being, especially when they are created by others but set by me.
“And through a dark night of the soul, I came to realize that salvation happens through a mysterious, indefinable, relational interaction with Jesus in which we become one with Him. I realized Christian conversion worked more like falling in love than understanding a series of concepts of ideas. This is not to say there are no true ideas, it is only to say there is something else, something beyond.”
I love that quote because I have also learned that it's not about rules, or boundaries, or ideas in the Bible, it's about love, it's about a God who created me, and that is it.
And now I know I have walk away from the person I am in this moment, the person I was yesterday and today, because I was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently. And neither were you.
"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."
- Donald Miller
Okay, so I know that was long, but I just really needed to get it all out there because there is hope no matter where we are in life. Hope for me and for you.
