As they say hind sight is always 20/20, I have a tendency to want to analyze and try to make sense out of chaos and in some crazy way this has been one aspect of survival that I found worked for me. I think there is a lot to be gained by looking at where you have been and where you come from to evaluate your current circumstances. However, it can also be very dangerous ground if you let your past dictate your future and allow it to paralyze you further from making necessary changes in your life. I began to dig deeply asking God why He had been silent in the midst of my storms; the answer I found was pretty profound. God was not silent I was simply not paying attention to what He was trying to tell me. The one thing I realized is that in order to be free from the pain of my past experiences I had to actually deal with them! In today’s society, it is so easy to be on some sort of mood stabilizing drug to help escape life's problems. How are people expected to live happy holistic lives when they can’t or won’t take the time to deal with their pain? You always have the option of running away and taking the easy route but when looking at the long term picture: is that what is truly best for you? I guess in a lot of ways that was me! Although, I have never been on mood stabilizing drugs, I tried to take the easy way out by running away from my problems. I was talking to God like He was some giant genie in the sky and that he was going to make all my problems just – poof – disappear! That’s not reality and that’s not the way God operates. He wants us to be completely well not just gain a temporary fix!
When my problems did not disappear I began to get frustrated with God, as I mentioned earlier. I did not understand why this was happening to me as I had lived the way I knew God wanted me to, I had done everything in my power to do the right thing ( of course failing many many many times but that is what’s called – grace!) and tried to be a good person. In a moment of desperation, I was praying and in this still small voice God was asking me to let all of the hurt go because He was going to help me with it. I had been trying to carry all of my own burdens as if they were my cross to bear never fully understanding that I could actually be healed from the inside out. Once I opened my heart, the opportunities for true healing finally started to come – yes, admittedly there were times where I thought I couldn’t bare where God was taking me but He somehow gave me the strength I lacked. I now can look back and say why didn’t I do this sooner! I have felt so free and God has given me the ability to start to open up my heart to others when I thought I would never be able to. I had been hurt many times that it seemed easier to keep everyone at a distance that way I could protect myself. However, it began to be clear to me I was living in my own form of prison and was not happy with my own solution to the problem because it only isolated me further from where I truly longed to be.
It is so vital to our survival to understand that we cannot do anything all by ourselves and that there is a loving and caring God who loves us and wants us to live in His freedom. Of course, this path is never the easy way, but it is the path of greatest fulfillment and healing. As I gave everything over to Christ, I watched as my load became lighter and the wounds were merely becoming scars to only serve as a reminder of where I had been. Now, I needed to be willing to reach out to others who are hurting. How can we help others when we ourselves aren’t well? We can’t, if we are always running from our own problems, pain and wounds that plague us. The thing I learned was to give it to my creator – let it all go – everything! Embrace the journey by surrendering it all over to Christ, I can now live in His freedom and have the ability to be healed. We are in a “quick fix” generation where we say we want it RIGHT NOW! - if not yesterday! Can we really apply this way of thinking to our own emotional well being and deceive ourselves into thinking that it’s taking care of the problem? Unfortunately, too many people are buying it and it’s pretty apparent when you open your eyes and look around at all the destruction that is present in people’s lives.
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