We all have a thing.
The thing that whispers to us in the middle of the night, whether a choice we made in high school, the betrayal of a spouse or the middle of the night phone call we never expected to receive.
It’s the very same thing that the enemy uses to poke and prod at us when we feel most vulnerable, weary, stressed out, or just flat out lonely.
My thing is sexual assault as a child.
I compartmentalized my abuse as best as I could until the fall of 2017 when my body couldn’t handle it any longer. It literally felt as if my bones would cave in on themselves while spontaneously combusting at the same time. Panic attacks, nightmares, and what was diagnosed as “chronic stress,” all but forced me into a counselor’s office for the first time.
So in January of 2018, against a lifetime of valiant effort, my secret spilled out into my world, leaving nothing to be the same again.
What followed were three long years of learning how to deal.
There were moments of relief that felt like I had moved an elephant off of my chest. There were moments of despair that I felt like the mere idea of putting one foot in front of the other would be an impossible exercise for the day. And there were many, many moments in between.
But what I’ve learned through all of the highs, the lows and the in-betweens is that God remains the God He says that He is despite how I feel. I've just got to choose whether or not I'll believe Him.
Y'all - I dare you to believe Him. I dare you to take God at His word. Because all that I have experienced is that God comes through. Even while walking through the pain of heartbreak, deep loss, and grief, He has been for me and with me every step of the way. And if He has done it for me, He will do it for you.
And for each one of you saying "That's your story, but it's not mine", I want to tell you something. I am not the only one with the testimony of God showing up in the dark. I'm not the only one who has struggled to believe, but then been proven right time and again. And I don't want you to just take my word for it.
Starting Wednesday, there will be a beautiful, fierce, brave, bold woman featured here on the blog. She will share her story of believing what she couldn't see, trusting what she couldn't understand. My hope and prayer is that if you can't see yourself in my story, maybe you can see your self in theirs. But most of all, my hope and prayer, is that you would see a pattern of God's faithfulness woven throughout our lives... the same faithfulness God is weaving throughout yours if you would let Him.
So come back here in a few days. And then come back next week. You won't be disappointed, friend.