The Cost of Dreaming Big

There is an inherent risk in dreaming big, something no one ever talks about but is unavoidable and devastating, and that is the inevitable reality of disappointment. Now, I am old pro at dreaming big. I have constructed masterpieces whimsy in my mind that would shame Da Vinci. I have woven together grand and glorious schemes out of nothing more than a whisper of hope that make the Sistine Chapel look like a mere coloring book.

And it more than conjecture or what if’s. I can see myself there in the moment. I can feel the texture of the clothing I shall wear as it all comes to fruition. I can smell the air that crackles with the energy of realized potential, and if I am still enough, I can feel the weight of all the toils and heartaches endured to reach that moment roll off my back.

It is the fuel that keeps me going. It is why I do what I do and why I fight so hard to keep moving forward when everything around me tries to hold me back. I need to dream, like I need to breathe and even more than I need the nourishment of food for my dreams are far richer. In my mind it is not a question of if, but rather of when. For me, it has already happened and I am only waiting for that moment when you shall be able to enjoy the dream with me in this reality.

And then there are days like today.

Days when I realize I don’t have a play left. Facts, reality, the truth, whatever you wish to call it, are greater than my dreams and I have to admit that, at least for the moment, I have been defeated.

Days like this aren’t frequent. They are a strange and unfamiliar land, one that I have managed to dodge more times than any human has a right to – a fact I am grateful for, but it does not make it any less painful to be here. Maybe it is my lack of experience with this place that causes me to freeze, to set back and watch the sky fall bit by crumbling bit with nothing more than remorseful resignation.

Days like this make me doubt, not my faith, but my ability to trust God. And yes, there is a difference. For I have all the faith in the world that God is greater than my mind can comprehend. Questioning his power, his holiness, and his sovereignty never crosses my mind. I have faith that when I pray on your behalf that he will move mountains to care for you, to provide for you, and to demonstrate his love for you. Faith is not an issue. Faith is as real to me as gravity, an undeniable and powerful force not be ignored.

But trust? That is another matter.

Trust means that I am willing to believe no matter what the evidence or circumstance says that everything that is will be for my good. That is a harder thing to believe, particularly when the circumstances hurt. And they do hurt when you watch your dream evaporate.

This is where most Christian blog writers would give you some great spiritual insight. Sorry, but today, I have none. It just hurts. And my sadistic little brain keeps running through all the ways that life is unfair, making a tally of all the things that I have sacrificed and balancing against all that I think I have gained. I am involuntarily running down the list of people who have gained so much more and done so much less, and I am trying not to drown in self-pity or get puffed up with sanctimonious outrage that life isn’t fair – that God isn’t fair.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know all the right Christian answers and I can quote all the appropriate verses for you. And I have lots of people in my life who are willing to quote them back at me, but you know what? When it hurts this bad, all of that is nothing more than salt in a bloody wound, and while I know that everyone means well, it feels like I am being told that my emotions in all this do not matter, like my disappointment and pain should just be swept under the rug and ignored.

I know my dream was unrealistic and that there were too many obstacles standing in the way to ever think that it might be done in this life. I get it, but do you think for one second I would be feeling this way if I did not have faith enough to dream in the first place? If I did not think for one second that my God was strong enough and great enough to accomplish all that I believed could happen? Of course, I did or I would not be facing disappointed now. The question was never faith. It’s not the question now.

The question is can I trust him? My mind started out screaming yes – decreeing it if we want to use the right church vernacular, but after the past few years that scream has become a whisper lost in the storm. For no matter how much I know what the right answer is, my heart is bleeding with the wounds that faith has dealt me, that daring to trust has cost me.

So I turn the pages, find the Psalm that reminds me that I am not alone. There was another who felt this way, another who dared to ask that dreadful question that only the truly brave can ask, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Because sometimes, you don't need answers, you just need to know that you are not alone. 

The Importance of Shame

Yesterday, I shared an interview that Charisma Magazine did with my friend Dennis Jernigan. Not that I was too fond of the way Charisma decided to twist his words into a click bait headline, or that they did a pretty hard cut and paste of what Dennis said within the article itself, but rather because I know Dennis and I believe that there are people who need to hear his story.

As I expected, there was an immediate reaction, and most of it was negative. There were several comments, but most of them revolved around the concept of shame. The idea being that even in telling his story he was and is, and if I know Dennis, will continue to heap shame upon others by declaring his victory over homosexuality.

All of this got me to thinking, which is always dangerous, when did shame become a bad thing?

Seriously, why do we automatically reject anything to do with shame? I know that there are times when shame is unhealthy and damaging. I know that it is always painful and that it can drive people to do some really awful things in their lives, but does that mean that shame should be avoided at all costs?

There is a part of me that would love to think that shame is a horrible emotion that we should just outright rejected in our lives. I never liked being ashamed and shame was what kept me from seeking help when I was in the middle of an abusive marriage. The weight of it all left me self-destructive and suicidal, and I only learned how to speak up when I managed to free myself from those feelings. Part of what I do now is help other women to free themselves of the shame that has kept them quiet so that they can walk towards healing and with confidence of God’s love for them. There really would have never been any need for my book Scandalous if so many women had not been bullied into silence by the destructive power of shame. So, yeah, I am not a big fan of that particular emotion.

But there is another story, one that I haven’t told all that often – probably because I have been, well, ashamed.

Sometime after my divorce, I found someone who made me happy. There are no words to describe how complete I felt with this person or how they eased all the wounds I carried since leaving the warzone of my marriage, but there was one problem. This person was unwilling to commit to loving only me. I knew I could never be happy hanging out on the fringes of their life. I wanted to be the center of their world, just like they had become the center of mine. So I did everything in my power to facilitate that. I began bending and twisting the rules, reinterpreting the decrees of my faith to make allowances for my lust, and justifying my actions under the guise of love.

God is the God of love, I told myself, and so he must want this for me. God would never allow me to feel such passion for something he did not bless. He would have never created me this way if he knew it would cause me to sin in his eyes, so I must not be sinning to do what was so incredibly natural for me. This was his design, everyone knows this, and only a fool would say that it is evil to experience the bliss I felt only with this person.

Looking back, I can see the flaws in my logic. I know now that what comes natural to humanity is very often the very things that God does call sin. He has no use for my happiness when it comes at the expense of who he declared me to be, and his greatest desire is that I would love him above all others. If that means putting aside my own desires as a demonstration of that love, I need to do it, and if I am allowing my happiness to be pervert his word to serve me then I am declaring that my happiness, not God, is the one I am worshipping.

I won’t lie to you. It wasn’t easy turning loose. I can’t tell you how devastated I was when I finally walked away, and what was worse, I had no clue as to who or what I was walking towards. Sure, I knew I was chasing Father, but what that looked like this side of eternity, I didn’t know. And the idea of living my life alone terrified me as few other things ever had. I had become so enmeshed in my dream of being with this person and finding my fulfillment in a life with them that I did not even know how to define who I was or who I could be without them because every image of the future I possessed had them at my side.

How did I do it? How did I find the courage to finally make that cut? Well, it didn’t start out as courage. It started out as shame. Big, ugly, nauseating shame. The type of shame that makes you doubt if you are worthy of life. The type of shame that rubs salt into the wounds of loss by demanding that you admit how stupid you had been, how you had let yourself be played, and how you had sold out everything you believe to be true so that you could have a few moments of fun that left you utterly unfulfilled and tormented.

But shame becomes something amazing when presented to Father. Shame stops being that ugly worm that gnaws at your guts and finds wings as it transformed into repentance, and finds its true form in faith. I think this is the step so many of us are unwilling to take, and why shame paralyzes us or propels us to do horrible things to ourselves, we don’t trust the process of repentance. We buy into the lie that if our walk to Father begins in pain that it will continue in pain. So we recoil before he can lead us through the process. All we can focus on is what we are losing, and when we shift our gaze to him we see our sins laid bare before a God who loved us so much he withstood the shame of the cross on our behalf. Knowing that so much ugliness was heaped upon one so perfect makes your soul bleed. Everywhere we turn is nothing but pain! Giving up seems to be the only option where we don’t have to hurt.

Having faith means that we learn how to trust the process, and sometimes the process means embracing the pain. I think there is reason for this, and I don’t think it is because is some celestial sadist. I think he wants us to know the depth of the wounds we carry within us. I think he wants us to feel our sickness has invaded every part of our being and how it has warped us into something that he never desired us to be. I think he wants us to learn how to hate our sin, but more importantly, I think he wants us to know our sin does not define us. For how will we ever celebrate the grandeur of his love and forgiveness if we are unable to acknowledge the depths of the healing?

No, shame is not a bad thing. It is a necessary thing, but something should only last for season – a tool to be picked up and then cast aside as we celebrate God’s redeeming love that was given when we were still lost in our sin.  

The Most Awful Verse In The Bible

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28

Okay, can we just real here for a second?

This verse is awful, and I mean it. Now don’t go acting all spiritual and holy on me now, because you know it is true and I can prove it. Just think back to the time when your life was falling apart, when a loved one was dying, you had lost your job, you were in the middle of divorce, facing financial ruin, or life in general was just kicking you around. Some idiot walked up to you and quoted this verse, and while your brain said, “Oh, yes this is right,” your heart was saying, “Fat lot of good that does me right now.”

They acted like they were curing cancer by slapping on a bandaid, and you were supposed to be grateful when deep down you knew you were still dying. And to make matters worse, they were busy patting themselves on the back being spiritual enough to quote the appropriate verse and you were supposed to join in the party for this little spiritual trick.

Ok, so I guess my problem is less with the verse and more with those of us who act like it is the magic cure for what ails you. It is what we pull out when there is nothing else to say, and we are feeling pretty helpless. We use it like a spell or magic charm against our pain, our discomfort in face of another’s suffering. We have learned that if we say the right words we get bypass all that icky emotion. We can justify our reluctance to get involved in a situation that might cost us something or make something that we don’t want to feel. It is easier to act like a Christian when you aren’t bogged down by all the baggage of human suffering, but is that what being a Christian is all about? Avoiding the pain of another so that we can live an unaffected life?

I don’t believe that is.

When I look back that life Jesus I keep tripping over this phrase, “and he was moved by compassion.” It comes up twelve times in the New Testament and is used solely for describing Jesus response to those in need and in his parable of the Prodigal Son. (Now, stand back, I’m going to break out the Greek.) The word in the Greek text is splagchnizomai, and it is one of those times when we are confronted by the limitations of the English language because compassion is so pale compared to the depth of this word. Splagchnizomai is the gut level, stomach turning, heart ripping yearning for an end to another’s pain because you feel it in the core of who you are.

Splagchnizomai doesn’t leave room for platitudes or clichés. It demands action even if all you can do in the moment is weep with another in their suffering, but there is also something amazing and beautiful about this word. Something awe inspiring and powerful to be found in its usage that should shake us from any desire to live an unaffected life – it is the word of miracles.

Five of the twelve times we find splagchnizomai, it is used as the description of Jesus’ emotions before he heals, before he feeds the masses, and before he stops the power of evil dead in its tracks. Notice Jesus is not removed from the situation, he not above it, or beyond the pain, he steps into the reality of those who are hurting and it is in the moment of unity with humanity that divine love is manifest. He moves from observer to participant, from knowing to experiencing, and in doing so draws the hurting into the experience of the divine.

I am often asked why we don’t see more miracles today, and I think this is the reason. We stopped feeling, we stopped allowing the pain of another to rip at our guts, and we started handing out hallmark greeting cards instead of stepping into the midst of another’s heartache. We hide behind our definition of holiness instead of being conformed to the image of holiness found in our Lord. We tried to make this faith less costly and did so by perverting the Scripture into a message far more comfortable and gentle to our delicate sensibilities.

After all, how often have you heard the rest of that passage in Romans 8, other than in a debate about predestination?

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not to know what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be called the first born among many brothers. And for those he predestined he also called, and those he whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

See, the passage isn’t about someone else. It is about you. It is about me. It is about the Spirit groaning on our behalf for our weakness, and I believe one of our greatest weaknesses is the fear of feeling someone else’s suffering as if it were our own.  I believe that if we love God we will walk desire to rise above that fear and in that moment we get to experience and share in the goodness of God. And I believe that we are fulfilling our purpose when we respond, when we allow the pain of another to turn our guts with the power of love. When we trust God enough to go there, to allow ourselves to be conformed to the image of his Son in this way, we are becoming who are supposed to be, and maybe we are opening the door to the miraculous in the life of another.

My Bipolar Faith - No that's not a joke

One of the million and one fun facts about being Emily is I wrestle with being bipolar. When I tell people this I often get that “Ah, I see you are telling a self-deprecating joke and I am going to play along” giggle, followed closely by the “Oh, crap! She’s serious and I have no idea how to respond” fumbling attempts at politeness. Now, just to be clear, this in no way offends me. After all, that’s exactly the type of joke I would crack about myself and expect you to laugh along. I can’t blame anyone for being confused, but the fact is I have an official diagnosis of “highly functional bipolar complicated by PTSD.” Doesn’t that make me sound like a fun fill bag of unpredictability and chaos?

I decided to write about this because I have recently learned that many of my friends had no clue. I have never considered it to be a secret or an overly sensitive issue that I have tried to keep hidden. It is just part of my life and a part that I have to deal with on a daily basis so I rarely feel the need to bring it up in casual conversation. Besides, it rarely works out well.

“I just repainted my bathroom a lovely green, not too sherberty and not too sagey. What have you been up to?”

"Me? Oh, I haven’t done much. Just got through a hypo-manic episode so I have been on lock down in my house and trying not make obscene posts to Facebook.”

I don’t think that I will ever get to the place where I will celebrate the fact that I have to constantly examine each and every thought, emotion, and impulse because my brain has decided that it didn’t like all the chemicals to be properly balanced. Dealing with that is draining at a level I cannot begin to articulate. However, I can say with conviction that it has forced me to be intentional about many of my life choices that I may have otherwise cruised past without a thought.

I had to accept that my emotions lie to me, and if that wasn’t special enough, so do my thoughts. I have to actively work to silence the voices that tell me to get in my car and drive until I hit an ocean, that I can always get more credit cards if I max out the ones I have, or that taking off my clothes in public is great idea. At times like these, when I too big and too great to be contained by anything and every fiber of my being is fighting against the restraints, be it geographical or financial restraints or even just my socks, I have to remember the truth. This is nothing more than the chemicals in my brain lying to me. These are not good options and I would be destroying the good things in my life, things I may not think I love today, but will remember I do love tomorrow, or in a few days at least.

But that is just the beginning, because human beings don’t like confinement and especially not those of us with a major malfunction in our heads. I react to this type of self-imposed discipline with anger - unrealistic, irrational anger that can spew out on those closest to me with the least bit of perceived provocation. (Please note the use of the word perceived in the previous sentence.) In my state of hyper-vigilance, I notice everything and I have to fight the feeling that everything is directed at me on the most personal level ever conceived. Music too loud? You did that to make me mad. Dirty dishes in the sink? Really, you want to set me off. Didn’t call? Did call? You are ignoring me or trying to disrupt my day. Got sick, can’t make our lunch date? Sure, you really just could stand to be near me.

You name it. I can find a reason why you meant it as an attack. So I swing the other way, and deliberately attempt to depersonalize everything. I shut down. I don’t respond, and I keep you at arm’s length. It is easier that way, and I am far less likely to say or do something that is unforgivably cruel. The problem is that safe guard is also cruel to those who genuinely love me and feel as if I don’t care about them when I can shut it down so effectively.

There is no winning this game, but it is one I will play for the rest of my life. It isn’t easy and I there are some days I would give my left leg to be normal. (Whatever that is.) And yes, I am serious. Did you notice the specificity of the limb I would relinquish? You don't get that specific if you didn't put some thought into it, but that is pipe dream, and I have to accept that.

I also have to accept that I have hurt people in the wake of my fury and despondency. I have to own that, because no matter how great the chemical imbalance tempted me towards irrational thoughts or behaviors, I made the choice to do as they dictated or to deny them the right to define me. I get to choose if the sum total of my life would be a disorder or something of my own making. Some days, I choose better than others, and I am learning to be more consistent in those choices. I had to learn to accept help, to be open with my family about those days when I felt the world beginning to spiral and stop acting as if I had it all together all the time, and I had to learn when to say “enough, I need a break” without just running away leaving everyone to feel like I had abandoned them.

It is hard on my pride. I want to be in control, and I want to have it all together. Above all, I want to be there for those who are important to me, and I am still trying to figure out how to do that in better ways than I have in the past. I am also learning how to remain open even in those moments when shutting down is safer and easier than running the risks of annihilating the world around me, and that has got to be the scariest thing I have ever attempted because I know how thin that line between open and out of control really is.

In all the years of fighting this, there has been one saving grace. I had a standard of truth to cling to. I did not have to rely on the thoughts inside my head or the feeling that washed over me to tell me what was good or right. The answers do not come from the inside, they are found in the revelation of God in his Word. I had to decide to hone my ability to empathize so that I could offer what I believe my faith requires of me.  After all, even if I feel like I am huge black hole of impenetrable darkness that does not mean I can act as if everyone else is. So while careening my car into oncoming traffic might solve some of my problems, I have to remember it might put a huge damper on someone else’s big day. And those days when I am too great to be bothered by the pettiness of your life, I am really working on trying to remember that your pain is valid and real and should be honored as such, instead of cavalierly declaring that death of your dog is just part of life and you should get over it.

I had to decide what I believed. By that I don’t mean that I could just make an intellectual assent to my faith or the dictates of it. I had to get honest about how sincere I was about the Christian ethic of love, kindness, and grace. I had to make a cognitive choice to live these things despite what I may or may not be feeling in a moment, and the most beautiful thing of all is I am not expected to give you a feeling that I have to manufacture on my own. I just have to give you the love that I have been given, the love a Savior that is supposed to flow through me – a love that is far superior to any created within my heart or mind. In that there is freedom, from the condemnation of my inadequacies and the shame of not always feeling as Christian as I think should. The command to me, to us all really, isn’t too feel a certain way, but to act in accordance to His word. So that is the part I am working on. You know, the stuff I can control, most days.

Bloody Issues - When Proper Is Not Proper

"Emily, why don't you share with the class some of the things her condition would entail."

"Oh, yeah, pick me," I smarted off before I could stop myself, but the prof just grinned. I fumbled for a second as I struggled to gather my thoughts. I had never really considered what this woman was going through. After all, we all know that proper Christians blow right by the uncomfortable section of the Bible and focus on the greater theological questions of the text. And this was long before my "scandalous" days, before I had learn to field all those embarrassing biological questions with a certain amount of finesse. 

The text in question was Mark 5:24-34, most commonly referred to as "The Woman With An Issue Of Blood. What a pretty and proper way to phrase it! Imagine if we called it what it is - "The Woman Who Had The Tsunami Of All Periods". Now that grabs your attention. 

Christians have a bad habit of never quite saying what they mean when it comes to issues of sex. We have this entire vocabulary that allows us to reference these unsettling bits of the Bible without actually saying the words. We say things like: "he knew his wife", "the way of women", "uncovered nakedness", "issues", "discharge", "violate", "immorality", "impure", or if you are daring, "sexual sin".

The problem is when we use all our proper little code words we do to things to the text:

1. We prevent those who did not get the secret Christian decoder ring from understanding what we are saying.

2. We are missing the full impact of what God has to say about our bodies and sex - both good and bad.

Look, I know that we use these terms out of respect. No one wants to be crude and vulgar when dealing with God and the Bible, but we need to ask ourselves some questions:

1. Did God ever sacrifice clarity for propriety?

2. Are we showing more concern for societal demands than what God has said in his Word?

If we consider that when the Bible was written, and recognize it was written in terms that the receiving culture would understand the answers to these questions become clear. God never flinched at our sexuality - even the *ugly* parts. Every time he speaks of sexuality, he is bold, blunt, and honest. So much so that even in the soften English translations it is hard not feel a bit squeamish about passages like Ezekiel 23 or Leviticus 15. And Song of Songs? Read that without imposing metaphor or allegory onto the text and you will find that it is flat out HOT!

But let's return to our original story, the woman who surfed the red tide for twelve years. 

Consider for a moment how changing the language we use to reference it changes our perspective. No longer is God removed from our condition as women. He is not snarling down at out bodies in disgust. Instead God, present with us in the person of Jesus, cares about our bodies. He cares about our periods and physical discomforts. He is not repulsed by our femininity or the evidence of our sex. Instead, he sees even this as reason to respond in compassion and with healing. 

How many women need to know this about our Lord? How many of our sisters need to experience healing in the area of their sexuality in physical, emotional, and spiritual levels? But how many feel that this part of who they are is too repugnant or shameful to bring to our Savior?

In many ways, we have been condemned to live our lives as this unnamed woman. According to law and convention, we are consigned to the role of social outcast, destined to suffer in silent acceptance if we wish to be deemed proper. 

However, I think she shares another truth. In verse 32, Mark says that she told him "the whole truth." How I wish we had a transcript of that conversation! Imagine what it must have been like for her to stand there, looking into Jesus' eyes, telling him about something that most of us have been taught keep hidden. Could today's Christian woman be so bold? So shameless? Or have we lost our ability to come to God with the whole truth in matters of sex?  I hope not, because I believe she is teaching us that if we dare to step in faith, fight our way through the crowds, risk being rebuked for our boldness, we can find that hem to grab hold of and in that moment gain the chance to hear him say, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace."

Broken Friends and Broken Faith

He was sitting at the corner table where I tended bar. His bowed head and the rosary laced through whitened knuckles were both new to me. The familiar ringing (and slightly derogatory) greeting was absent, lost somewhere in the heaving shoulders and silent sobs.

The story that unfolded was not shocking. He and his boyfriend had been having problems for weeks, and now Bill* said they were through. I have to admit that every bit of my fundamentalist upbringing was cheering, celebrating the possibility that may be now…

But my jubilation was short lived, and compassion took over. No matter how much I may have disagreed with my friend’s lifestyle - he was, and is, my friend, and friends do not celebrate another’s pain.

He held out the rosary, odd ends and disjointed beads dripping from between his fingers. “Even my faith is broke,” he choked out. I pried the chains out his hand and set to work, bending and twisting the links back into their proper order as I listened to the events that had left my friend an emotional wreck.

He finished his tale and I returned his rosary. “It’s fixed. You fixed my faith,” he gasped.

“That’s what friends do,” I quipped. In the space of heartbeat, the truth of my thoughtless words exploded through me and washed over him. For  a moment, having a friend was more than enough reason to push aside his need for tears and my need to fix him.

*Not his real name.

He Said He Looks At Porn

He said he looked at porn, but only until we got married. It helped him, he said. He didn’t need to sleep around if he could use it and it was a better alternative to having sex with a slutty girls. I believed him, was grateful even that he was being smart.

He said he looked at porn, but it was for us. He wanted our sex life to be better and we all know how boring married sex can be. He told me it was better than cheating and he didn’t feel so tempted this way. I didn’t like it, but  if it kept him from cheating I was relieved.

He said he looked at porn because I wasn’t enough for him, that I would never “screw like other girls” because I didn’t have enough experience. He said I was too skinny, and then I was too fat. I was too demanding and not aggressive enough. He told me I was the reason he needed it and if I was someone else he would give it up. I was hurt and I vowed to be better.

He said he looked at porn because I was changing. I wasn’t the woman he married and fell in love with, that I had stopped being so sweet and innocent, that I had failed to be who I said I was when were dating. I was devastated. I had tried to be who he wanted me to be, do what he wanted me to do, and I had failed. I had lost myself to his demands and still I was not enough.

He says he looks at porn, because I’m not there anymore. I woke up and realized that all the lines he had fed me were excuses to cover his addiction. I was good enough, sexy enough, and exciting enough, but he couldn’t see it through the ever changing kaleidoscope of women that he paraded past his eyes. Now that I am gone he knows that I would probably still be there if he had not looked at porn.

When Our Scars Offend

Warning Emily Rant -

I have become very comfortable telling my story over the past few years. I love empowering others by sharing what I learned about myself, my faith, and my God as I healed from the wounds left by an abusive marriage.

The stigma so many victims experience has been something I believed I had left in the dust, but today I was confronted by one who believed that my past still defined me. I was informed my medical issues stemmed from this past abuse, a trick of the mind and emotions manifesting in physical pain with "no real physiological reason."

I was shut down and ignored because I was honest about my past when questioned. This event served as a rude but effective reminder of how our culture tempts us to define ourselves according to our wounds. How we are pressured into seeing ourselves as nothing more than the deepest gash or hardest punch we have ever endured.

I find this to be offensive because my wounds do not define me nor does my abuser have the right to dictate all that I am allowed to be. I will always carry the scars from those days, there will be some tender places, and I may even flinch occasionally, but there is healing - wonderful, amazing healing!

I refuse to cover my scars. I carry them with a certain amount of pride, not so that others can pity me as victim, but so that they too can know healing is possible. I am honest about my past because for some it is their present, and my hope is that for others it shall never be their future.

I was labeled and shoved into a convenient box today. The broken and wounded are easier to deal with, the proper response of pity or disdain is hard wired in our being. We are merely a problem to fix or ignore depending on your temperament, but healed, the victorious survivor is an unpredictable creature at best. We are a challenge to the world, declaring that we will not be destroyed or controlled by another. We force those around us to grapple with possibility that one must take responsibility for their lives and actions because we did. In the midst of doubt, pain, and fear we chose to become someone greater than our wounds. We rob others of the excuse not to do the same with their unbroken lives.

You Are Not Alone

The Biggest lie we tell ourselves is we live in our own special type of hell, that no one else knows what it is like to feel the we do. We convince ourselves that our pain is a special pain, and there has never been another who has felt as alone, abandoned or betrayed the way we do. No understands us because no one else is like us.

Our greedy little minds start hoarding all the little details that sets us apart from everyone else. Our differences become our validation, our justification for misery and self-pity. Even as we wallow in our angst there is the smallest hint of pride, pride that my pain is not like your’s and your’s will never be like mine. Deep down inside we like it that way.

The truth is our pain isn’t special. It isn’t new and it isn’t unique. It is what we have all known or will know. We just don’t talk about it. We don’t share it because at first it is just too difficult, too scary, but then we use it as a shield, a way to keep others at a distance. It’s easier. It means we don’t have to put up with embarrassing and awkward questions. No one else gets to hurt us, and we can feel special in our misery.

Healing only happens in the Light, when we pull out all the ugly parts and expose them to the warmth. It is when we find that there are others holding the same deep ache wishing for someone to understand. We can do that for each other if we are willing to lay aside our pride, stop fearing that we will lose that one thing that makes us special and embrace our chance to pull others into the sun with us - and suddenly, you will find you are not alone.