HeLloOoOoOooooo...
If you have ever answered a phone call from me you would read that in my exact voice- if you haven't- call me ;) jk.
But yes, hello! I am back and I am promising myself that this post will not be -yet another- draft that never sees the light of day. I started this blog this month three years ago and I think this year I wrote a total of.. oh maybe three posts? Which for me- I find that unfortunate as I did the one thing I promised my dad I wouldn't do. I promised my dad I would "never stop writing" and yet here I was- not writing. But thanks to some encouragement from my old roommate/close friend, Katherine, I am determined to write out all the things I have stored up in my mind and heart.
So Katherine, and anyone else who has always encouraged me to continue writing, this blog is dedicated to you. Not because the topic is related to you in any sort of way- but because part of my healing process is through writing and through all of the encouragement, I think I am ready to write again.
OKAY! Enough sappy, emotional, stuff.
If you didn't read the title- well, healing hurts.
The end.
Just kidding.
The reality of life is people hurt people because well- we are people. We are emotional, always learning life in a new way, sometimes really stupid, and just overall human. I know I have fallen short for so many people in my life- and even when I have the best intentions- I know I have hurt others.
That's life. But what do we do with it? We all know we can't walk through life hurting because not only will that do more damage to ourselves, but it will end up doing damage to others. But how do we heal? Or, how do we not heal?
The last three years of my life have been a "thrown in the deep end and figure out how to swim" learning lesson of healing and I would say for about two years I did it all the wrong ways. This year was the first year I decided to heal in a way that didn't just put a band-aid on what was broken- but allowed for a deep "surgery" like healing on what was so deeply damaged- and let me tell you, the process hurt.
It hurt because
I had to acknowledge it.
Whenever I have been hurt I have been the type of person to quickly throw myself into a very busy schedule to avoid any sort of topic on my pain. I would throw myself into more work, maybe start a new Netflix binge, call my mom 12 times an hour, or I would even plan a lot of weekend get aways. But not in the "these things help heal my heart" but in the "let me be distracted by these things" and all that did was prolong the healing because at the end of the night, when all the friends have left my house and my phone gets put on silent, I am left with God, myself, and whatever was in my heart.
When I ignored the pain this crazy thing happened where it got worse. While I lived in L.A. I was driving my dad's almost 20 year old F-150. For about two weeks this truck was making a noise I knew wasn't all that great, so I just turned up my music and kept on driving like there was no issue. When I went home to visit, I let my dad take his truck to work only for him to call me and let me know that because I ignored the noise- which was the breaks needing to be replaced- we now had to replace the rotors. How my dad had to describe that to me- because I know nothing of cars- was: "Because you ignored the problem, it did more damage and now it's going to take longer and much more to fix it."
Which leads me to-
I had to confront it.
I hate conflict. I am terrible with it. So much so, if the server gets my order wrong, I will quietly eat my burger with cheese even though I am lactose intolerant. I can acknowledge that my order is wrong, tell my friends that my order is wrong, even post about my order being wrong, but if I don't tell the server and get it fixed, I'm going to be sick for three days.
What is painful about confronting our hurt is sometimes we come to the realization that, hey, maybe we were also apart of the problem. Part of confronting is also tearing down our pride and owning up to where we have fallen short. The reality is- we may be hurt- but it's not always entirely someone else's fault. Matthew 7:3-4 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" Sometimes we have to confront ourselves. Am I hurt because you wronged me or am I hurt because my wrong actions caused an emotional reaction from you?
So, we acknowledged we are hurt and we are confronting it, but how?
I had to take it to the altar.
Maybe that's cliche- but this is the truth, the only one who can heal my heart is the one who gave it to me in the first place. I can get an apology from someone who hurt me, but that's just a band-aid. I can decide to stop numbing the pain with alcohol and decide to never drink again- but I am still hurt. I can only do so much in my power that will lead me to healing. I think the most powerful thing I can do is bring it to the Lord.
Psalm 34:17-20 "The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time. For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous; not one of them is broken!"
The best thing I could have ever done in my time of deep hurt was get on my knees and cry out to God. The sweetest words that I ever read during my pain was that of what I found when I opened up my Bible. When I gave my pain to Christ and let Him do with it as He saw fit- that is when I got healing that was more than just a band-aid.
But here is another mistake I made- I tried doing it all on my own. About three months ago I had found myself slipping back into a deep depression. I thought I could just listen to as many sermons, read through the entire word, and pray by myself and no one would have to know I was damaged. But here is the thing- if I am broken down, how am I going to carry myself to the throne room? Moses had Aaron and Hur hold up his arms during the battle (Exodus 17:8-16), the man who could not move his body had his friends tear through someone else's roof and literally bring him to the feet of Jesus (Mark 2:1-12) and I had to sit down with my friend Lauren and an elder in my church as I cried and let them in on my struggle while they prayed over me and with me- and I still have to go to my mentors and pastors and friends who serve the Lord so they can always point me back to Christ. As you heal- surround yourself with a community of people who will lift your hands up in the battle, bring you to the feet of Jesus, tell you not what you want to hear but what you need to hear, and fight your battles with you in whatever way they can. James 5:16 "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."
I can't give a "one size fits all" step-by-step healing process because when you let the Lord in to work out the healing- He can get creative. Every time I have healed it has been different in each circumstance- it has been through an altar call, through a friend praying for me and pouring into me, it has been through a community of love and people just being there for me, it's been just time, and it has also been through reading the Word and having a committed relationship with Christ. What I can say is we can't ignore it, we can't numb it, we can't do it alone, and we can't try to "fix" it through anything or anyone but Christ. Let God use your church, leaders, pastors, healthy community, His Word, or His timing. We also can't let the fear of being hurt again cause us to miss out. Don't let the pain of the past season cause you to miss out on the blessings of this season.
Healing is a process. Healing hurts. But healing is a launching pad for even more growth. If I would continue to hold on to the pains of my past- I would not be walking through all the doors that God is opening in my life currently.
Psalm 23:3-4 "He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
If you have ever answered a phone call from me you would read that in my exact voice- if you haven't- call me ;) jk.
But yes, hello! I am back and I am promising myself that this post will not be -yet another- draft that never sees the light of day. I started this blog this month three years ago and I think this year I wrote a total of.. oh maybe three posts? Which for me- I find that unfortunate as I did the one thing I promised my dad I wouldn't do. I promised my dad I would "never stop writing" and yet here I was- not writing. But thanks to some encouragement from my old roommate/close friend, Katherine, I am determined to write out all the things I have stored up in my mind and heart.
So Katherine, and anyone else who has always encouraged me to continue writing, this blog is dedicated to you. Not because the topic is related to you in any sort of way- but because part of my healing process is through writing and through all of the encouragement, I think I am ready to write again.
OKAY! Enough sappy, emotional, stuff.
If you didn't read the title- well, healing hurts.
The end.
Just kidding.
The reality of life is people hurt people because well- we are people. We are emotional, always learning life in a new way, sometimes really stupid, and just overall human. I know I have fallen short for so many people in my life- and even when I have the best intentions- I know I have hurt others.
That's life. But what do we do with it? We all know we can't walk through life hurting because not only will that do more damage to ourselves, but it will end up doing damage to others. But how do we heal? Or, how do we not heal?
The last three years of my life have been a "thrown in the deep end and figure out how to swim" learning lesson of healing and I would say for about two years I did it all the wrong ways. This year was the first year I decided to heal in a way that didn't just put a band-aid on what was broken- but allowed for a deep "surgery" like healing on what was so deeply damaged- and let me tell you, the process hurt.
It hurt because
I had to acknowledge it.
Whenever I have been hurt I have been the type of person to quickly throw myself into a very busy schedule to avoid any sort of topic on my pain. I would throw myself into more work, maybe start a new Netflix binge, call my mom 12 times an hour, or I would even plan a lot of weekend get aways. But not in the "these things help heal my heart" but in the "let me be distracted by these things" and all that did was prolong the healing because at the end of the night, when all the friends have left my house and my phone gets put on silent, I am left with God, myself, and whatever was in my heart.
When I ignored the pain this crazy thing happened where it got worse. While I lived in L.A. I was driving my dad's almost 20 year old F-150. For about two weeks this truck was making a noise I knew wasn't all that great, so I just turned up my music and kept on driving like there was no issue. When I went home to visit, I let my dad take his truck to work only for him to call me and let me know that because I ignored the noise- which was the breaks needing to be replaced- we now had to replace the rotors. How my dad had to describe that to me- because I know nothing of cars- was: "Because you ignored the problem, it did more damage and now it's going to take longer and much more to fix it."
Which leads me to-
I had to confront it.
I hate conflict. I am terrible with it. So much so, if the server gets my order wrong, I will quietly eat my burger with cheese even though I am lactose intolerant. I can acknowledge that my order is wrong, tell my friends that my order is wrong, even post about my order being wrong, but if I don't tell the server and get it fixed, I'm going to be sick for three days.
What is painful about confronting our hurt is sometimes we come to the realization that, hey, maybe we were also apart of the problem. Part of confronting is also tearing down our pride and owning up to where we have fallen short. The reality is- we may be hurt- but it's not always entirely someone else's fault. Matthew 7:3-4 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" Sometimes we have to confront ourselves. Am I hurt because you wronged me or am I hurt because my wrong actions caused an emotional reaction from you?
So, we acknowledged we are hurt and we are confronting it, but how?
I had to take it to the altar.
Maybe that's cliche- but this is the truth, the only one who can heal my heart is the one who gave it to me in the first place. I can get an apology from someone who hurt me, but that's just a band-aid. I can decide to stop numbing the pain with alcohol and decide to never drink again- but I am still hurt. I can only do so much in my power that will lead me to healing. I think the most powerful thing I can do is bring it to the Lord.
Psalm 34:17-20 "The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time. For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous; not one of them is broken!"
The best thing I could have ever done in my time of deep hurt was get on my knees and cry out to God. The sweetest words that I ever read during my pain was that of what I found when I opened up my Bible. When I gave my pain to Christ and let Him do with it as He saw fit- that is when I got healing that was more than just a band-aid.
But here is another mistake I made- I tried doing it all on my own. About three months ago I had found myself slipping back into a deep depression. I thought I could just listen to as many sermons, read through the entire word, and pray by myself and no one would have to know I was damaged. But here is the thing- if I am broken down, how am I going to carry myself to the throne room? Moses had Aaron and Hur hold up his arms during the battle (Exodus 17:8-16), the man who could not move his body had his friends tear through someone else's roof and literally bring him to the feet of Jesus (Mark 2:1-12) and I had to sit down with my friend Lauren and an elder in my church as I cried and let them in on my struggle while they prayed over me and with me- and I still have to go to my mentors and pastors and friends who serve the Lord so they can always point me back to Christ. As you heal- surround yourself with a community of people who will lift your hands up in the battle, bring you to the feet of Jesus, tell you not what you want to hear but what you need to hear, and fight your battles with you in whatever way they can. James 5:16 "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."
I can't give a "one size fits all" step-by-step healing process because when you let the Lord in to work out the healing- He can get creative. Every time I have healed it has been different in each circumstance- it has been through an altar call, through a friend praying for me and pouring into me, it has been through a community of love and people just being there for me, it's been just time, and it has also been through reading the Word and having a committed relationship with Christ. What I can say is we can't ignore it, we can't numb it, we can't do it alone, and we can't try to "fix" it through anything or anyone but Christ. Let God use your church, leaders, pastors, healthy community, His Word, or His timing. We also can't let the fear of being hurt again cause us to miss out. Don't let the pain of the past season cause you to miss out on the blessings of this season.
Healing is a process. Healing hurts. But healing is a launching pad for even more growth. If I would continue to hold on to the pains of my past- I would not be walking through all the doors that God is opening in my life currently.
Psalm 23:3-4 "He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
I love this babe, thanks for sharing! This was definitely something that hit home for me. You're such an amazing person and I'm so glad we've crossed paths. And, little do you know, I truly look up to you and how strong and inspiring you are! Keep up the amazing work, and listen to your dad! Don't stop writing, I LOVE YOU <3
ReplyDeletexoxo,
Cera