To say it was difficult or even brutal is an understatement!
I came away from there so shaken and sickened. Only today am I starting to feel like myself again. Maybe part of that had to do with my being sick and low energy reserves from that, I don’t know. But I have been definitely hurting ever since Wednesday.
That’s why it’s been so quiet over here.
During my counseling, Tricia had to stop me a couple of times to give me a chance to calm down, to get a drink of water, and recover a bit. I didn’t “re-live” a lot of the incident, but did get probably a bit more into the memory, and got it into first person. Which meant that I did relive a lot of that pain. Which was what I think I was dealing with the end of this week. The fall out.
As we talked, there was one point where I was about to identify a lie that I was believing, or at least a thought that was there. But I forgot it before I could tell Tricia. I don’t know that I have remembered it yet, but once I got home, and was trying to nap with my daughter, a lie surfaced that has never been there before, at least never acknowledged consciously by me.
“I am nothing.”
I know. Very obviously, a lie. But I think this whole issue was another “proof” of that lie for me.
This is what I wrote in my journal:
I feel deep down inside that I am nothing. Maybe that is part of what all this is about, as I am working through the rape and sodomy that I endured at the hands of that guy. Even all the stuff I have done, the things I push myself to do now, even if (and when) I’m uncomfortable, seem like a shout out into the darkness… a scream to prove that I exist… because I feel that I really don’t sometimes. I do all these things to try to dispel the fear that it might be true that I am nothing.
Deeper than “I am a mistake” or “I am not wanted.”
Deeper than “I am only good enough for sex or to be used.”
“I am nothing” means it doesn’t matter what happens to me because I, literally, am nothing. People can do whatever they want and it doesn’t matter.
I know this is not true. I know this is just another negative name the enemy has called me, that other people have called me through their actions, that I have taken on and accepted as my own.
I even know that saying this about myself flies in the face of all God has said about me. I know that it is me calling Him a liar, by disbelieving the Truth about who I am in Him. I know that is a sin. After my pastor’s sermon last week talking about God’s faithfulness, how can I possibly doubt that the promises He gives me, and the good names He calls me?
God’s part is to be faithful, my part is to trust Him.
I feel that I have not been doing a good job holding up my end of that. I find myself constantly praying, “Lord, help my unbelief!” But, I suppose, that is part of this struggle too.
I have found myself doubting God’s promises to redeem. To redeem me (or that I am already). To redeem the years the locusts have eaten. That He would make me glad for as many days as I have been afflicted, for as many years as I have seen trouble. (Ps. 90:15)
I mean, if I am nothing, then what is there to redeem? Tricia said, and I agree, that the roots of this incident run very deep. And maybe this lie is getting closer to the root. To the very bottom. To the core lie, or maybe is the core lie, that I have been acting on for so long. I have been living with it for so long.
If I am nothing, then anyone can do anything to me and it doesn’t matter. I can even walk into a situation with my eyes wide open, but if I am nothing, and have no value, what does it really matter what I do. I die another little death each time. And if a little bit more of me dies each time something happens, well, then is there anything left at all?
How can you redeem something that isn’t there? If the roots of this run deep, and they get uprooted… Uprooted from what? Maybe the roots are all there are to me. Maybe the lie is all there is left. All the things that I do, all the things that others see me as, even the writing I do here… is that just a way to try to prove that I exist even? (Oh, I know how crazy all this sounds… I know it is wrong… but this is where my thoughts have been going… I am just being honest) All the things I do, are outer trappings.
One of the most frustrating verses, or things that someone can tell me is to “Be still, and know that I am God.” I get told to stop doing and just be. Still? What is that? Be? Be what? Who am I supposed to be? Who am I? When I am not “doing” something? I don’t really know. AM I nothing?
I could list all the truths of who I am. I know them in my head. But that hasn’t made it all the way to my heart yet.
Yet, some of them have.
As the smaller lies have been chipped away,
the truth has replaced them.
I am going to have to hang on somehow till the end of all of this. Because somewhere in me there is a spot, a small, little bit that must be clinging and struggling to survive… a little bit that still trusts. Still trusts God.
He has been faithful as I have asked Him in the past to replace the lies, to help my unbelief. He has given me truth instead about myself. So when the lies are uprooted… there isn’t nothing left. There is truth left.
This just occurred to me (forgive me, I have been processing as I have been writing it). There are two lies at work. One is “I am nothing.” The other is, “When the lies are gone, there is nothing to replace them.”
The Truth is that I am God’s daughter. I am His. I am redeemed. I am loved. I am worthy. I am forgiven. I am cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.
He created me.
From nothing.
So, once I was nothing.
Now I am something.
If I could get a handle on that, now, wouldn’t that be something?!
No comments:
Post a Comment