Yesterday as I looked at the questions for the first week of the step study that I had filled out last year, I had to laugh at myself for having no idea back then to what level I would be working through my issues at CR. Some of my answers to the questions seemed really surface. However, one of the issues I had written down, jumped off the page. Because in the last year, it has only changed a little.
As I have contemplated it yesterday and today, I have also realized it is one of the areas in my life I have only just begun to face in CR. I have started mentioning it a lot, but I am not sure I have really faced it and taken responsibility for it. I struggle a lot with trusting men, authority figures and especially anyone in Christian leadership. I have played the blame game a lot with it. “Well, if I wasn’t, if I hadn’t, if they didn’t, if they hadn’t, then I would not be this way.” So far, that has not done a lot for me on this road to recovery. I have grown some in this area. That is undeniable. However, I am nowhere near a place I would call freedom in this struggle.
The good news? Friday someone asked me, “Are you ready to start trusting men?” It took me awhile of thinking on it to come up with an answer I thought was entirely truthful, “No, but I am ready to start trying!” I am excited to be at a place where I want to start trying!
I have also been thinking a lot today about what an oxymoron it is that I am freer than I have ever been from my most destructive external habits, yet I am more open about them than I have ever been. It goes back to yesterday’s post about my struggle with continuing to admit my weaknesses. It seems a constant temptation to cover them up. After all, there was a day when people were naive enough to think I was an innocent “good girl.”
Those days are kind of behind me as I have stepped out of pretending. No one looking at me through the eyes of man, will ever say again, “Laura has it together. She is good.” But maybe if they will take the time to look through the eyes of Christ, they might see someone who is being redeemed, whose ashes have been turned to beauty.
to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify Him. – Isaiah 61:3