I decided to face some things tonight. Painful things. Things I have been avoiding. Things that are really hard for me to talk about, so even my small group at CR does not know much about them. It is hard to talk about some things.
God and I had a long conversation about why. Why and how did this particular chapter in my life turn out so awful? Why was it filled with so much pain. Why did I bleed all over the place? Why did I keep choosing the pain over walking into freedom and choosing to get my security from God?
I have often not taken responsibility for this chapter of awfulness in my life. After all, I was in my twenties. Hardly a child. I have often been able to cast all the blame on other people. I had moved to a new place. A few months after the move, I experienced a really intense personal emotional crisis. The events were out of my control and did not involve breaking up with a man or any dating sort of relationship. I cried myself to sleep for weeks and became physically ill. Coming out of this crisis, I began to make really poor choices for the next few years.
Tonight I prayed and thought and wrote, and prayed and thought and wrote. When I was done praying and thinking and writing, I had a few pages of notes. In the midst of the notes was a list, a list of how events had gone wrong during this chapter of my life. It started like this.
1. I came for the wrong reasons.
2. I stayed for the wrong reasons.
3. I came to the wrong place and wrong people.
Then the personal crisis happened external to these events. The crisis would have happened anyway, but I had set myself up for failure before ever experiencing it.
Now when I say wrong, I do not mean most people would look at my decisions and say, “Girl, you are about to commit sin.” No, they were wrong because I knew in my spirit they were wrong. I did them anyway. Then I continued to make what were the most logical choices I could to find a way to heal and function in life. I placed myself in a toxic environment and expected to be able to become healthy. It did not work at all. It hurt a lot. I experienced a lot of pain, but was so scared of getting out of the place I got myself into that I remained there until I literally could no longer do so.
This created one of the worse memories of my adult life. When I could go no more, I gave up and became totally outwardly incompetent for the first time in my life. Moving in with family until my emotions stabilized and I was able to put God first again.
Tonight I asked myself why not being able to go anymore was one of the most painful memories I have in my adult life. Pride was the only answer. I lost my pride there. My pride made me so miserable and alone. One would think I would have been instantly glad to give some of that up. I am, but it still hurts.
Here’s to working through the hard stuff!
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. – Proverbs 16:18