Life giving truth serum

I lay in bed and remember.  Without any invite or welcome the memories come in like a flood. I allow them though. I give myself permission because I know that with Jesus I can face the pain and healing will come. 

If I run away and shove the feelings down far and ignore myself the pain doesn't go away, nothing gets better, time doesn't heal.  Covering up, closing up, shutting down doesn't get me one step closer to getting past the pain, it locks me inside it.  My wounds gets no light, no clean water, no medicine. Infection sets in and the yuck festers, burrowing deep inside.

There's only one way to get at that type of infection. To cut straight into it, to dig down deep and get to the root of the infection because no amount of surface scrubbing is going to heal those type of wounds. The ones that cut so deep you wonder if you'll die on the operating table.  But that surgery... That cleaning and cutting out is the only chance we have at living at all. 

Some may say I'm dwelling, and if I begin to do that I trust Jesus will show me.. But right now I honor Jesus by being true, by being real. I allow my Savior to rip off my dirty self applied bandages so that He can bring life giving, life lasting doses of truth serum to a girl crippled by fear and self hatred. We can't perform surgery on ourselves. We need a physician, we need THE Great Physician. We must give consent though. He won't force us. He's a gentle God, pro-active but gentle. 

So I dare to look at my wounds. I examine them. I do it with Jesus. I was raped. It was awful. I was scared to death, I sobbed the whole time and begged him to stop. I begged God to save me! 

The words ramble on in my mind and my heart beats hard in my chest. I remember how helpless I felt and how I tried to find a way out. The more I fought the rougher he became and the more I paid for my resisting. Eventually I quit fighting. I wonder if I could have done something different to prevent that night. I know I couldn't have yet I think through each step and play out what might have been had I....

What is it in us as people that we seem to think we should be able to do more than we can, that doesn't give ourselves the grace we seem to be able to give each other? I look back and even now I know I couldn't have prevented it, I even know that by giving in I ultimately could have saved my life.  Yet my mind still wants to play the "what if" game. What if I had gotten out of the car and ran? What if I had peed on him or bit him or just went ballistic? Maybe then he would have stopped? But nope really I know in my heart there wasn't one thing I could have done to change that man's mind or his actions. Makes me realize just how second nature it is for me to try to take responsibility for someone else's actions even in a situation of such obvious offense. I think a lot of women tend to blame themselves in some form for their abuse. Shame is a powerful tool in the hand of the enemy and he uses it often in this area. Shame though is only as powerful as we believe it to be. We must grab ahold of God's truth and allow His love to extinguish our shame. 

I pray that God continues to show each of us more and more of the truth and lead us into deeper love and healing. 

I'm thankful that God is not only willing to examine my wounds and tend to them,  but that he already knows the full extent of just how bad they are and delights in healing them. 

I am grateful He is giving me insight on thoughts and beliefs that aren't in line with the truth. I'm thankfully that He truly knows what happened, truly knows what I felt, what I feel and that I can count on Him always walking this journey with me and for me.
Praise God we don't have to hide and we don't have to face our pain alone. It's in the opening up and surrendering that He is able to do healing and I'm learning that as Joyce Meyer says.. It's ok to "do it afraid" because I'm doing it with Jesus.
Lean into the pain and lean into Jesus.