I’ve been doing a lot of thinking tonight. Sitting alone in a quiet room gives that opportunity pretty easily. I’ve been trying to prepare for this next week’s lesson for a girls bible study that I’ve been teaching this year, when I kind of found myself in a rut. The topic for this lesson is authenticity. Which goes along with the series we’re kind of going through the last few weeks: identity. Not just our identity in Christ and the worth found in Him, but the identity that we seek after from the world. This is a topic that I have been struggling with since the time I started elementary school. I never really have been content with myself and who I am. I’ve been realizing more as I am exposed to more people’s inner and hidden selves, I’m not the only one struggling.
I think before a christian, or really any person with or without God in their lives, can start living, they have to figure out who they truly are. Or who they desire to be. Without an identity, how is one supposed to go about life satisfied? Or even somewhat happy with their standing. I’ve always been the type of person who not only hates the same-old-same-old, but I’m never happy doing nothing. I also want to be busy--it’s what makes me feel a worth. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who thinks that way. If I am, well..then I wouldn’t be surrounded by people. Everyone is human, everyone wants meaning to their life. We just tend to hide behind things to make others believe we aren’t searching or hungering for something to fill our void.
When I was in junior high and high school, my struggle for identity was at it’s peak (at least this far in life). I was sexually violated by someone extremely close to me in 8th grade, and my identity and worth was shattered that night. Everything I thought I was was stripped from me. I didn’t know who to trust. I didn’t know how to present myself. I was lost and confused. I couldn’t get myself to share what had happened with anyone, which in turn left me feeling abandoned. I felt completely alone in a sea of faces. After a time of pain and confusion, I went through a season of anger and rage. I grew to hate the person who did this to me, who caused me all this pain. I hated those around me: family, friends, my youth pastor, everyone that was in my life yet didn’t know me at all. I interacted with these people daily, yet they never once asked me how I was doing, or if something was wrong. The best thing I saw fit to do was be fake. I woke up in the morning and went about the day covering up my brokenness with with mask of fake happiness. I pushed people away, I shut them out. I was empty and fallen. I was drained and hopeless. I didn’t see a need to live life. I didn’t admit it at the time, but I was dealing with hardcore depression. It wasn’t something that I wanted to deal with, though, so I never allowed myself to express it to anyone. I went in a shell of self-afflicted loneliness for the next year. It was the darkest time of my life and I hated being restless, empty, confused, anxious all the time. Yet I was too stubborn to let anyone in to my world. It was a naive stubbornness, though. In my mind, I was bleeding inside, broken. I saw the wound, but I didn’t know how to fix it.
It took me the longest time to admit this, but I wasn’t angry the most with my grandfather who sexually abused me in 8th grade, or my parents for leaving me alone that night with him, or my friends for not seeing me hurting, or even my youth pastor for not asking me how I was...
I was most angry with God. I was furious was him. I had lived such a fantastic life before that year! I was active in church, my family was incredibly godly and ‘good,’ I succeeded in almost everything I did, I had a large friend network... the list goes on. Life was good. And then God randomly allows something to happen that suddenly shatters everything. Everything. From that point on, nothing has been the same. And I blamed God for all of it. I hated him for so long. But I never wanted to admit it because it wasn’t the ‘christian’ thing to do. I had a church reputation to live up to, and there was no way in hell I was about to ruin it. That was about the only “normal” thing I had left to cling to.
I am always finding loopholes in things. Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s just a part of me. Starting in 9th grade, the happy mask I wore became my loophole to receiving the attention I longed for. I figured out that if I let myself be outgoing and perky, then people would like me. I found that as long as I kept a smile plastered on my face, I would have friends to keep my mind off of the depression, and I wouldn’t have to let anyone inside my broken world. It was perfect. For the next two years, things kept on this same track. I avoided the pain I felt inside by spending time with the peer group I surrounded myself with. I was popular and I felt an acceptance that I couldn’t get enough of. It was like this group became my drug that I craved constantly. If I wasn’t around them, I wasn’t happy. I hated my family with a passion. In fact, me sharing that with my friends was one thing that I felt made me cool. I was independent, I didn’t need my family to tell me what to do or not do. Anything my parents told me, I wrote off as a waste. They didn’t even know me, so they had no right to tell me how to live life.
Junior year, I was more broken than I myself even realized. I had shut everyone out from my real self, even though so many people wanted to pour into me and love my dying heart. Yet I didn’t see that because I was hidden behind the mask. I started going to a college youth group-type thing on Thursday nights, although I wasn’t really sure why. I was searching desperately for anything to give me peace, so why not turn to a christian organization? The meetings actually became something I looked forward to during the week. There was something about these people, the room, the speakers, the worship songs that gave me some sort of a relief I couldn’t explain. I refused to let my guard down, though. Especially with God. See.. all throughout high school, I was going to church, youth group, on mission trips.. all this regularly. I was active in children’s ministry at our church, I was a leader in youth group. To everyone else, I was on fire for God. But I wasn’t at all. I was completely lifeless. I had built up so much hatred toward God that he was the last person I would expose my brokenness to. Yet I loved this group on Thursday nights. I found myself starting to let down the wall I had built up and let them in. I never once shared my inner hidden part of me, but I felt safe enough to pull off the mask of happiness with them.
One weekend night, I was hanging out with a few of them at one’s apartment. We were watching a movie and making cookies. One person was doing homework while the other two were deeply intrigued with the movie. It was a good time, I was enjoying myself. Two of the people left before the movie was over, which left me alone with the other guy. That night was the second time I was sexually abused. This time it wasn’t from my grandpa, it was from my peer. Yet both were people I let in and trusted with completely vulnerably.
That night was it. I threw in the towel. I gave up. I was so devastated that I had nothing left in me to cover up. I was so drained that I couldn’t hide anymore. My parents were out of town that week, leaving me alone with my twin siblings to fend for ourselves. By the time I got home, they were in bed. The house was silent. I could do anything I wanted to do, and no one would watch it. No one would have to know.
For some reason, although I can’t remember why, the only thing I wanted to do was sit down and cry. Just sob, ball. All the emotions I had locked away for years came out in the tears that streamed from my face. The hurt. The anger. The confusion. The fear. The anxiety. The restlessness. The rage. The resentment. The emptiness. It all came flowing out like a river does when nothing is holding it back.
I finally was free. In the quietness of the house and stillness of my mind.. I was real. Transparent. I had taken down my mask that I used to conceal me for so long. And wow. I hadn’t felt so incredibly vibrant as I did that moment ever before. It was like this burden I willingly carried for so long was gone.
I wasn’t really sure what to do at that point. How to react. What to say. I just knew I was ready to be authentic to people. There was also this drive in me that wanted Jesus. I wasn’t really sure what it was. Because it wasn’t the Jesus that I grew up praying to or talked about in church meetings. It was like a Jesus completely foreign to me. Approachable, healing, loving, joy-giving, grace-abounding.. I never had a clue that Jesus could be that to anyone. Especially me, since I shut him out for so long. But for some reason, I didn’t care. I just began to soak up every single aspect of him. And part of that was by letting him heal me.
I didn’t really know how that would take place, but I just followed. And I’m still following right now because I’m not entirely healed yet. But that’s ok. Over the past two plus years, I have become a completely different person than who I used to be. I wish I could take the credit for that. It would be awesome to give such a cool story to people, telling how I pulled myself out of a mess of life and now I live a successful life. Hah. I’ve actually figured out over this time that I am ridiculously full of myself. In all aspects. I’m figuring out that I need people and I have to be authentic with them. I’m realizing that God doesn’t expect me to be perfect, to always be happy and smiling. He expects me to be real, both with him and people. It gives him incredible joy when I am satisfied with him and in him. Daily, I still find myself struggling with my identity because it’s so hard to not fall back into my old way of thinking. I struggle with self-doubt, fear, anxiety, trust and most of all being real with others. God’s humbling my insanely large ego and for some reason, keeps me going every morning I wake up. He’s giving me this crazy love for people, especially those that are hurting and broken, just as I was or in ways similar. I have a passion to express this INSANE fresh start that God has given me to to others. It kills me knowing that so many people out there are living in pain and emptiness without hope. I know where they can find healing and a welcoming embrace. And I long for them to know it is found only in Jesus Christ. If he wasn’t so passionate and in love with us people, then he wouldn’t have sacrificed his life by dying on a cross for US. For brokenness. For anger. For addictions. For lust. For pain. For confusion. For doubt. For emptiness. For bondage.
He died to release us from all of this plus so much more. Through him, I am free. I have joy. I know embrace. I feel love. I have meaning. I have Something to live for.
I have identity.
So to me, the series I’m taking the girls through on identity hits home pretty intensely. It makes me wonder, who else is struggling as I am? What masks are people hiding behind? What walls are up? Obviously, I don’t know the answer to those questions fully. I do know that people are hurting and I do know that people are searching, just as I was and still struggle with now. But I have confidence that God is better than anything that this world tries to offer. He satisfies. He is sufficient.
I’m not really sure where I’m going with this or even what I’ve really written or how much I’ve written. I’ve kind of just typed out what’s on my mind tonight. I’m still sitting in this quiet room, still not quite sure what to plan for the lesson this week. But hopefully I’ve spoken to someone. Hopefully even just one reader has read this blog. If you’re reading this, for some odd reason, I’m not just writing to a silent room. I’m writing to you. I don’t know what’s going on tonight from your perspective or in your shoes. I don’t know what life style you live or what circumstances you have going on. But if there is something--anything--that is leaving you empty or broken right now, tell me. Email me. Comment on my blog. Just get ahold of me. I wished SO desperately for someone to tell me this when I was in high school and hiding behind a mask. I needed someone, but no one took the opportunity to tell me they were there for me. So, if you’re struggling, I’m here. Whether or not we know each other.
And I think that’s all I got for tonight. It’s time for rest.
Ally
“At that time Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
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