Addictions < Embracing the Pain
I was wrapped up in bondage for years and never realized it. I was addicted and didn't know.
As a child/early teen I read books from morning to night and at times all thru the night. :) I thrilled in stories of good triumphing over evil, the underdog becoming the champion, a new love blossoming into a lifelong commitment...my parents actually limited my reading to 2 hrs a day as I could sit in a crowded noisy room and be oblivious to all around me. At 16 yrs old I got my first "real" job and then reading was only on the odd occasion or weekends...and that's when the struggles became obvious.
Now looking back I understand why the drive for books--I was hiding the pain.
Reading kept the demeaning thoughts and broken emotions at bay. When I couldn't read anymore I had to find a new way to drown out the ache, to keep the tears locked up tight so they would find their way down my cheeks...so I turned my own life into a storyline. I was the heroine in my story plot. I was the soldier who saved the day. I would take the mistakes made and rewrite them in my head to become the accomplishments I wished I had done. When in real life I couldn't reach out in love and care to a friend because of my fear of rejection, in my mind I was the perfect friend with words to speak out and express what I felt in my heart.
But as with all addictions, it is never loud enough or high enough to completely lose the pain and my mental novel needed a boost. So I turned to movies. It could be a child's movie but for a brief moment I could stop thinking. I could stop the ache.
I could focus on something that looked real and ended with "happily ever after."
All this time I remember questioning God's care and love for me. I wasn't good enough for His approval. I had to work harder, sing louder, give myself more to others who asked regardless of how tired I was. I had to do more and be enough. Alone.
I wrestled with trying to walk by faith in what I read in the Scriptures and working it out with my own overabundance of common sense and endurance. I physically thought I had to work as hard as a man to do an excellent job and then maybe I would earn God's smile upon my life.
I don't regret the journey. It's my story to tell.
All those years God WAS there! He was walking right beside me...slowly letting me break, slowly letting me become desperate, slowly showing His mercy. Oh the moments when He gently whispered into my heart! It still brings a peace to think on it....
Over the last 4 years He has been remaking me into the woman I always was in His eyes. I always was loved. I always was wanted. I always was good enough in Jesus.
I needed to let myself be broken pieces in His hands, not a perfected work.
He is the one who perfects me over a lifetime and presents me PERFECT before God. It's not my job to become perfect. I am the creation, He is the Creator. I give Him my shattered pieces, He gives me a brand new heart.
...Christ loved the church and gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's Word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. Ephesians 5:25-27
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here. 2 Corinthians 5:17
Every day it is a battle to walk forward in and through the pain instead of masking it and denying its existence but the grace that He pours into my heart amazes me! is it easy? NO! to die to myself will never be a snap of my finger or enjoyable but more and more it is becoming a lifestyle as I find myself falling at Jesus' feet in desperation and rising with renewed strength and courage.
I have learned to see the signs in my life when the addiction tries to raise it's head again and I have seen it be defeated by a simple, humble cry to my God. I will say that I have shed so many tears these past years, months, weeks, days, moments that it does feel like I am walking thru a valley of tears...
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baka (Weeping),
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion. Psalm 84:5-7
But GOD!
I don't want to be who I was. And I have full confidence that He will bring me through the pain and brokenness, in His time. For that is my purpose in this life, TO BRING HIM GLORY FOR HIS WONDERFUL AND MARVELOUS WORK!