scars

moving to college has been such a huge transition for me.... and i have missed my church and my supportive mentors at home so much..... in a sense, i feel like i've suffered a good amount in the last month, and i haven't allowed myself to process that. i keep pushing it to the back of my mind to avoid it.... to avoid feeling broken about it.... but i realized today that it's a part of this process, and i'm trying to allow myself to be more openly broken right now.

brokenness is good. brokenness is beautiful. and what i'm learning is that not everyone will embrace my brokenness... not everyone will see that it's productive, or how it's shaped me into who i am, or even that it continues to grow and change me for the better... not everyone will see god in the middle of my mess. sometimes i don't even see him... but i know he is there. and what i'm realizing is that i can't let these people convince me that i am fallen because of what has happened to me. not everyone is going to understand. To some people, this pain looks disgusting… it looks like scars that cover me up, and it might look like it’s impossible to get to me without uncovering the scars one by one. Well, it’s true. My past and my pain are a part of me. they don’t go away, even though I can hide them sometimes… but I’m on this journey to this place where I won’t feel the need to hide them anymore. I’m trying to get to a place where I am no longer ashamed or afraid of the ways that god has allowed me to suffer and therefore has shaped me into this creation that he loves.

God has been reminding me constantly how deeply he loves me and how desperate he is for my whole heart… and he continues to tell me this because he knows that some will not understand this journey I’m on…. This journey he is calling me to. He wants me to know how loved I am even when it is not immediately tangible. He is teaching me to love myself despite the scars and the places that are embarrassing, hurtful, and hard to talk about. I truly DO find my worth in the lord… I find that I am treasured, secure, cherished, a royal priesthood, a daughter of the king. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that my worth can’t be measured in earthly standards. Sometimes it feels so important to be valued in another person’s eyes that it is so easy to forget about god’s sovereign promise of where I stand and whose I am. I belong to him… I am his child of promise. I have learned all summer long about how much god loves me, and if I would seek worth in anyone, it would be him.

The thing is, I don’t wear this mask anymore. I refuse to let the world scare me into a corner of cowardice by telling me I have to pretend to be unbroken. Not only will I honestly admit that I have brokenness in my life, but i’m not afraid to talk about it. I have come to terms with honesty in the sense that I am tired of hiding. I have been hiding for years, trying to fit so many molds, when really, god just wanted me to be me. I am tired of answering that I’m “fine” if I’m not… and so I try hard not to... and people seem shocked by that. Imagine what the world would be like if we all provided honest answers to the question “how are you?” on a regular basis? I dare you to try it and see how people respond to you. I will not hide in suffering… not only because I am honest, but because I know that God “works for the good of those who love him”, and I know that he is using my pain for good. He does not waste my hurt… he is using my past to chasten me, to teach me, and to instill in me a sense of compassion… a choice I am making because I was not shown compassion for so many years of my life. I choose to overflow with compassion upon those who blame me for my scars, because god is calling me to be a bondage breaker…. I am being raised up in Christ to break the destructive patterns in my family of bitterness, anger, tearing others down, rejecting religion, apathy, abuse, selfishness… the list goes on and on… I am a warrior on this earth, fighting what is easy… what is so natural for me, even in the home I grew up in. I refuse to allow these things to continue! They stop with me! I never thought I could ever say this, but praise be to the Lord for placing me in a home that would teach me the meaning of pain so that I will never allow a tolerance for that destruction around me and in my own home as long as I can help it. thank the lord for teaching me the meaning of pain so that I can literally mourn with those in my life who mourn. Thank the lord for scarring me so that I bear battle wounds for the lessons he has taught me and the new life he brought to me in the midst of toil. These scars do not rule me, but in fact, they make me beautiful. They make me a real, honest, COMPLETE woman. I no longer believe that scars leave me broken, but scars contribute to my WHOLENESS in Christ that he is providing me day after day. And I am not ashamed to say that I am recovering… that I am still healing. Every day is not perfect… some days are struggles and other days are days of healing… but here I am. This is who I am. I lift my eyes to the hills, and it is God who sustains me... it is in Christ that I find my worth…. It is in the Lord that I find shalom, the ultimate peace…. It is in the power of the Lord’s love that I find the strength to love myself…. All of myself…. Even the scars. Even the past…. Because the creator of the universe looks at me and says I am beloved… he who began a good work in me will complete it…. and God says that is enough. God says his love is enough for me… his grace is enough for me… and I refuse to seek my worth in the eyes of man. i am broken and beautiful.