Therapy Session

Write a novel? No problem. Write a poem? I’ve got this. Commit to writing a weekly blog post? I have no idea what I was thinking. This seems like a ridiculous commitment for someone with zero self-esteem, no social life outside of family, and scarcely a social media following. So this is me just writing whatever random words come to mind as I have no idea what to blog about this week. Writing is often like therapy for me, so welcome to my therapy session.

I started writing for myself. For years, I’ve penned poems to cope with anxiety and, more recently, grief. Then came the manuscript for my upcoming novel. I love my characters. I love their story and the bond they share with one another. (I wish I had a group of people who I share that bond with.) I poured so much of myself into them, and yet so often they have inspired me instead of the other way around. That’s why I want to have my story published. I want to reach others, to inspire them, to give them hope, to shine light into their darkness. I’ve lived in the darkness before, and the only way to overcome it is with light.

Maybe that’s where I should begin: my story. I’ll keep it as brief as I can.

I grew up in a Christian home. I got saved and baptized at the age of ten. But when I was eighteen, I got my heart broken, and I carried that heartache for years, making a lot of mistakes because of it. The month before I turned nineteen, I let things go too far with my boyfriend at the time—something I had sworn I would never do. Because of that, I felt like I had to stay in that relationship as if that would somehow make what we’d done less bad. We ended up getting married, probably both for the wrong reasons, and it was not a healthy marriage. Fifteen months of marriage and one child later, we split up.

At that point, I told myself that I had a second chance and would do things right the next time around. Shortly after my marriage ended, I reconnected with an old co-worker, and we started hanging out some as friends. After having been in a bad relationship, it was nice being around someone who treated me well. But then one day, I again let things go too far. As a result of that, I got pregnant. I tried to make it a relationship that could work. I couldn’t have two children by two different men and not be with either of them. But I couldn’t ignore the red flags that I soon saw either, and I knew I couldn’t stay with him.

I hated myself for the mistakes I had made. (I feel the need to say that the mistake was having sex with someone I wasn’t married to. The baby that resulted from that was God taking the bad and turning it into good. Only he can create life, and he makes no mistakes.) I was drowning in shame and guilt. So much so that when someone assaulted me at gunpoint, I thought I deserved it. I thought I deserved every bad thing. I knew God could forgive me, but I couldn’t forgive myself. I knew better than to do the things I did, yet I did them anyway. There was no forgiving that.

After my marriage had ended, I got a second job to help keep up with the bills. I, actually, just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I had an encounter with my old boss from high school and jokingly made a comment about coming back to work. She then hired me on the spot.

Most of my co-workers at that job were high schoolers, so I mostly talked to the one guy who was close to my age. When the engine in my car blew, he began giving me rides to and from work. It was during those car rides that we really began getting to know one another. His pain was different from mine, but he was hurting too. I’ve heard it said, “Hurt people, hurt people,” but sometimes hurt people do everything they can to teach someone else their worth because they don’t want anyone else to feel the way they do. We both put in the work to help each other heal.

  I had prayed my whole life, but I’d never prayed the way I did when I started praying for him. God not only answered those prayers but used them to bring me closer to himself as well.

That guy who helped teach me my worth and show me what real love is, is now my husband. And all the shame, guilt, and self-hatred I once felt, lifted off me in an instant the first time I shared my story with someone from church, the moment when God made me realize that he can use my past for good to help others. He can use your past too.

I still have things that I struggle with. I’m the definition of a work in progress. But now I know to bring those struggles to God instead of trying to fix things on my own. He is so forgiving, patient, and loving, and his ways are far better than our own. When we try to fix things, we somehow end up making it worse, but when God fixes things, you get something more beautiful than you ever dared to imagine. Whatever mountain is before you, whatever mistakes are behind you, whatever lies you are believing right now, he is bigger than it all.

So that’s why I do what I do, to share God’s love with others, to help someone to forgive themself, to show that there is light up ahead if you keep holding on and pressing forward and don’t give up.

I, honestly, don’t know if anyone will read this. Sometimes I feel like I’m speaking into the void. It’s hard to be heard when there are so many voices. But I trust that if someone needs this, God will bring them to it. Or maybe after contemplating deleting my social media accounts and giving this up, I needed to remind myself of why I do it. In either case, I hope it leads to something good.