Undone by His Love

There is nothing as powerful,  moving or all consuming  as the love of God when it truly ignites in your heart. 

I'm sure we all have dry seasons, where we go through the motions of loving God, but it feels empty of course. I have sometimes prayed fervently that God would reignite that first love. I've learned that he answers that prayer!

It is when I truly began to understand, and experience the depths of his love, that it grew and grew inside of me. As His Love sank to the depths of my empty , dry heart, it covered the most tender parts with a love so sweet and pure. It began to ruminate in my spirit until it bubbled up and overflowed. 

I can't understand such love because, in my brokenness, I simply do not know how to love well. I try of course, but He knows that I struggle to trust, struggle to recieve and struggle to believe I'm worthy of love.  But God doesn't need my approval or capacity of loving well to love Me well in the first place. He loved first! I just need to breathe it in deeply and let it saturate the very cells of my body. 

He's been transforming my heart from the inside. It is His incredible love that is changing me. It transforms how I think. It's enveloping every part of my being, filling me with joy! Because I've earned it??? No, certainly not! Because I'm good? Nope, not a chance. 

He transforms hearts because it's who he is. He loved us first. 

It is undeserved, pure, and inconceivable love. It burns so brilliantly that it shines right out of us like a beacon on a dark night. It isn't showy, no His love is so sweet and beautiful that it brings me to tears at the mere thought of it. 

Because of His love, I am truly undone... and that's how it was meant to be all along. 

EMDR- Wading through the Trauma of Extensive Sexual Abuse by a Family Member

 Today was my second EMDR session. I wish I had known such a thing existed many years ago.  The sessions are intense but so incredible, especially when combined with letting the Holy Spirit lead.  

Today's session was a scary one  I was diving into the memory of being five, and being sexually abused by a family member. It was very painful. I cried, a lot! But using the EMDR paddles, I was able to bring the trauma from its stored place into the processing side of my brain.

Using my mind's eye, I could remove my younger self from that member and place her in a safe place being protected by Angels. I was able to make connections in my mind that I couldn't before. 

I had felt so defiled,, damaged, ruined, and broken. I felt like I was to blame, not only for what he had done to me but for what he did to my sisters and my cousin. Im not sure why I'd carried his shame all these years the memories of the abuse haunted me day and night. It caused body memories, where my body responded with protective spasms, of muscles,

tightening, my bladder spasming, and my whole body feeling tense. 

as we went through the memory, It felt like there was an invisible wall between He and me that had never been there before. The memory became distant, and he shrunk. I mean literally, The giant of a man that he was to the five-year-old, six-year-old, and seven yr old self, became a shrinking monster who couldn't get to me. I can't explain it but my mind placed me in the present where I am safe and where he can't hurt me any longer. The intense emotions attached to the trauma faded, like an image fading before my eyes. 

As I prayed with my therapist I clearly heard the Lord speaking to my spirit. This is what I heard. 

You were never alone, I was with you all along. 

I asked, why did you not protect me?

He told me that I was valuable all along. Mark never took my worth into consideration. There was nothing I did, or didn't do that factored into his choice of abusing me or anyone else. He told me that I was loved, but I would not feel loved until I chose to trust and believe and accept that what he was saying to me was true. I wrestled with God. If you want me to trust, how can I when you didn't protect me 

Carla reminded me that he says, in this world are my trials and trouble, but he has overcome them all. we arent guaranteed a free pass from the sin of others. 

I was shown that there was nothing I could have done, 

I spoke to my mom in the session and told her she is wicked. It was wicked to blame me for the sins of family members, shame me and reject me, then embrace those who did such harm to me, knowing full well what was done. 

I felt that it is done, the young part of me survived, intact, not destroyed She was resilient and strong. She loved Jesus so much amid so much confusion, 

I couldn't say I felt loved 100 percent because I needed to deal with the part of me that is still struggling with the lack of protection. piece. I need time to process this.

but I feel this memory is distant. Mark no longer holds me captive on his lap in front of his tv, harming me. I am separate from him once and for all. I am free to heal and grieve and grow strong. I am free to feel love because my worth didn't factor into his choice. He was a monster and now I am free from him and free from his shame. 

Sweet, Trauma Responses- being agreable to protect yourself

BOUNDARIES: 

That first sentence hit so hard. "Agreeing to things, just to keep the peace is a trauma response". How many times have I been agreeable, instead of honest, while my insides screamed no. "Oh Lord help me,"... too many times!

Boundaries are hard for me! I grew up in an environment where personal boundaries were not permitted, let alone respected. Being agreeable was a form of self protection from the escalation of violence that was a constant part of my childhood and first marriage. 

 I have to work extra hard to break patterns of passivity. Whether I like it or not, being passively agreeable in order to please others is actually being deceitful. Ouch what?? Yikes, I said it. It is  not being truthful to yourself or others. 

If I agree to something, while my body screams no, my mind pleads with me to say no, but I smile and bend to the will of others, I'm not doing anyone any favors. 

We each have variable amounts of elasticity. Passivity can result in us pushing ourselves too far, too hard. We become  stretched so thin that we loose elasticity and burn out. 

In contrast, when healing from trauma takes place, we begin to  advocate for ourselves, respect ourselves, and as a result we learn to speak truth. 

" No, I'm not up to doing that." 

" thanks for asking , but I need to decline."

" I appreciate your need, but I'm going to have to say no." 

In saying No, you :

* break passivity 

* are honest with yourself and others

* are respecting yourself as God intended

* are excerising emotionally healthy boundaries 

* it is showing respect to others, trusting them with competence to emotionally cope with your no. 

I have soooo far to go, but being healthy is a journey, a daily moment by moment journey. I take one step, then another. If I fall, I dust myself off, learn from my fall and keep pressing forward.

From the blog Shattered Hearts Restored by Kirsten Emmanuel .

I Quit

I QUIT...

I think the word quitting has a bad rap, but sometimes its good to quit.  Sometimes admitting defeat and failure is the most liberating thing, to come to the end of yourself and realize, you just couldn't do it all.  Sometimes, realizing you have nothing left to give, is where the real freedom begins. 

For anyone like me who tries to hold the world up by myself, you know what I'm talking about.  Maybe, our freedom begins when we realize our limits and let God begin where we stop. Maybe realizing our own limitations is a part of dying to self, so there is more of God and less of me.

What do you need to quit, and replace with surrender? I'll be honest, the thing I need to quit, is performance mentality. I need to quit trying to earn love, the love of God and mankind, and just Be loving. 

I need to sit at the feet of Jesus and BE, not perform. I need to love, not strive to earn love. So, that it, I quit! I quit the striving  to please man and God. I can't do it. Instead, I accept where my limitations are. I surrender.  

I quit, I surrender, and suddenly that emptiness can be filled with what God intended all along, himself!

Grace in the Midst of Flashbacks

Grace, in the midst of Flashbacks....

In the space of a single moment, your mind can  rapidly, involuntarily replay the horrors you've survived. Your heart races, your body freezes and your body releases a flood of chemicals and neurological responses as if it were happening all over again. 

You didn't dwell on the past, you didn't intentionally do Anything, yet the trauma was triggered in all its volatility. 

Those who have never known severe trauma often will ignorantly say things like:

-Well, just move past it...

-Don't look back...

- Just give it to Jesus...( as if the person hasn't done  so a million times over, praying for help and healing. )

- Try not to think about it...  

Well meaning people say things while they are utterly oblivious to how the brain works, how trauma rewires the brain and how  all those suggestions just heap more shame on a person!

On occasion,  my sinful flesh has angrily thought ," I'd like to see them glibly say that, after being.......

 [violently raped,  repeatedly assaulted, or tied up, or  tortured  or locked up in a dark scary space or violently abused, or suffocated, or stalked etc etc etc]. And if they experienced all and more, would they begin to understand those of us who have? 

As much as I want to educate others on the authentic realities of surviving of abuse, the truth is I would never wish any of that on a single soul.

Instead I yearn for us to be a people of Grace! 

Did you know that  1 in three little girls are sexually abused. Moreover, Canadian statistics say, at least 30% of all women over the age of 15  have been sexually assaulted or raped.  Many victims of child sexual abuse were assaulted for years, or even decades. 44% of women have survived domestic violence. These are facts!

We acknowledge the horror of sex trafficking, yet somehow forget that many women experienced the similar years of horrors within  their own families and communities without a single penny being paid. If you knew what God knew, and saw the truth of what's been done you'd  never be the same again. 

We need Grace.... !!!

There is a need for GRACE, for ourselves and others who have experienced abuse. 

There also needs to be understanding.Traumatic flashbacks are an involuntary response, triggered by normal sights, sounds, words, smells etc. 

Something as simple as the sound a door makes when it opens, can trigger an involuntary cacophony of horrific memories in someone who has experienced trauma. 

Here is a mild Example; 

 Seeing a tiny spider, triggers terror in me and the memory of being 8, as my father cruelly dumped a viel of spiders into my shirt, then violently beat me for screaming in terror as they crawled all over my flesh. 

I can think as an adult and rationalize but when that memory is triggered, my subconscious brain responds to the threat as if it were happening in the present.

Myth: recalling memories is a voluntary choice, to live in the past as a victim

Myth: recalling past trauma means you haven't forgiven.  

Truth: As a person experiences flashbacks they are being given opportunities to begin working through the horror thier mind wasn't ready to face at the time of the trauma.

Truth: No one wants to relive the nightmare they already survived. For this reason we block out memories, we suppress feelings that surface and at times do more damage by not working through our brokenness. 

Grace for ourselves, allows us to accept what has happened and work through the trauma, breathing truth into each memory. 

Grace for others, means choosing not to judge a person by the pain they feel. Grace for others is choosing  not to shame a person,  who has already been forced to  carry the shame of others sin against them. 

If you haven't walked in another's shoes, you can not know another's journey! 

How long do think it would take to You, to heal from a violent rape,? What about 10 violent sexual assaults?, what about 100? What about decades of violent assaults? 

How long does it take to recover from attempted murder? How long does it take to recover from years of being beaten, and abused? I pray your brain can't fathom what it would be like... 

But, in the somber reality of those questions I challenge you to then have Grace. 

When you see 10 women in a room, statistics say 3-4 of them will know the painful reality of which I'm blogging about.  They may never tell a soul. They may work very hard to hide the pain they feel. Maybe their pain comes out in other ways? 

Grace... 

May it pour over us. May we have grace to face our past, and grace to allow ourselves the gift of a future without abuse. 

May we have grace to cry, without shame, grace to wrestle with God, grace to allow ourselves the time it takes to heal. 

May we have grace to accept where we ar with compassion for ourselves. 

May we have Grace for the child, or teen or adult part of ourselves or others, who wasn't able to cope with the trauma in the moment.

May we have grace for ourselves and others as the flashbacks come. 

May we show grace by understanding that each person on the planet has varying amounts of elasticity. Some may have been stretched already to their breaking point... 

God himself is Gracious. 

May we choose to be vessels of Grace, and instruments of healing.

From the blog "Shattered Hearts Restored" by Kirsten Emmanuel.  A journey of healing.