Burdens

It’s been a while since I’ve written. Life has been pretty intense lately. I didn’t think senior year would be stressful, but as it turns out, I was wrong (shocker). Taking on another job, combined with this new therapy, has been pretty exhausting. My pain and insomnia have flared up again, and my body is telling me that I’m doing too much. I keep telling myself that I’ll let go of something once it gets to be too overwhelming, but I’m not sure I’ll ever admit to myself that I'm already there.

I know that I don’t have anything to prove to anyone, yet I have this incessant need to try to push my body to the breaking point, all the while knowing that my breaking point comes much sooner than most people my age.

I don’t tend to talk about my pain much anymore. When I’m having a bad pain day, it takes a lot for me to ask for prayers or ask for help, because after eleven years, I've convinced myself that no one wants to hear it. I wake up every morning in pain, and I go to bed every night in pain. Every moment of every day is spent with my whole body aching, but I do everything I can to push through it. I hate feeling and looking weak, so I try not to show it when I’m hurting. But a few nights ago, when I started shaking because it grew to be way too much to handle, I began to sob. I’m only 24, and my body is already attacking itself. Eleven years feels far too long, but knowing it's just the start crushes me to my core. I don’t want this to be my life.

Before I proceed further, I want to again state (especially for first time readers) that I will never pretend to know the hurt or pain of anyone else. I know there are people who read my blog who experience hurts I cannot begin to imagine, and my heart aches for all of them. This is simply me, sharing my heart, hoping it will help someone.

Many people don’t understand how exhausting it is to live like this – to live knowing there will never be a cure. I will never wake up and be able to function like normal people my age. I will have to live with this terrible pain every day of my life…and that’s a burden that feels too much to bear. I don’t want to have to live like this for the rest of my life.

~ I will lift my eyes / even in the pain / above all the lies / I know you can make a way ~

I know that my God is strong enough to lift this from me, but I have also accepted that He may not. Instead, I must trust that He will use all of this pain for His glory, and His name. I refuse to believe otherwise.

I’ve carried several burdens that crush me. When the abuse first started, I just thought it was my burden to bear. As it continued, and as it worsened, I accepted that this was my life. I thought, like all of the health issues I was experiencing, that I just needed to learn how to cope with it. But it became this huge area that I could not entrust to God. I could not hand over this burden – this crushing weight – because I couldn’t trust a God who didn’t stop it.

I never doubted God’s love for me through it all. In the heights of the abuse, I felt His arms around me. I felt Him shielding my heart and my soul. I felt His anger towards the evil men who were harming His precious daughter. I never doubted His love for me, but even though it may not make sense, I still couldn’t trust Him. How could I trust a God who didn’t stop these deplorable acts? How could I hand Him those burdens?

And it wasn’t just that I couldn’t trust Him – I didn’t feel worthy of His love. I was so broken and alone. My body had been physically and emotionally ripped apart, chunk by bloody chunk, until there was nothing left. I was this girl with dead eyes and a broken heart. I was a girl with no hope. How could a perfect God ever love such a broken mess?

When dad died, I was even more of a mess. When my boyfriend started abusing me just a day later, I gave up completely. I was reminded consistently by friends and family that I was lucky to have someone willing to stay with me, through all of my health issues, and after losing my daddy. I was reminded of that brokenness, and all of those burdens, while I was violated in manners I’d do anything to forget. Give God those burdens? Really? How?

But I am reminded of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” (2 Corinthians 4:7-10).

My Jesus is so much bigger than the pain I experience. And though I know I will deal with this until I am taken Home, I know He can work through it. I know He can create beauty from the ashes I so desperately want taken from me. I know that the same Jesus who cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” will never forsake me in the moments when I’m begging for Him to let me go Home and have this pain leave me forever.

My Jesus is so much bigger than the horrific abuse I endured. Though I will carry those physical scars with me forever, and though the emotional trauma is difficult to overcome, I know He has shaped me so beautifully through the journey. I know that the God who parted seas will mold something so beautiful out of that broken girl.

My Jesus is so much bigger than the loss of the one man I fully trusted. Though I will never stop missing my daddy, I have a God who has promised to be my everlasting Father. I have a God who calls me His child, because I have chosen to accept and believe in His name. I know that the God who let His Son take on my burdens will turn those burdens into a passion and a zeal I could never comprehend.

Our deepest burdens, our inmost groans, were never meant for us to bear alone. I hate the saying, “God never gives us more than we can handle,” because it eliminates the need for our Father. And we so desperately need our Father. I know some of you are carrying terribly heavy burdens right now – depression, trauma, financial issues, health issues – things you think no one could possibly unload. But I promise you, we have a God who vows to walk us through all the muck and never leave us alone. He may never fully take our physical and mental suffering in this world, but I promise you, He will forever protect your spirit.

Have you accepted the name of Jesus? Do you believe in and live under that name? Then you are a child of the living God, and there is no one in heaven or on earth who can ever take away that identity. You are chosen, and you are free from the burdens you are carrying. They were never meant for you to bear alone. Whatever load you are carrying, allow our Jesus to take it from you. You are so worthy of that love.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).