Courage, Dear Heart

You are not hidden, There’s never been a moment you were forgotten You are not hopeless, But you have been broken, your innocence stolen To say this semester has been tough is a huge understatement. I’m not sure I have ever been so overwhelmed; with two jobs on top of 18 credit hours, I have been exhausted and completely drained. As my pain and insomnia worsens, everything takes so much more effort. My last few weeks in particular have been insane. I could count on one hand how many hours I’ve slept in the last 15 or so days. I have been under intense spiritual attack, but I have refused to relent in my pursuit of ministry. I can feel Satan ensuing a battle over me, and my body is so worn from it. Then a couple of days ago, as I renewed my strength again and stood strong in the Lord, I learned that a prior abuser lives in my town. This was the abuser who caused me to drop out of my old college. I decided to transfer because of him – because the restraining order was never ...

Who the Son sets free Oh is free indeed I’m a child of God, yes I am Today (October 1st) marks the anniversary of the day I got out of my final abusive relationship. I know people often say this at anniversaries, but I truly never thought I would get here. If you told me a year ago I would be in this place – safe, happy, and healing – I wouldn’t have believed you. A year ago, I was a scared girl with a wilted spirit. I was broken, felt utterly forsaken, and didn’t see any redemption in my future. Now, I’m strong. I’m a warrior. I have amazing friends who love me. I have roommates who cherish me and whom I cherish. I have brothers-in-Christ who care about me and protect me at every turn. I’m in a beautiful home, in my senior year of college about to finish my ministry degree, and I’m in a type of therapy that’s truly helping me heal. I’ll finish my degree with honors and a purpose to change the sex industry in the world. ~ I’m a child of God, yes I am. ~ A year ago, I was te...

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 be...

“Now the Lord is in the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom ” (2 Corinthians 3:17). After 4 ½ years of schooling, I have finally entered my senior year. With so many serious diseases and health issues, I wasn’t sure if I would ever make it this far. Refusing to be a driven person has never been an option for me. I knew that if I wanted to make it (not just through college, but through life ), then I would have to be a driven, diligent person. I couldn’t be lazy, and I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t be able to wallow in self-pity (nor does the Lord want that from me), and I wouldn’t be able to stay on the ground when I got knocked down. Now, that isn’t to say that I don’t get knocked down. As a matter of fact, yesterday I had to leave class early because I’ve been doing poorly health-wise, particularly with my pain and insomnia. But I arose this morning, setting out for a new day, and reset. This year, I am taking 18 credit hours both semesters. I wil...

“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes and precautions – to Christ” (C.S. Lewis). I used to absolutely hate it when people told me to “just trust in God.” Didn’t they know what I was going through? Couldn’t they see that this was absolutely impossible for me? Life used to seem that way – impossible – all the time. I didn’t see a way out, and I couldn’t trust anyone , least of all God. It wasn’t that I hated Him, or blamed Him for the things I was going through; I could often be grateful for the times He never left me. I was grateful…but trust was a different thing entirely. When I began dating the worst abuser, all of my walls went up. He taught me that I could trust no one around me – no one except for him . And I did trust him, for a while. He had groomed me to believe that he was the only one who would never leave (so long as I did everything he wanted), and eventually, in accordance with his wishes, I shut ...

“As a child, I never imagined that all of the real monsters in the world would be humans” (Mobeen Hakeem). The last few weeks, I have been very exhausted. It doesn’t have much to do with the insomnia, though that certainly isn’t helping; rather, I have felt very emotionally and spiritually apathetic. It feels as if I am reverting back to when I was dating my abusers, and decided that being “dead inside” was better than any of the painful emotions I was experiencing. One of the ways that the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has affected me the most is through dissociation. Dissociating from trauma isn't always a negative way to cope, particularly during the trauma itself. During the worst pits of abuse, and the heights of the torture, I survived through dissociating myself from the pain I was experiencing. It helped me in a lot of ways, but unfortunately, I grew very used to the feeling of apathy – the feeling of having those huge walls up all around me...walls that no ...

In a moment of total vulnerability (which I am so good at), this past week has been incredibly difficult for me. When the school year ended, and I lost my counselor and one of my closest friends as a roommate, I thought I was totally ready and able to take on the rest of the year. I had to hop on a long ride to Philly right before my friend moved out, and the week I spent there was incredible (as my last post expressed). I came back very filled, and felt even more confident that this coming year – my senior year – would be so much easier than what I’d faced this last year. I wasn’t expecting the crushing loneliness. My new roommates are super awesome, one of whom has been a wonderful friend for the last six months. However, being the only single person in this house, where I’m constantly surrounded by couples, has been crushing. There’s nothing anyone can do – it’s not that I’m feeling left out by anyone – I’m simply lonely . So many changes have happened so quickly, and I’ve...