Friends, Emily’s story is so relatable for me, but I believe also for many women. With this week as Valentine’s Day, a holiday and time that emphasize human love and connection, Emily’s story is timely. I love her heart and the way that she has found hope and freedom in the Lord to be her ultimate Love. When we rest in Him for our identity, it shapes the way we see all of our other relationships and, especially, ourselves.
Here is Emily’s Freedom Story.
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When I was a young girl, I bought into a pattern of lies that led me to an exhausting life of pursuing the love of someone, anyone, who was willing to give it to me. I’m not entirely sure how exactly this pattern took such deep roots in my soul, but their infection robbed me of joy and led me to sacrifices I never intended to make.
I was convinced that every square inch of myself needed to be dedicated to maintaining the happiness of other people in my life and if they were happy with me, they loved me. If I could be the one that listened to their problems and helped them find solutions, even if that solution cost me something, they would love me. Eventually I would connect with someone, we would develop a great relationship based on fun and joy and common interests. A friend that loved dancing and showtunes as much I did, a friend that played soccer and loved great movie quotes. A friend that loved Jesus and didn’t think it was weird that I did, but we made space for the hard questions too. But eventually, the lie would begin to manifest its way into my thoughts. I would agonize over whether they would keep loving me or not, and fear their certain departure, seeing great things like adding others to our friendship as signs that they loved me less. I became so consumed with fear that I would inevitably lose them, that I began to literally make cases for why I was a mess, but also why I was in need of their love and friendship. The chains that held my adolescent heart captive must have been just as suffocating for those around me as it was to me.
Even as I grew and matured (a little, anyway) this translated into even more toxic patterns of behavior in relationships with guys. I had a sense of boundaries physically, but even those began to wear thin under the pressure of “if you really love me,” coming from their tender lips. Like the serpent encircling Eve in the Garden of Eden, tempting her to believe that the Creator’s word wasn’t fully true, I buckled and caved into lie after lie about who I was, and what love really was.
Even though I was raised in the Church. Even though I was certain that I loved Jesus, it was clear that I was not so certain that Jesus would always love me. Love, even God’s love, felt like it depended entirely on what I was willing to give and to do in order to be worthy enough to keep it, and even more tragically, I believed it could be lost.
Thankfully, the Lord only lets us go so far. Not just once, but over and over again. When I was a freshman in college, I was living at the lowest point I had ever been, believing the lie that my virtue and my value, taken from me against my will, was now in someone else’s hands and maybe God would somehow fix the mess I had surely allowed. God chased me down and delivered me out of the pit. He sent a man into my life to call out the the lies I had believed about what love really was. He sent a book into my lap that told the fictional story of Hosea and his adulterous wife who believed she was too far gone to ever be truly loved and revealed the reality of her worth and the depths of His redeeming love. He opened His Word to me in a way I had never seen before about the height and depth of His love for me (Ephesians 3:18). He led me to place of seeing that “there is nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you.” The Lord began to uproot the evil lies that had held me captive for so long and to sew new seeds of the freedom found in His redeeming love.
Any time I share this part of my story, it always feels strange because it equally sounds like I’m talking about another person’s life, and then there are times I can still see some of the residue of those lies in my current days. Its wild to me that life with Christ provides the opportunity of constant renewal. As we grow, we face new problems and new patterns that trip us up, and bring us to the end of this version of ourselves. Other times, old habits and patterns are triggered by trauma, and old lies manifest themselves in masks. In that process, the Lord lavishes His love on us again and again through His word, His people and the presence of His spirit, renewing our minds and transforming our hearts. (Romans 12:2).
Freedom from sin and all that entangles us is ever available to us, and it is an ever-present pursuit this side of Heaven. Like a child wondering how many times she’s going to need to receive a reminder from a loving, but watchful parent, I often wonder to myself “How many more ways am I going to need to learn about God’s love?” But maybe it’s less about repeating the same lessons you thought you had learned before, and more about God’s love and a life of freedom in Christ being like the opening up of new parts of a gift you have already been given. It takes us to a deeper place of savoring the Good News of the Gospel, and it calls us to a deeper knowing of the One whose love is never ending, that does not ask for us to earn it, but to receive it freely.
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