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Your Past Does Not Define You
“As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.” -Psalm 103:12
When we wrestle with shame, we feel like our brokenness is the whole story. Shame says, “Your past defines you. You are too broken to be loved. You will never be whole or healed.” Shame tries to keep us trapped in the dark.
Years ago, after I experienced the most painful parts of my story, I felt like the main character in The Scarlet Letter. I was stuck in that darkness, and thought everyone around me could see my sin, shame, and trauma on display. It made me want to hide from others, and I didn’t feel welcome in God’s presence or with other Christians who seemed to have it all together. I thought I was destined to wear a “V” for victim, a “D” for divorce, and an “A” for anxiety for the rest of my life.
But friend, shame does not tell the whole story.
Your wounds and scars and baggage do not define you. The present struggle you are wrestling does not define you. The biggest brokenness you feel when you think of yourself? THAT does not define you.
As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. He binds up the brokenhearted. He restores the years the locusts have eaten. He brings beauty from ash and brokenness. He proclaims freedom. He sets the captives free.
There is nothing too dark or too heavy or too broken for Him that He cannot redeem. The Bible is full of real people God re-defined instead of letting their brokenness tell the whole story.
We get to be like Jacob with his sinful past who was newly named “Israel” and blessed by God as the father of a nation. God re-defined Jacob and used him as the foundation of a favored people.
We are able to stand firm like Joseph, who said “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:20). God sustained Joseph and rescued others through him.
We can comfort those who mourn and stand by their side, like Ruth did for Naomi. God restored Ruth’s broken heart and brought her a sweet redeemer in the form of Boaz, and even used her in the lineage of Jesus, a true Redeemer for the rest of us.
We can cry out to God in our shame, our pain, our brokenness like David throughout the Psalms. God forgave David in his repentance, and still used David’s story and his heart to show others how to walk through the light days and the dark.
We can be like Paul, who stepped into humility after he met the Lord and brought truth to others. God transformed Paul’s heart and gave him a powerful testimony that allowed him to speak to others from a place of true awareness of his need for a redeemer.
What if instead of hiding from God in our brokenness, we instead prayed that He would meet us there and transform the way we see the hard parts of our story? What if we prayed for Him to use our brokenness, however He can, to bring hope to others and bring glory to HIS greatness? What if instead of covering up those parts of our story, we shared with others to let them know that they’re not alone? In your honesty and vulnerability with yourself, God, and others, I pray that you might be released from shame, darkness, and feeling like you will never be free from those heavy burdens. Because, dear heart, when you set those things into the light, the darkness cannot have as much power here.
Let’s not give shame the final say.
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How addressing our wounds brings healing
“You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there,” -Jeremiah 6:14 (TLB)
When I was in middle school, I fell on my knee at a friend’s house. We were playing charades on the treadmill (questionable judgment) and she gave me the prompt, “Pretend you’re running in the park and you see a cute guy.” I stopped running upon seeing this invisible cute guy, and the treadmill threw me back into the wall. The treadmill continued to run, with my knee catching the brunt of it. We laughed about it but it really hurt, since the fall scraped off several layers of skin. I put a band-aid over it and went back to playing. Our game distracted me, but under the surface I was still embarrassed by the fall and my knee still hurt.
For the first few days, I continued to wear band-aids on my knee. The wound looked gross, so I covered it up with a fresh bandage each day. After a week, I tried to go without a bandage. My knee hurt from bumping up against my desk, and from air blowing across the wound. A classmate pointed to my knee and said how it looked like “elephant skin,” a grayish, wrinkled layer where my body was trying to heal. Because I hadn’t given it a long enough chance to sit exposed to the air, it was having a hard time healing. But I was more embarrassed by what others thought than healing properly, so I went back to wearing band-aids.
We can only ignore the discomfort for so long. I can get by with a bandage on the wound for a little while, but eventually I have to remove the band-aid and stop covering up the wound. I have to clean out the infection and expose it to air and light to let it heal properly.
It’s tempting to ignore the wounds though, isn’t it? It’s easier to stuff the feelings than to let ourselves feel them- especially when the emotions that rise up are difficult. It’s tempting to push past the hurt instead of slowing down long enough to properly heal. It’s common to numb the symptoms of the pain, rather than addressing the source of the pain. We do patch-work on our problems instead of looking at the whole picture, so that God can in turn make us whole.
It’s scary to actually look at the wound, to admit that we’re hurting, and to surrender to the healing process. But in the case of my middle school knee, that’s what it took for new cells to generate and the wound to heal. In the case of our past hurts and current discomforts, true reflection and vulnerability are important for new life to enter in.
There’s a verse in Jeremiah that’s stuck with me for the past few years in my recovery work: “You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there.” I’ve seen this to be true in my own life, related to healing from trauma and unhealthy relationships. If I ignored the memories or tried to avoid triggers, the wounds were still present. The longer I let the unhealed trauma stay beneath the surface unaddressed, the more room I left for unhealthy coping mechanisms or “infections” that made it worse. I carried the trauma and pain into new relationships and settings, and projected my past pain onto new people. I viewed life through the lens of my hurt, instead of the wholeness God intended for me.
In order to step towards healing, I had to finally take off the “bandages” of busyness, new relationships, and my denial of any issues. I had to make space to say, “I’m hurting. I need help.”
When we’ve spent a long time ignoring pain, it can be really uncomfortable to sit with it. But I believe feeling the pain (without numbing) is what leads us to seek healing. I had to learn to identify what I was actually feeling, what I needed, what I was scared of, and even what I hoped for as a result of healing. It took time for me to learn that those hard feelings, memories, and fears did not make me a bad person or a poor example of a Christian. They just made me human, and showed that the brokenness of this world affects all of us.
Last week, I shared about vulnerability with God, and how He wants us to bring all of our hearts to Him. When we know that there is a safe place to let down our walls and take off the bandages, it creates a safe place for us to be honest and open with ourselves.
Eventually, the wound on my knee became a scar. The skin looks a little different there, and it’s a reminder of a former hurt. But it no longer stings or burns when the air hits it. It’s no longer raw “elephant skin”- it’s just a light pink circle, barely visible to the eye.
When we make the space to sit with our wounds, we can invite God in to meet us in our pain. That willingness to be vulnerable with ourselves and others, in the safety of God’s presence, brings restoration. After we find that healing, we may carry the scars of the past, but they no longer fester in pain beneath the surface, begging for us to pay attention. They can now serve as reminders of His redemption, and remind us of His power made perfect in our weakness.
