New Freedoms, Part One

Lately it seems like I've had one realization after another. One is that I realized that I have a bad attitude about Christmas and need to stop being a scrooge. (My dear John can give account to that realization.) So this Christmas season, I'm tuning in to what Christmas is really about. However, while this was a big step, a bigger one came still, and this one hurt much more than the former. This realization unlocked a memory that I had blocked. The actual memory, I remembered, but the emotional part that of the memory, I had blocked out and not dealt with until recently.

Like any sort of moment of awareness, the sting of the realization came and suddenly memories swept in that I had not considered as a big deal before, but suddenly were placed where they belonged. I remembered not the specific memories, but I remembered the details I had shut out and how they had at the time made me feel... It happened to me as a young girl, and later as a teen, in a situation I didn't understand, and it happened in a Christian setting, specifically in a smaller group of people. I had taken my feelings and bottled them. I had taken hurt and turned it to distrust. Distrust turned into fear, which has made me hide for years.

Eureka!

You may be wondering if I was abused somehow. The answer is no to sexual/physical abuse, yet emotionally and spiritually there was still some damage that I prevented from healing by not recognizing its impact.... until now. I had to get here by looking into a deep, dusty place in my heart that is rarely used or looked at. It hurt to go there, but after was beautiful relief. I had found a big missing piece of a puzzle, and this piece answered my question "why?"... With the puzzle piece getting put it place, it made the picture start to make more sense, as opposed to an awkward gap of unknown. Suddenly, my anxiety in some social situations made sense and I also understood more of where my sense of worth was affected. I also understood how it was even potentially affecting my work, my job, my career.... I had to realize the impact of what happened to me, why it was still important and how it was holding me back in fear, and then let it go. I feel different already. This will take some work, but I'm more than willing to heal, rearrange, and thrive.

If we let it happen, we are all beauty from ashes and we are stories being redeemed.... His story.

Holding Too Tightly---Butterfly Metaphor

There are some memories from childhood that we can pull out like books from a shelf. I have several. One such memory is an incident that happened when I was a little girl that still shades my mind. I was playing outside like I normally did when I caught a delicate white butterfly... I was so obsessed with the butterfly that I held it too tightly, and the result was inevitable: I killed it. I remember feeling absolutely horrible. I was a murderer. My heart broke, and I cried over it's fragile broken wings, feeling the realization that it would never fly again.

Maybe that was a mellow-dramatic story to kick off my point, but I'm going somewhere with it. That incident I experienced as a mellow-dramatic child makes me wonder how often we hold so tightly to something dear to us, and so often the end result is we accidentally destroy it. Putting the butterfly killing aside and speaking more metaphorically, how often have I destroyed something dear to me because I was so desperate to keep it? How often do I come close to destroying something now?

God spoke to me last night about something I've been pleading Him for... Again, last night I found myself praying hard for it, and His voice told my heart that I needed to let it go... I knew what He meant: by holding on too tightly I could hurt myself, and potentially hurt others by not resting in His will. He should be in control, not me... Honestly, I pouted that I had to release it. The side of my heart that loves control and feeling in control wrestled with God for several hours into today, but I finally relented. In that release came relief. He didn't tell me I will not receive what I've been praying for: He merely just said I can't hold on so tightly to it anymore.

Winged things deserve to be without bounds, and our lives can be held captive by bounds we put on the things we love. What freedom awaits by trusting instead of holding so tightly? If that metaphorical butterfly happens to stay resting in my hand by itself, isn't that even more amazing than if I made it stay there by force? So I will let go... release... and watch as the possibilities unfold.