Sorting Through the Past - Facing It

How long can we avoid things too painful to bring to light again?
As long as we want to, for sure.
But that doesn't stop it being there.

I dealt with a lot while I was sick. But that didn't mean that I dealt with being sick.
A lot has changed - I have found my identity, God has freed me from depression and an eating disorder and fear - but there are always scars. I suppose my scars are scars of scars.

And God has been showing me it is time to heal them too.

To look back at the past 12 months

To see the pain - and the healing of old wounds

And accept what has happened - be grateful for it,

And move on.

It's that moving on which I find the hardest. That looking back to move forwards.

I know where I have come from.

I know where I have been.

It's a terrifying place.

But I also know the promise of tomorrow.

I could live only for tomorrow, but God won't let me. He doesn't want me to be forever scarred by my past, in fear or denial of the worst of the worst places. It is those places which I have to acknowledge the healing of in order to move forward.

I suppose one might say that you have to see the worst in order to understand the best.

To see the hurt in order to accept the healing.

God has healed me of these things. I will never be the same.

I guess the hardest part now is realising how bad they were.

How sick I was.

How much needed healing.

How much pain there was.

And how it will never be like that again.

I don't like looking through photos of me in hospital.
It reminds me of so much, and it is all so fresh.

Most of all, it reminds me of dealing with the pain that had been there for so long.

Sometimes, though, it is being reminded that pushes us forward onto the path of life - that path which God ordained and directed me towards, despite everything.

So I challenge you - as God has challenged me - to face up to the past.

Let Him show you what He wants to, what He needs to.

He wants your healing.

He wants you whole.

Sure, looking at my photos is heart wrenching, and makes me cry, and wish it hadn't been as hard.
But then I remember I would not be who I am now if not for that.

If not for pain.

If not for enduring.

If not for My God, and His great love.

If not for Him.

If there is something He is prompting you to face, then do it.

Surely pain of facing it has got to be better than carrying inward pain  around like a wounded, dying animal?

Let Him heal you.

As I will let Him heal me.

I will face up to these fears - this fear of how terrible, and dark, and deep, and deadly that place was.

I will remember.

And I will know who My God is and what exactly it is He has done for me.

He has taken me out of that place.

And I can never go back.

That alone gives me strength to go on.