Testimonial - The Cave

MY STORY

When I was asked to write this by my counselor at first I didn’t know where to start, then ideas started coming and I didn’t know where to stop. I’ve tried to narrow it down so as not to bore you, but there is really only one very important message. If you are reading this – don’t give up; don’t quit, don’t think it’s hopeless. God loves you more than you know and wants the very best for you. Psalm 139: 1 "God knows me. He knows you." I am 65 years old. I thought I would go to my grave with my dysfunctional problems. I didn’t think there was enough time left in my life to work through and resolve a lifetime of manipulation and control through emotional, physical and mental abuse. But with counseling and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Comforter and Counselor, today my life has a fresh new start. It is possible to feel like a kid again – free to laugh, and run (well, so to speak), and have fun.

This is my story. Everyone has one this just happens to be mine. There is a “before” and an “after”, but unlike the pictures of weight loss, or extreme makeovers, or hairstyles, my story is not about a transformation that can be seen in a photograph. It is about inward transformation and emotional healing - work that can only be done by the hand of God.

I “lived” so to speak in a dark deep cave – an emotional and mental disabling cave and did not know it. It was a way of life – my life. I knew no other options. How did I get there, you ask. Good question. There was a time when I could not answer that question, but now I know. Over the years I lived in the lies I had been told – always trying to please, but never pleasing. Those lies turned into truths - lies from my family to manipulate and control. Hearing from them what I was not all the time, I became what they said I was – after all they were “right” and I was wrong at least in my eyes, not in God’s eyes. One of my mother’s most “favorite” controlling statement was “If they know you, they won’t like you.” Developing friendships and relationships was out of the question. It was better not to be known than not to be liked – as a child or youth and especially as an adult.

God’s transformation of me started long before I realized it; for me it began the day I chose to believe and accept how God sees me – perfect - instead of how I had come to see myself. I saw only the imperfections – all the glitches and shortcomings. When I thought only of what I considered “truth” not God’s truth, it was actually a form of idol worship. The truth will set you free – not the perception of truth. I could know intellectually God sees me as perfect, but until I make the choice to believe to accept – to trust – nothing will happen. But when I start seeing me as God sees me – transformation takes place.

Not too many days ago – actually about a week before the writing of this paper, my dad and brother once again tried to push me back into the cave of despair. Not this time – this time I took a stand and stood firm. Ephesians 6:13 “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”  Isaiah 7:9 “If you do not stand firm in your faith you will not stand at all.” Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Try as they may to persuade me to do what they wanted – by God’s grace I stood firm. I was not popular, I was not respected or honored for my stand with them, but they gave up. The next morning during my devotion time I ask God, “After all that has happened, how do you see me now?” It was not long and the Holy Spirit introduced a new character trait. A trait I never expected or thought to be – He said, “strong”. WOW! What a surprise! For the very first time after years of feeling worthless, always wrong, intimated, like a victim, I felt none of it –God was saying “I see you as strong.” I felt strong – I was seeing myself as strong in Christ. A few minutes later He gave me another trait. This one brought a smile to my face and joy to my heart – liberated. For the very first time in my life, I felt free – no more ties that bind, no more bondage.