Leave it with Him.

When I first returned to my faith It was a slow crawl, I walked so timidly back to the safe place that I run from before. Shame had withered me and I feared being looked at as the damaged mess I saw myself to be. After time God's warmth had seeped beneath my hard shell and I began peeling off the scraps of what couldn't be renewed and restored myself.

But what would I do with this jumbled ball of trauma. Where did these thorns belong in my life? It was then I prayed to him once more. His answer was simple. Leave it with me. So I handed my hurt, pain, sins and damage to him. I even envisioned handing the decay to the son of God, looking at it in tears, what had once been a part of me. I imagined reluctantly giving it over, and him kneeling to take it from me like it were as precious and tender as a child. What I look at with demise he looks at with love. He glances at me and tells me without words that everything is ok, that I did good. He looks back at it then, with purpose and walks into the warmth and light of God.

I have this deep sense that God has a greater plan for it. That all that darkness he will mold and shape into some sort of armor or enlightenment, and when I am ready I will carry it again but in a different way. He can't take it away, it can't disappear but he can change your perspective of it, you could see it through his eyes.

Recently I have looked at things differently. I found the strength to seek help. I have been forced to look at my childhood sexual abuse as the evil that it was. I am finally able to speak it. And for so long I thought that God wanted me to forgive my abuser when he really wanted me to forgive myself. I did not have a choice when I was 6,7,8,9 or 10. I have a choice now, I own my present. And for my abuser, you lie in God's hands. I leave it with him. I know he will forgive you, but it is not my job to, and my strength and faith is not measured in my ability to. I pray he takes away your demons as he has with mine.