As a trauma survivor, I have come to grow in the maturity that I cannot be “fixed” with one session of therapy or one Sunday at the altar. It takes work to heal. Even when we cut our knee or elbow as children, we don’t see how it happens until we have a scab on the area that was breached. Our body is constantly working on the healing in order for a scab to cover the area to keep infection out.

After being molested as a child, and then raped almost three years ago, I am beginning to see who I truly am in Christ. I am not the person I thought I was when I allowed the young men in my life who were just as broken (if not more so) as myself. I disrupted my life through many failed attempts to look for love. I apologize to them now for bleeding on them when I did not know I was wounded. I am now in recovery mode. During recovery mode, what many people do not realize (especially me) is that as you recover there will be moments where you look completely healed. This is misleading because you will also believe that you are completely healed until you try to go back to what you were doing. Trying to go back to your old way of living after you’ve had surgery is nearly impossible because there will always be something slightly different after the operation. It may go unnoticed by the naked eye, but when you try to go back and do things the exact way you did before, pain will come. Your body will be shocked by a wave of pain that can also take your breath away.   

I tried to go back and look for love in all the wrong places, but the thing is I cannot go back to that way of living anymore. Things have changed. My perspective has shifted. Now that I have been exposed to a love that is inexplicable, a love so strong, a love so free, how can I go back into the arms of someone who is broken?

The shock came to me when I was offered dinner (cooked in my kitchen), by a man who then asked me to make more time for him. He took charge like a man should, but after the conversation, I sat with those words for a while. I knew I could not acquiesce to his request. As sweet, gentle, intelligent, and bearded as he was (he was foine!), I knew where this was going to lead. Overcoming trauma is realizing that when you are triggered by something, you will revert back to what is familiar and what is comfortable. That was our relationship. That was what reunited us in the first place.

He was rebuilding his life and I was trying to get over the failed potential of a relationship. However, we realized there could be something here, but on what grounds? Failure? From the outside, our relationship would be built on failure, so how long would we last? He had everything but Christ, and I am tired of trying to find love without Jesus in the center. I cannot attempt love again without the One who designed love. How can you get water with only  hydrogen and no oxygen?  

I walked away, and it felt so uncomfortable. It was the most uncomfortable thing ever. I know I did the right thing, but why did it feel so wrong? When you have developed a toxic pattern, breaking that pattern will feel uncomfortable at first. The more you choose life, the more comfortable it will feel. We choose death so much that when we choose life we believe that we have made a mistake. Choose life. For the first time, I chose life. I have to sit in this for a minute because it’s new.

Whatever decision you make today, I pray my sister, my brother, you choose life. When you do choose life I will sit with you. I will sit with you until you realize that you have finally chosen you. Relish in that.