I have been keeping myself busy lately with projects around my home and it is very refreshing for me. I have spent so much of my life being controlled and all my energy going into surviving. I am finally in a place where I feel like I can start thriving. It has been such a long, arduous process to get here, so I am trying to enjoy just being a person.
That may sound strange to some people, but when you are so stripped of your humanity that you can barely have your own thoughts and all your choices are actually directives from your masters and handlers then you don’t really feel human. Now I can cook and clean and walk through my neighborhood and pray for people at church, and these are all things I never thought I would be able to do.
Sometimes we think we need to do it all or have it all, but I am learning just to enjoy what God has put in front of me. I feel for the first time hope for my future, that I can leave the house on my own or make a phone call. My anxiety has been so high I haven’t been able to do even these basic things for years.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10
God is a great Restorer and Redeemer. He told me at the beginning of this year, as I was praying for a word for the year, that my word was Restoration; the year that God was going to restore the things the enemy had stolen from me. I really wanted to receive that word, but I also didn’t think I could believe it. I have been in a period of great pain and struggle for so many years now. Even on my healing journey, I have had to fight every day to get out of bed and not sit on the couch and check out.
Being a ritual abuse survivor means so much more than just coming out of rituals. It is dealing with all of the trauma, programming, people you’ve been connected to, belief systems, and the effects all of that has had on your body and mind. I have been in recovery but now I can actually see I am moving into restoration. I have free will and a sound mind and those are precious, precious gifts that we should never take for granted.
That doesn’t mean every day is easy for me now, nor does it mean I am done with healing. I am still working through the intricate layers of programming put in from my childhood, and disconnecting from the people that put it in. I don’t know how long it will take to get through it all. It might not happen in this lifetime – but I’m not worried about it because I have all of eternity to discover the richness of what it means to have freedom in Christ.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17
What a rich and wonderful blessing it has been to come through the process of healing with Jesus. There were many times I was ready to quit and even give up on Jesus, but I kept fighting through all of the obstacles that stood in my way. It has been worth it to get to where I am now, and where I think I will be in the years to come.
One of the best parts about where I am is I no longer feel the need to do what I believed was expected of me. Things that I thought would please others but that would trigger me into a place where I couldn’t function any longer. I have forced myself to try to join groups or go to functions because that’s what other people do – normal people. They have friends and join life groups homeschool groups, etc.
Every time I have tried to do these things in the past – and I have done them over and over again – I have seen how badly I get triggered. I begin a descent into a dark place that I find it hard to come back from. Now I have given myself permission to stay home and not try to join anything. I can be content to just take care of my home and family and not do any more than what I know I can.
From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.
John 1:16
There is so much peace and freedom on this side of healing. God has given me so much grace in the process. I know a lot of people are still working through the trauma and pain of what they’ve been through, but just know that there is hope if you keep fighting through it. It may not be exactly what you are expecting, but it will be rich and full of the life God has for you.
So for today, let’s keep on fighting the good fight, and allowing the Holy Spirit to help us to grow and mature until we are perfect and complete, on the day when Christ appears.
Staci
I feel you, sister!! I have experienced the same kind of restoration as which you are describing! I was not a ritual abuse victim in the sense you were, but I endured abuse and trauma all the same. He is so good and so faithful!! I can see him doing work in me and through me that I KNOW I never could have done on my own or in my own strength. I, too, rejoice in his goodness and hope for my future!! Hallelujah, amen!!