It has been a particularly rough week for me emotionally. Without going into detail, I will say that I didn't have the best childhood and I had to relive some if it last Monday. The fallout has been a time of reflection and searching for me. It is leading me to uncover things about myself that I didn't realize. I am 37 and have spent years in therapy. I amazed that there are critical things I missed and realizations that never came up there.
At Sunday School last week, we were asked to reflect back and using hindsight, recall in whose face we saw the face of God when we were children: Something we wouldn't have recognized at the time, but that now we can see. I cried. I couldn't think of anyone. I began to feel sorry for myself. The closest I could come was people on the peripheral, who individually didn't have an huge impact on me, but collectively kept me from meandering down the wrong path. Maybe God can sometimes be like a guide-rail, keeping me between the lines.
The best form of therapy for me is talking. Telling my story over and over again to my friends until I get it out of my body and mind. I am not sure how many times I told the story of the past week to my friends, but eventually I found an answer in all of my regurgitation. I realized that I began to heal myself from my childhood when I was able to get away from home. When I got a car. When I could drive to normalcy and away from dysfunction. College was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was away and free to start my own life and build it a non-poisonous environment. I could pick and choose by whom I wanted to be surrounded.
Stepping back into dysfunction last week brought me back to my past. I was again a child. A child trying to defend her own now. I will not let the past drag me down and back. I have worked too hard. Today, while I was chatting with one of my best friends, she told me, "Music is your medicine." Then I proceeded to surf the net (with no purpose, just for fun) and byway of FB, I coincidentally found a link to the Habits of Supremely Happy People. I read the article, hoping for the key to not going back in time again. How to be content where I am because of how far I have come. And then I saw this habit, "They value a good mixtape." I read on.
"Music is powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it could match up to the anxiety-reducing effects of massage therapy."
I take that a sign from God. He spoke to me through my friend and through this article. I have made a place for myself to find refuge in music. I can sing and dance and not let dysfunction win. As an only child, I have always sung to myself. I do it pretty much all day, every day. Various songs that pull from my memory. I have never given it much thought, it is just what I do. Perhaps I have known how to help myself all along, I just didn't realize it. I will recover from this last incident, just like I did from those of my childhood.
I think that sometimes we can take huge steps backwards, but that doesn't mean we have failed or regressed. I am not a child anymore. I am not in a toxic environment anymore. Adults who act like children are not in control anymore. I am not immobilized. I am grown. I am in control. I have surrounded myself with people who love me and support me. I will not be bullied by adults from my past. They may not have changed, but I have.
Recently, I listened to a sermon from Athens Church on The Comparison Trap. It ties in nicely with this situation. Some of us may have better parents or better childhoods. Some of us may have been born with the best of everything. But we cannot blame what we become on what we were or were not given. I may have not been dealt the greatest hand, but it is up to me to play it to the best of my ability. What will I do with what God has given me?
When I originally heard this sermon about 3 weeks ago, it resonated with me. God put it there for me. He knew I would need it. I did. Thanks be to God. As Andy Stanley prays, I also pray: God, to the best of my ability, help me to walk in your will...a race that honors you and brings satisfaction to me. Amen.
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