Cocoon in the Wilderness

Healing is a very interesting thing. I have observed that there is so much more attention and understanding when it comes to injuries  we can see, than there is when it comes to injuries sustained to our minds and mental health. When you see someone on crutches it's obvious that the person either broke something or severely damaged a part that needs to be immobilized in order to heal properly. If someone gets into an accident, shatters bones and ends up in a body cast, it would be totally unreasonable to expect that person to be up walking around and back to life just a couple of weeks later.

It's easy to just assume that healing comes naturally and happens on its own. While that may be true about minor things, in order for healing to take place there has to be an environment conducive to healing. Even in the “right” type of environment that is only half of the equation. We are the other half. It depends on what we do or do not do while we are healing. The reason that doctors place a cast around the part that is broken is so that it can set and begin to heal as close to the place it was before it was broken. They make the cast large enough to ensure that even the area around the break will be undisturbed.

But what about when it comes to the brokenness within and shattered emotions? How do we put a cast around the pieces of our internal brokenness? Even worse, why is it that when nobody can see what we are going through that somehow it is any less severe or devastating than if we had been thrown through a windshield and  lay immobilized within a body cast?

There are so many broad labels that have been created to group emotional and mental health issues, but no matter what kind of medicine and talk therapy one can go to it seems the brokenness rarely ever totally heals. In my own life I have experienced so many degrees of devastation and all that talking about it really ever did was to reopen all of the pain and re-traumatize me. There are so many ever morphing triggers that always seemed to find another way to show up in my life. Just about the time that I thought I had gotten to the root of whatever it was, something else “triggered” me and I wound up finding everything I thought was healed just looked like it was before it showed up wearing a different mask.

Since I was 2 years old I have spent my life in and out of therapists offices. I am 40 now and I am here all over again. Except this time I am doing this because I am determined to finally get to the root of me. I have laid everything on the line including my sanity so that I can finally learn how to skillfully handle myself, be free of the torment that has always defined my life, and choose the things that are best for me no matter what anyone else would do. This is my life and I am the one who has to live it. I am the only one who looks back at myself when I look into the mirror, and if I can't live with myself then there is no way that I would ever be able to have the inner peace and confidence it takes to be bold, courageous and brave.

Over the past nearly 5 years, I have been through the greatest whirlwind nightmare that I have ever faced in all of my life. I never thought that was possible because I have been through some of the most unfathomable things. I can also say with all honesty that if these last 5 years wouldn't have been what they have in exactly the way they have, I never would have been able to discover the process of change necessary for life changing transformation to take place. What has been happening within me has impacted everything around me, and there has been a literal clearing of the people and things that were always the most important to me. 

 

It has felt more like a systematic removal of absolutely everything and everyone that I clung to for security and control. I suppose that if everything that has taken place over these past 5 years would have happened all at once in the beginning of this season in my journey, I might never have gotten up again. 

The more I have grown and learned how to surrender to whatever is happening all around me, the more I have experienced the unlimited power of love. For the first time I know what love is! It isn't something that someone else gave me or showed me. It has come in like a flood, flows through every fiber of my being like a thousand foot cascading waterfall. For the first time in my life I finally understand that love is the double edged sword that lasered out the toxic roots that were killing me, and then sealed me from the inside out so that I am protected from all that I used to be. 

In my very first blog post, I wrote about the memorial service where I buried the person I used to be. All that I am today is only possible because of all that I once lived my life being and being defined by. "She" was constructed of interwoven pain, trauma, and compromise of unbelief built in the darkness of self preservation and egoic scripting. Through the intense trials and refining fire, I have been peeled away layer by layer, and all of the life oxidation that once covered the real "me" allowed me to emerge intact within the innocence and purity of the little girl that I never got to be.  

I have been purified, wrapped in a cocoon called wilderness and bathed in the healing light of love. I have been strengthened as the blackened impurities of past that once covered and imprisoned my shattered heart have been reconstructed under the immense pressure and fiery heat of life. The unveiling of this divine reconstruction continues to amaze me. The once shattered pieces of my heart have become the facets refracting the light and brilliantly illuminating the kaleidoscope of colors beamed through my crystal clear heart which is now stronger than diamond. 

No longer am I at war with myself. I am not trying to get rid of all of the old me or the reminders of the shame, trauma, and survival skills that I learned and collected along the way. The clearing has been great. Everyone and everything was abruptly removed from my life and I used to be bitter. I felt like I was a victim of the devils strategic plan to annihilate my life. You know, the one to kill, steal, destroy, and make sure I was out for the eternal count.

But I see now first hand the awe of how such heinous experiences meant to wipe out any memory of me has actually become the platform, the stage upon which I am now dancing the dance of love with the Lord who is indeed the love of my entire existence!  

Everything the enemy intended to use to humiliate and erase me has become the story that reflects all the infinite glory and awe of the one who created me! It is through His awesome heart, faithfulness, genius, passion, and unconditional love, that I am here. I am a living miracle who has been brought from death into the life of love! I am sculpted by the hands and heart of the Lord God, my beautiful savior Jesus and intimately crafted and redesigned by their life giving Holy Spirit! I give them all of my praise for it is only because of Love that I am!

What I am experiencing in my life is not just for me. I know now that the sky never was the limit and that what our creator does for me, He will do for anyone and everyone...He doesn't play favorites because we are all His favorite! Jesus said that we could do greater things than He did and I'm taking Him at His word! You are loved more than anything by the one who made you. He misses you and longs for you...He just wants you to know that He loves and accepts you just as you are. 

He made you and knows everything about you! Your strengths, all of your weaknesses, your secrets, your dreams, you are His and He is your greatest cheerleader always right by your side, holding you tightly, and ever hopeful that you will stop long enough to take a breath so you can be inspired by the grand ideas He has for you as He whispers them into your heart so that you can feel the excitement and thrill that has always been waiting for you! God bless you always and you are loved!