Wounded

Wow, I am having some physical reactions to writing on this topic but I feel as though Jesus is asking me to get this out of the way so I am. I am wounded, like most I would assume, from my family of origin. Much of my wounding has come through my dad, but I am sure my mom did her fair share. I don’t have any clue who is reading my story, but I want to say up front, all of our parents are wounded and those wounds get repeated in generations. That doesn’t make our families strange, awful, or unworthy of reaching all the dreams in their hearts. It makes each family human and wounded, we have an enemy and it isn’t our family members. As I am receiving healing from the wounds caused in my youth and as an adult, I am realizing that the enemy had my game from day one. If he can use enough people, or the right people, to tell you who you are in this world, and we choose to believe them, it can cost us our lives.

The things our parents did and said to us came from a deep place of wound in them and sin, the way we treat others and react to things comes from the same place. I remember watching a Dove Video a few years ago, the little girls (some close to five years old) were describing what they liked and didn’t like about their physical appearance. The video cut to the mom’s videos and the moms described what they liked and didn’t like about their physical appearance, and guess what? You guessed it, it was the same things! They are watching us! My eyes are being opened to a whole new way of looking at things, our parents didn’t cost us our wounds, the enemy affirming things they said to us and us listening is what wounded us. I know that I tend to read things through the story I thought had been written about me from birth. My story said I was a girl, so I didn’t have a voice. My story says that I need to sit down, shut up, and behave because I am just a bother. My story is wounded and broken, and most of all…a lie.

God loves me, dearly. Jesus is my best friend and He loves me, dearly. The Holy Spirit loves me so much, He sits in my junk with me collecting the tears that flow from my face when pain overtakes me and I have to shed them. When I sit in that and realize that the woman that is in the mirror is not a full reflection of what I was originally designed as, I can feel His love pouring over me. I will one day be that woman, but today I am a mere shell of it.

The wounds brought about in my family of origin will be told to shape how God is speaking to me, never to do harm. I love my family, I believe I am a good example of my family and what God has done in it. I have the drive to survive and prosper more than many with my history (and without) and I will continue the race until the day I leave this earth because of the parents that raised me. I push through hard times with hope and endurance because they displayed God’s good nature in that to me. I know as I write, wounds will come up and I will use my story to offer hope and love. I always want to write with my healing in mind first and I find that healing in others stories as well. If you are reading this, first of all thank you. Second, if you would like to share some of your story, I will pray with you and we can start a conversation. I know we all are struggling with childhood wounds and brokenness, I also know Jesus longs to heal us from the inside out.

If we open up about our wounding and start talking, I believe we will gain strength together. I am not trained in counseling but I love God and I know how to read His word, it tells me to love Him with all my heart, mind, strength and to love others as myself. I can offer that to others and maybe if we start talking, we will all find healing and safety in the arms of community.

“For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”

Matthew 18:20