How does it feel to go public with my most intimate pain and sins?

I don’t have adequate language to tell you how it feels for people to learn about my most intimate pain and sins. I am exposed, fully out there, in the open about all of it for anyone willing to read it.

I went public with my most intimate pain, sins, and VICTORIES!

Then, I went silent: writer’s block. I hadn’t been able to write for weeks. I felt completely uninspired and insecure. I don’t know if I was waiting for the praise or backlash of the world, but I held my breath and waited. I’m changing that today, I am exhaling this piece as a step forward to break the barrier, the mental block, and to disconnect from praise and criticism.

Because, the one who matters most, the one for whom I wrote, the one who’s power is evident in the redeemed and transformed life that I have today, He is pleased, and so I press on. I will continue to be courageous, truthful, transparent, and walk the path of healing for myself and others no matter the response.

Because countless women and men are out there still in bondage, and they don’t need to be.

What happened?

My beginning in life was not the joyful and carefree childhood a mother dreams of for her child. Between the age of five and ten years old, a neighbor and an uncle molested me. I watched as my father beat my mother until the day we escaped; I was seven when we left. Later, it was my mother who was violent toward me. I was nineteen the day I received my last beating.

When the molestations happened, I was vulnerable, starved for the love of a father, and evil crept in disguised as a loving neighbor and uncle, pretending to supply what I needed, and introduced evil into my life. I received instructions, followed them, and kept the secrets; this haunted me for most of my life. I was broken.

The devastation that the molestations left within me were like seeds planted in fertile soil that later grew into who I became. What grew of those seeds?

Shame

An incorrect association between love and sex

Rebellion

Rage that erupted in private with the people I love most

A distorted perspective of self and God

Shame colored my most precious relationships-with, my husband, and children. I was ashamed while making love to my husband. I was ashamed when cleaning and caring for my babies. I was even ashamed of being ashamed.

I made it my mission in life to protect my daughters. So, I isolated myself and my family. Motherhood was hard. I couldn’t trust or rely on others. I was too scared to create a village of support for myself and them. And, in my effort to protect them, it was I who was building the emotionally tense environment in my home. None of it made sense.

Eventually, I recognized that if something didn’t change, if I didn’t change, it would be me who my children would need to heal from in the future. It was then I became desperate for healing and freedom from my past. Recognizing that I couldn’t change on my own, I reached for God, and He flooded in transforming my life entirely from the inside out. It was miraculous!

Unbraided: Transform Your Pain to Power and Purpose is available at www.unbraidedlife.com/book.

Follow my journey.

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