The Return
"There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place." - G.K. Chestetron
I have been known to make the joke on occasion that the best way to get me to do something is not by asking me to do it.
The moment you come at me and say, “I think you should...” or “You really need to...” is about the time I mentally check out and (in my head) thank you for your time while I smile and nod in agreement. People are usually fooled by this, and I have heard them walk away saying, “Wow, she took that really well.”
No. She did not.
This same theme has been woven into my relationship with God as far back as I can remember. As it turns out, he is not fooled by my “smile and nod” strategy.
I vividly recall becoming a Christian in my grandma’s kitchen in Texas when I was 7. While I said the sinner’s prayer and thought Jesus sounded like a pretty nice dude, I didn’t really understand the full implication of what it was I was doing. Lucky for me, it was at that moment that God placed a target on my back and made the declaration: Mine.
I was baptized by my grandfather in that same town in Texas four years later when I was 11. You probably think this is the point in my story where I committed myself fully to my faith and thus proceeded to live a godly life, but it was not so. Of course, there were a few phases prior to high school where I began to turn in a more faithful direction but those were interrupted as quickly as they began. Because choice. And, boys. This was the period of of my life that I refer to as “the struggle”. In other words, I spent the majority of this time giving God “the hand” - talk to the hand ‘cause the face don’t give a...well, you know the rest. I rebelled against Him, and struggled with my conscience and the many ways God was attempting to speak into my life. I knew He was there, and I deliberately pushed Him away.
I started smoking cigarettes. I used profanity. I gave away my virginity to someone who didn’t care for me at all. When one of my best friends died at the young age of 19, I questioned everything. I married someone who not only wasn’t on the same page as me morally, he was reading a completely different book. When my marriage fell apart, I ran away, moving to the other side of the country with my daughter where I buried my pain and insecurities. I sought validation through the attention I received from men, and continued to devalue myself in the years that followed. I had lost who I was, or worse, didn’t want to acknowledge that I was anyone at all. And one night when I lay crying in my bed about this, I heard a voice inside me whisper a question that would begin to change things. I heard God.
Why are you doing this to yourself? It was not a judgment, but rather an observation of my pain coming from a place of love.
I promise, this is not who you are.
Why was I doing this to myself? As I began to think about that, I understood then that I had been running from real love for far too long, denying it’s truth in my life. Denying myself. I didn’t realize that this entire time God had been making small moves in my world, positioning me as well as other people in my path to begin a process of healing. But suddenly, it all became really clear in the dark of that night. Many things had changed since I had left my husband - my direction, my career, my friends. Blessings had been swirling around me and I had been neglecting them while I pitied myself. I felt the full weight of the Lord bearing down on me, and I could no longer refuse Him. The target on my back had never gone away, and I knew He had come to claim what belonged to Him. Mine.
My friend and mentor Patrick told me the other day that when we are younger we begin to lose who we are, and so the rest of our lives we spend trying to get back to who we were before the outside noise had its effect. I can attest to this.
In Christ, I am liberated and able to finally come into who I am. Who I always was. It took me 26 years to get here, and I don’t doubt for a second that there is much more work to be done. But I also know the Lord is faithful to his promises and will not leave my side. It has been over a year since that night, and I have been celibate ever since. I have allowed grace to replace my shame and instead feel the joy of purpose and fulfillment.
No matter where you are in your life, I promise you can always start again. You are never too broken, too compromised, or too worthless to find him. And usually, in the hopeless dark, it is He who finds you.
“Return to me, declares the Lord, and I will return to you.” - Zechariah 1:3