Counselling

After years of carrying unnecessary baggage, I have finally admitted I need professional help and am seeking it. I thought I only had baggage from the time I had cancer, my grandmother dying really suddenly and the subsequent years of living a life apart from God. Upon starting, I've realised that a lot of my pain started early in my childhood. I mean, I had a difficult childhood, but I thought I had dealt with it. I really haven't dealt with a lot. It makes me really sad. 

My first task was to write a letter to God about how I thought he had abandoned me and why I didn't trust Him. I thought it would just be about the cancer, but a lot of things came up that surprised me. My second task, which I've avoided until now, is to look back on my life and relive the hurts and forgive those people. The first thing I did about it was to make a list of all the people who hurt or I perceived hurt me. I think there is an overwhelming list of about 50 people!! Ok, so I went back far - right to my childhood when I still lived in Malaysia - and if you take in the fact that I'm nearly 30, 50 people makes sense. The task is even more overwhelming though. Just remembering those people hurt me makes my lips quiver, my throat tighten and my eyes fill with tears.

I mentioned earlier that realising I had had decades of pain on my back in an invisible burden made me really sad. Well, I see now that the pain held me back in a lot of things. Not so clearly. I would say that my vision is still distorted. Even so, it makes me think of the passage in Joel (2:25) about the years the locusts have eaten and I wonder if - I'm too afraid to hope - God will replace those years. I wonder whether I will ever be really free from this burden. This whole process terrifies me and has petrified me. I'm walking into unknown territory and I feel completely lost.

All this pain has affected my friendships over the years. I think it definitely is the reason why I am not even sure who my friends are. I feel totally at a loss. When I go to sleep, I see myself as a little girl, sitting in a dark, dirty room in white pajamas all alone and I'm just sitting there. Sometimes little girl me is also crying. She feels numb. She feels afraid. She feels alone. She wonders if anyone is coming to let her out of that prison.

I really feel like I'm losing my grip on reality. Somewhere inside I know that that is a good thing because it is my 'reality' that has kept me prisoner all these years. Losing my grip on it and letting it go will hopefully lead me to a genuine 'reality', one where I'm living in the freedom God has promised me in His word. One where I have a new awareness and knowledge of what it means that He leads me, He walks with me, He goes before me, He prepares the way, He saves, He rescues, He guides, He loves, He protects. I will have to go through a lot before I, who am heavy and burdened, can take up his yoke (Matt 11:28-29).

And yes, I have doubts. I have questions. Will my life really be better under this other burden? Will I ever be free? Isn't this a deep-rooted rut that I will never escape? Will I really ever be able to forgive these people? Will I ever know what it means that God loves me, has chosen me, has made a plan for my life, is sanctifying me and bringing me ever closer to Him and His holiness? Will I ever be able to live as if I believed all of that to be true? I so long for His freedom. I so long for His light. 

Anyway, the truth is, I really won't know until I go through this fire. It really feels like I am going to experience all kinds of 'burning', but it can only be good. I keep telling myself that it is like when Eustace has to be transformed back into a little boy after he had been a dragon (Voyage of The Dawn Treader, CS Lewis). I suppose what will happen is all the unnecessary 'crap' will burn off and what's left will be me. The real me. The one God created me to be. And I hope that at the end, little girl me will no longer be in her dark prison, but free and walking with Jesus.