I am back!!!!
The idea of having to be alone made my skin crawl but somehow, I have managed to survive after an entire year of singleness. The lessons I have learned on this journey have strengthened my faith as well as my relationship with God because at a point in time I started to believe that I had to be touched in order to be valuable. The truth is when we do not know how to heal, we just learn how to cope, which is never safe because that’s what gives permission to addictions to form in our lives. My hardest battle was facing the pain head on and facing the reality of my situation.
My transparency will save someone’s life and reduce some prolonged heartache, so stay with me I’m going somewhere with this (LOL)….
When we identify ourselves with the relationships or friendships that we are in we do not fully cultivate releasing those things when they are suddenly no longer needed for the season God has us in…. The most dangerous prayer we can pray is “Your will be done... on earth as it already is in Heaven”. That prayer alone gave God permission to shift my entire life and shake my world up. There were times where I felt like I would literally drop dead without the person that I was with. I felt like I could go nowhere without that being the topic, so I started staying at home. I felt like I couldn’t hear his name without wanting to regurgitate so I stopped talking on the phone. I felt like I couldn’t breathe if I got on social media and saw him doing him, so I deactivated. In all reality that was me coping! I avoided everything that would give me a reminder of a seven-year façade I tried to uphold to alleviate the shame of being a young mother which in my mind, wasn’t doing anything with myself. So, when I felt like the only thing, I had that made my parents somewhat proud or pleased them failed, I tried to compensate in other areas. We laugh at the memes that say “if you break my heart I will go and get a ____ degree” or something to that nature, but the reality is that is not beneficial, it is a coping strategy. I birthed so many things in the beginning of my season of singleness! I developed a very successful nonprofit organization and gained recognition from great pillars in the community, I was featured on the news, I wrote a spirit shaking book, I started another business, I made so much money, but I still felt empty. My spirit was crying for help and release because I never gave myself permission to face what happened. I ended my own relationship and decided to part ways, it wasn’t the other way around so people would volunteer opinions like “well you left… so you shouldn’t be upset”. A portion of it was true but the portion where I had to give myself grace for letting it go because it didn’t benefit me, was always neglected to be mentioned. One day, about a week after my daughters sixth birthday it dawned on me that I still had pain in that area, feelings I never dealt with I just covered with boundless success. I was driving and God started dealing with me saying “it is okay to release and let go”. I turned on every song about broken heartedness and let that pain come out, with a reminder NOT to let myself stay in that space mentally but let it all out in that particular moment and give it to God. I cried tears for the nineteen-year-old me that I never apologized to for being so stern on. I shed tears for the portion of me that felt guilty for bringing a child into this world that I couldn’t take care of as a struggling mother in her early twenties. I wept for the parts of me that died to that relationship. I poured my heart out to God for about an hour and told God “I never want to feel THIS pain again”. God later sent an angel of healing to reconstruct my heart and thoughts (I will discuss another time). From that day until now, I no longer feel that pain in my chest when I have to see him, I feel nothing. I no longer have to hold my breath when I know other women will be around because God breathed a fresh wind for me to stay sane and let God be God. I sincerely do not care for that situation even a small amount, any longer. I no longer feel the need to validate myself with an individual or success, I love me just being plain old me!
So, give yourself permission to face it! Give yourself the grace to face it! It's okay if it did not go as planned, because God has the best plan for you! (Jeremiah 29:11). Don’t prolong your healing and release, because your addiction to an image will graduate once that image is shattered. I faced it head on and told myself “It is what it is, God’s will be done, and HE has a special plan to give me a future hoped for”. In that moment I let it go and released myself from the shame and doubts, and thoughts that others projected onto me deeming me unbefitting for the call of God, and His endless love. I now disregard what anyone can tell me because I sincerely do not care, most times I am probably not even listening anyway.
It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to heal!