Growing up I went to Sunday school all the time and church sometimes. I knew all the Bible stories and had memorized verses and was confirmed. I had all this knowledge but I had no idea what it meant to have Jesus in my heart.
As I went through counseling I did come to a place where I no longer blamed myself for the date rape. That was where I learned that what happened was called rape. I accepted that it was not something I had asked for or deserved. However, the counseling did little for my shattered self-esteem.
I spent many years feeling worthless and unlovable. No good to anyone. At one point I had lost my job and my cousin and his wife were in need of a nanny while they finished school and worked. I was probably in no way qualified for the job but they gave it to me anyway. They were new Christians and on fire for the Lord. They invited me to church with them, it may have even been on the pretext of helping with their kids but I went and I loved it.
One particularly bad day I was driving in my car feeling hopeless, lonely, exhausted...I was crying and I pulled over and literally cried out for Jesus to come in to my heart. To fix me. At the time I was naive enough to think there would be some miraculous healing, but there wasn't. I continued to go to church and was so excited because the Bible seemed brand new to me; personal and not just a bunch of stories I had learned in Sunday school.
I landed my dream job working in the marketing department at a small record label. Life was turning around. I was starting to feel, dare I say, happy again. A friend of mine from college called and asked me to come and watch him graduate from Navy boot camp. I went and that weekend he proposed to me.
I said yes. My broken self told me this was my chance. I was sure no one would ever love me or ask me to marry them again. I put all my doubts and reservations about the fact that we had never dated before, we had only ever been friends in the back of my head. My family tried to ask these questions but I just lashed out at them; didn't they want me to be happy?
Two months later I was married and moving half way across the country. I found myself living as a roommate to my husband. We fought and we manipulated each other. It was awful. Less than a year later I left him and moved back home.
I had hit an all new low. Feeling worthless again. Unlovable. Unwanted. I cried out to God to "Fix me!!" I started going back to the church I left. I realized in the time I had been gone I hadn't even cracked my Bible let alone go to church.
I met a woman at church who took my under her wing. In her kitchen one day she told me about her first marriage and her story was eerily the same as mine. However she was now happily married (for years) and had four children. She said she never understood why she had to go through that but could see how God was using it now to mentor me.
She told me about God's unconditional love for me. About how He made me perfect and in His image. And showed me what it looked like to have God leading your life. This is when I finally surrendered my whole heart to the Lord. I knew I wanted Him in control because I just couldn't do it on my own.
This is is when the real healing began. I could feel God molding my heart. He softened it by shedding some of bitterness and hate I was still clinging to and filling in the spaces with moments of joy and love. He was beginning a new and incredible thing in me.
The healing wasn't instantaneous and in ways is still happening. But when I turned over my undesirable past to God it was like He let it go and the breeze carried it away. It no longer pinned me down or defined who I was. I was no longer a rape victim or a divorcee, I was a child of God. I was loved and worthy and wanted. I was forgiven and set free from my past. I was made new and chosen to be His. And that was an amazing feeling.
Even before He made the world,
God loved us and chose us in Christ
to be holy and without fault in His eyes.
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family
by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
This is what he wanted to do,
and it gave him great pleasure.
So praise God for the glorious grace he has poured
out on us who belong to his dear Son.
Ephesians 1:4-6
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