To My Younger Me

May 3, 2016

I’ve known I would write this particular blog post for over two years.  I just haven’t been able to approach the emotion in it.  But, today, the stars have aligned.

I have written before about my history of childhood sexual abuse.  At this point in my life and healing, I accept it as part of me and I use it to my advantage in counseling.  I have a heart for women survivors of sexual abuse and my experience helps me relate on a deeper level with them.  I can honestly say that I feel I have healed from this but like all scars, it never totally goes away.

About three years ago, I started a Celebrate Recovery step study.  We were in the early steps and we were working on the inventory, which is an accounting of our hurts, both inflicted and received.  The abuse, which isn’t usually on my mind, was on my mind a lot then.  A friend asked if I would talk with a child (and her mom) who had gone through sexual abuse because she thought it would help her to talk to someone who has come through it.  I agreed.

During the conversation, I think we all felt relatively comfortable.  It was not difficult for me, except for when we talked about porn.  By the time I got home, though, it was different.  It was so difficult.  I remember lying in bed crying and talking to Tim.  “What’s wrong?” he asked.  “It was just so hard.”  I couldn’t describe what I felt.  I couldn’t put words to the emotions.  I know that part of it was sadness for me as a child.  In processing it the next day, it was suggested to me that I was having, what Brene Brown would call, a vulnerability hangover.  That was definitely part of it.  With the step study, with a couple of clients that I had at that time, and with talking with the girl, I was thinking about my own abuse way more than I was used to doing!  I also realized that that conversation was much more than me, the adult, talking to the child; it was my “inner child” talking to the child. 

Fast-forward three years to the annual Christian Counselors of Texas conference.  Greg Miller, the director of Men of Valor Intensives with Faithful & True and our keynote speaker, presented on sexual addiction and recovery.  He spoke on the “3 Internal Voices.”  The Child Voice is innocent, naïve, trusting, vulnerable, and authentic.  The Survivor Voice is manipulative, deceptive, shameful, hiding, and isolated.  The Wise Adult Voice is founded in identity in Christ, knows strengths and limitations, is present and engaged, and is interdependent and emotionally free.  One of the key elements of the Wise Adult is the role of re-parenting the little child.  I have thought so much about this model since the conference in February (and there will be more blogs about it)!  God bless you, Greg Miller, for making me think, teaching me so much, and for being a sounding board to my thoughts since the conference!

Fast-forward again to today.  After thinking about (and avoiding) this blog post for so long, it has been on my mind a lot lately.  On my way to work this morning, a song by MercyMe came on the radio.  I’ve never heard it before and I was sure it was brand new.  I replayed it about five times during my drive because I knew God was working on me.  It brought tears to my eyes.  Not tears of pain but of relief.  It brought the missing piece that allows me to write today.  My conversation that day with the girl was my inner child talking to her.  But it was also my Wise Adult talking to my inner child saying, “You are ok.  You are whole.  You are loved.”  It was the re-parenting that Greg spoke of at the conference.

In thinking back about that night after the conversation, I very much remember the conundrum of feelings I had.  I couldn’t describe it then; I just knew it was a lot of emotions.  Part of me chose to wait to write about it because I knew I needed a little distance and I didn’t know how to fully make sense of it.  Today, God showed me it was time.  I know this may sound like an odd combination (hence the word “conundrum”) but the emotions I felt were sadness for my inner child, gratitude for my Wise Adult, a vulnerability that felt like I had been split wide open, and a relief from releasing a little more of the abuse.  There is a part of me that still feels like there is something else to be identified here but, when the time is right, God will reveal it like He has before.

When I think about the abuse, I count myself healed but I also know that there will always be more healing to do.  Wounds leave scars and, even when that scar is healed, sometimes it still hurts.  At each step of the way, though, I am coming closer to who God meant for me to be.

The song I heard this morning is MercyMe’s “Dear Younger Me.”  I hope it blesses you like it did me.

You are holy. You are righteous.

You are one of the redeemed.

Set apart a brand new heart

You are free indeed.

Every mountain every valley

Through each heartache you will see

Every moment brings you closer

To who you were meant to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An-Im0LL0XU