I didn't begin the way I thought.
I had the childhood most have. Growing up in a middle class family and being ran by the boys in my family. Attending church on again and off again. Only because it was what my friends typically did and something for me to do most of the time. I tried many different sports, but stuck with hockey and tennis. I was fine as a kid and for the most part, ordinary (not including how weird I naturally am). When I grew just a little bit older though, I began something...Well Jesus began a work in me.
It was uncle's funeral that brought me to my beginning. Seventh grade is when I gave my life to Jesus not knowing what it meant, but just knowing that I wanted whatever it was. Seeing the amount of impacted people surrounding me having what I didn't, made me want it more. But what made me want it (faith/love/hope) most was the fact that my uncle participated in building the Kingdom in such a way that over 600+ people declared and gave recognition to this Man of God who left too early but impacted so many. I joined in the reign of hands of acceptance, not quite knowing what it was that I was participating in. The march of my life began. Before the full march of victory, blessing, and acceptance though, came the battle.
The battle of self identification and moments of crisis hit during my seventh and eighth grade years of middle school. I fought off a war of depression so deep that cuts melted like sunken tattoos and sword slashes across my wrists. I wanted to feel what only God had, but I didn't see what he was offering. Depression is a mask that lead me to hating my own self so much I didn't want it anymore.” If I quit the battle now, I would be just another gone.” No victory except that of release from who I was and how much I hated my life. I didn't feel the love that I should have been able to feel, or that was and is freely given. I didn't feel anything in this stage. My friend encouraged the hate within myself and added to it, though I blame her for nothing because the same war was being fought within herself too. The worthless feeling of failure was written across my heart against myself. One day I let go of the friend who brought me lower than my esteem. That was the day I won a battle and overcame a small piece of land or victory if you will.
More battles approached in high school. It wasn't depression but anxiety that began to guide me. It lead me like a general, and fought me like a guard. I let it overtake me because I suppressed every emotion and feeling that I had. I wasn't scared, nervous, or happy. I was simply distracting myself from those feelings in order to forget they were ever there. I couldn't bear show the struggles because it was uncommon to have any type of emotion in a passive aggressive household. Plus I had the pressures of picking a college and figuring my life out alone because nobody wanted to help and I didn't ask for it because of fear. It was up to me. Much like the wars I had been trying to fight I felt unloved for so long I didn't know or recognize what it ever meant to feel loved. It was a personal struggle.
My senior year changed many things. The battle of anxiety and stress was common, and a car accident lead to a mind much astray most of the time and a new job that would lead to more insecurity would become a new trigger. One of my bosses felt the authority that he had over me was enough to be able to do things and say things that I couldn't understand. I felt unarmed, I felt powerless. So I never said anything and I ended up leaving for college by then. I was used to fighting alone. So I began a new season where I was surrounded by the atmosphere of Jesus but my heart was still distracted and I felt loneliness sinking in. I built a shelter of a relationship hoping it would protect me from feeling this way, only to know it wasn't ever going to protect me because its walls were made of manipulation. He had a girlfriend on the other side knowing nothing about the pretend war I was hoping would help me win. He left a new wound I couldn't understand. I thought I had a people problem, not knowing I truly had a God one.
These are just a few of the battles I had to overcome in order to find my beginning again. I never felt loved even though I had lived in a middle class family and gone to church a few times. I felt so empty and alone and weaponless that nothing I could do, ever seemed like it would help me get through another person letting me down or not caring enough to stay. My shield was broken and I had fallen short of weapons and a team to help me fight.
Until the only weapon I ever needed reminded me he had always been there. He had seen my wars and battles I just never acknowledged Him. The one who never let me end my life. His love was the ultimate key to getting through the war. It has been ever since. Jesus reminded me of Him. And how He is the beginning and His love is overwhelming and much greater than anything I have ever felt. His love took hold of me and my entire life and I couldn't understand why, when I hadn't asked him to join me in the fight. He fights when we dont ask him to because he is an intervener. And he never loses. I was found, on the battlefield with many broken swords and bones. But God’s love for me filled the hopelessness I felt many times before, and I know without a doubt He has my life in His hands. I have found my victory in Him. He defeated death not for me but because of me. He deserves all the worship I have to offer because he healed my wounds and made me new. It's not hard to give him what you have because in reality we don't have much. The best thing we do have though, is Him. He doesn't disappoint like we do but instead He anoints.
The battle happens each day, but it is the outcome of certainty that makes the battle worth it. I give you a glimpse of my story for perspective. I used to fear who I was because I didn't know I was His. I have no fear of the battles that lie ahead because He is my beginning, and He is my end.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
-Revelation 22:13
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