I’m not scared of anything.

But I’m scared of everything.

I will walk down a dark, secluded alley at night alone with nothing to defend myself.

Maybe it’s because for awhile, I secretly thought it would be easier if someone else ended it for me.

Suicide wasn’t an option, I loved too many people too much.

But I spent my days praying to God that He would take me.

I’m not proud of those prayers. I know it’s stupid. I used to look at the obituaries online. Some people say that’s a strange hobby. I guess it was, but I remember reading the names, thinking, “God, I know at least one of these people was not ready to die. Please bring them back, and take me instead… I’m ready.”

I’m not sure where it all started.

I allowed so many people in, and I allowed them to do as much damage as they pleased, leaving as many holes and scars as they could. I thought I was helping them. I thought they needed someone to take everything out on. After they left, I crawled out, bruised and lost, off to become victim to someone else’s emotional baggage.

Every time they called, I was there.

Every time they apologized, I believed it.

Every time they hurt me, I sat and took it.

I knew I was worthless.

I knew my purpose in the world was to be a punching bag for them to take out their anger on.

I didn’t mind being hurt, I was good at putting on a face. I was good at telling my friends and parents that I was happy. It seems strange, but for a large part of that time, I WAS happy. I thought I was. I was able to be strong for everyone else, I thought of my self as such a good person for taking on the weight of the world, allowing myself to be used. I wanted everyone to be happy, but my own feelings didn’t matter so much. It made me feel content to know that I was helping them by letting them talk to me, yell at me, scream at me, hurt me, use me, love me, hate me, hold me, push me. Whatever they needed me to be… I could be that.

I could be that.

I suppose it had to take a toll on me eventually.

I suppose I couldn’t live that way forever.

I suppose at some point the scars had to cover so much of my body that they could no longer be ignored.

I used to cry. I still cry.

I wasn’t afraid of being alone. I preferred it sometimes. For a long time I wanted to be alone for the rest of my life. I wanted to leave this place, leave this country, lose contact with everyone except my parents. I wanted to start over with new people, new surroundings. I wanted to be myself, but everyone around me thought I was someone else. I didn’t know how to change myself when everyone expected me to be a certain way. I was afraid I would disappoint them. I got behind in school, because it seemed so irrelevant in comparison to figuring out what was wrong with me, who I was.

I knew God loved me, but I thought love was something else. There were so many things people did to me, and I thought they did them out of love. If that was love, why would I want God to love me? What had love done for me in the past? The words “I love you” had come from so many lips to my ears and burned themselves into the scars left by their actions. The word “love” was simply a word people used to gain my trust. What could God’s love do for me?

 

The past is the past, and the past is over. I’m not that girl, though she still comes back to haunt me.

I understand love now.

 

1 Corinthians 13:4-13 —

 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

The difference between the “love” I knew then and the love I know now is this: love does  not want to hurt me. Love wants to cherish me, and comfort me, and protect me, and teach me. The love God has for me is soft and gentle and uplifting; it wants to lead me and guide me. It wants to bring me to tears of joy, not tears of hopelessness.

God is still teaching me. He will never stop teaching me. He wants the very best for me. He wants to take on MY problems, burdens, and issues. Even that dirty, broken past that I would rather just forget about. He wants to use my past to create a beautiful future. He wants to redefine what love is. He wants to love me so much that I can never think about love in a negative way again. Because love is beautiful… and I am beautiful. Not just in physical appearance, but who I am in Christ.

God, thank you for showing me what love really means.