Poring The Peroxide

I love cheeky titles. I have always been a title person. A book or article could be terrible, but if the title was able to suck me in, I will still finish (or at least skim) the entire thing. The things I take pride in might sound stupid, but I am proud of this title. For the first time in a while I feel the need, desire, and passion to start writing again. This title is the imagine I have held in my mind for the past few weeks. Poring the peroxide; it sounds simple enough. But everyone knows the pain, twitching, wincing and occasional itching that happens when trying to clean and heal a wound.  This is the process I am going though.

For the last nine months I could physically feel myself drifting away from God, rather than clinging to Him during my time of need. I ran so far away, so far that I felt the belly of a whale might actually end up being my home. I know it was my fault. God’s love did not change, the fact that He died for all of my sins (past, present and future) did not change, God promised “He will never leave me, or forsake me” and that did not change; yet somehow I woke up about a month ago, and realized I wanted nothing more than to be His daughter again. He felt like a distant memory, and I knew it was MY fault.

Pain: So then it started, my strive to fix it. I put on all my necessary tools, and some unnecessary ones and went to work. The pain, I mean it started right away, guilt, disgust, fear of rejection. Basically I was alone, now more than ever. I started to cut myself off from the junk, which meant a lot of people that weren’t really bad, as much as not motivated in the same way I was. I didn’t want to turn to people who were “Good” with God, because I didn’t want anyone to see me weak or vulnerable. Rarely do people see me cry, so why would I let them know I wasn’t as “good” of a Christian as they are.

I sat in my pain for a long time. Almost the entire month. I mean I did what I could. I changed my hair, I started eating healthier and working, I recently had bought a house and I focused my attention some of the bigger projects my fixer upper needed done (hoping to calm my mind and feel accomplished). But everything fell short. My hair went from a bright pink/purple to almost a grey blonde (and I’m a natural brunet), I am still working out but my garden has yet to get a tomatoes on it and all my beans died, and minus the kitchen I started feeling the strain of money as nothing else has been updated in the house since I purchased it.

So as I was driving alone in the car one day yelling at God because “NOTHING I AM DOING SEEMS TO BE BRINGING TO CLOSER TO WHERE I WAS BEFORE!” It hit me, not literally, but it felt like it. One of my favorite women in my life always would ask me “What’s the subject of that sentence?” and that’s what popped into my head.  I realized; my subject, my focus, my desire, was ME. I wanted to be better, I wanted to feel loved, I wanted to be accepted, I wanted comfort. And then began the twitching.

Twitching: Twitching is defined as- “Involuntary contractions of groups of muscle fibers. Also known as fasciculation. Fasciculation can occur in normal individual without an associated disease or condition and can also occur as a result of illness.“ (Web M.D.) Although I was in complete control of my body, my mind felt like it was twitching. Every second was a fight between focusing on myself, and focusing my attention and prayer on God. I wasn’t sure why I was unable to kick this constant want to feed my fleshly desires. Whether it was sleeping in and not going to church, or spending too much money on something pointless, or being too hung-over to be nice to the people around me. I wasn’t doing life right.

I felt a fear of rejection, I had never felt before. I hadn’t even been rejected yet but the fear was so prevalent when I went to walk into a young adults group at a new church I started attending. After convincing myself to get out of the car I cursed the entire way into the building, Literally every other work was s**t, or f**k, or any other bad four letter word. I got 5 steps inside, turned around and went right back to my car. Where I preceded to sit for 15 minutes, smoke two cigarettes and then in shame I left a failure.

*As much as I don’t recommend this during my time of pain I switched churches. The church I grew up in was small and didn’t have a young adult population other then myself and the one married couple that are so adorable it makes me want to puke. And although during the pain and twitching all I did was go on Sunday morning to this new church, it was still a change that I prayed and felt God wanted me to follow through with (I am still a member at my old church, and hope to soon write more on this topic of shopping churches, because believe that God really has to be in it for it to be the right move).

Wincing: to me is when you close your eyes and try to focus on anything but what was causing you pain. It kind of reminds me of the game operation. Or at least the way I played, I was the little kid who would be so careful getting the bone, and once I had a hold of it I closed my eyes and just pulled straight up (that’s why I didn’t become a doctor; you’re welcome). Or maybe the best way to describe it is the few seconds before ripping off the band-aid. You fear the worst, because you don’t know how strong the adhesive is stuck to your skin, so you build it up in your mind. I winced, twice actually. The first time was at the young adults group, I decided it was best to leave the band-aid on. I was so not ready to be uncomfortable, just the thought of it was enough for me to physically leave where I was and run to where I was comfortable, hidden, protected. The second time wasn’t as easy.

I started searching for answers to why I had winced. I was the girl who never ran from something she was afraid of. I was more likely to lie and be in inner turmoil then ever show the weakness or fear. I turned to one friend, probably one of the strongest Christian men I know. He strives for God and is so humble in his relationship with God is amazing. He is struggling right now as well and it seems that God always lets us go through similar things at the same time (maybe it’s a theme in Christianity today), but he was seeking truth. He said he was going back to the basics, so that’s what I decided I would do, prayer, scripture, and time with God.

The first verse I read, 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I was all for it, tell God what I did wrong (He already knew) and then I would feel better. But the next day I read James 5:16 and it put it in a different light “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Woah… that was a jaw dropper. Confessing to God who, in my head, already knew it all. That was one thing. But to confess to another person, the wincing came back. I had never confessed anything on purpose to anyone except God. 

Confession. When did that become a thing Lord, when did you decided I needed to confess?

 I asked so many questions, knowing all the answers as soon as I asked, God wanted my repentance. He knew my heart. He knew that there was no fear in telling Him, I trusted Him. I felt less likely to be judge by Him. He had forgiven David for adultery and Paul for the mass killing of Christians before he was saved. Surely God would forgive me. But another Christian. That was the root of the fear. I think I knew all along I had been without my main accountability. But that wasn’t an issue because there was no one at my old church who was my age. I knew if I went I would feel guilt, I knew this day was coming and that’s why I ran. Fear of confession.

The wincing felt fast, but also gut wrenching, I was happy to have my answer but it wasn’t over yet.

Itching- It honestly felt I wanted to pull my hair out. I knew what the issue was, I knew how to fix it, but now, now I have to actually do it. I have to tell someone, who knows me, who is human. Who judges just like everyone else does. I have to confess my sins. The fear in that moment almost caused me to back pedal, but I didn’t, I followed through.

I’m not saying I’m back to where I was, but I laughed more than normal last night.

I felt joy when I woke up this morning.

I knew no matter what, God would be doing life with me today.

I confessed, and I was healed.

I know I am a wordy person, probably more than most. So I won’t go on much longer. During this process I heard something beautiful, that although was being said to someone else, I thank God He allowed me to be present to hear it.

“If left on our own, we will get shipwrecked every time”

I pray as God heals you, no matter how painful, whether you twitch, wince, itch, or anything else He might do to get your attention and bring you back to Him; do it. And make sure you have someone to talk to you as it happens.

It’s worth it all.