MOVE FORWARD: God Has Made All Things New
Today, I want to share something very personal with you that happened in 2009, in the hopes that you will glean something useful from it.
There I was, driving down the highway for an hour with music blasting and my face soaked with tears. I was crying so hard I could hardly breathe after my mother, Janice, opened up to me as she never had.
When she sat me down at the kitchen table, looking nervous and fidgeting, I knew it was important. She can never sit still when facing something perplexing or challenging.
The previous week, before our serious table talk worked me all up, she had called and told me she wanted to come over after she got back in town from visiting one of my aunts.
I said okay, not thinking anything of it.
When the day came, I had no idea what she would say.
“Well, you know there were a lot of men in and out of my life,” my mother started.
Of course I was aware of that. I had seen the domestic abuse and unfair treatment she suffered. So I wondered why she was going over it again. She knew I had witnessed more than my fair share of drama firsthand growing up in her house.
But then she dropped the real bomb and told me something I had never known. She was molested by one of her older male cousins from ages five to eleven—something she was completely on board with me writing about, by the way.
At first, when I heard the words come out of her mouth, I froze. Minutes later, she started trembling and then broke down sobbing. Seeing her like that, in such a raw state, was rough. I felt like I would be sick and then, the tears just gushed out of me. I was a total wreck.
Hearing her say he made her feel “worthless,” stripped away her dignity, and “stole her innocence,” was tragic. But she sent me even further over the edge when she told me, “I wish you could have had a better life and I know some of your bad choices were my fault."
Me and my bad choices.
They always had a way of creeping back up.
A lump in my throat nearly choked me as the enemy used that occasion to attack my mind. He was more than happy to replay the hundreds of stupid things I did in toxic relationships; the way I once hurt myself and my reputation; the manipulation I willingly submitted to; and the mess I made of my life for an extended period of time.
While listening to my mother vent about her own pain, mine began resurfacing.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t a better example to you,” she said, wiping her face with her forearm. But the tears were coming faster than her favorite blue knit sweater I bought her for Christmas could absorb them. “I didn’t like myself and had so many issues baby.”
She continued, “I was still trying to figure myself out while raising you. I wasn’t ready to be a mother and you deserved better, much better!”
This went on for about two hours...maybe longer.
When she left, I don't know why, but I grabbed my car keys and went for a long drive. Even though it was cold out, I rolled the windows down. I suppose I needed some air. I was so torn up. I felt like I was suffocating.
Over the past few years, my mom, who had me when she was 17, has been slowly revealing more of the guilt she’s been carrying around about her shortcomings as a parent. Little by little, she is opening herself up to me, making me realize that she is a much more complex person than I would have imagined.
I remember how, growing up, I had so many mixed emotions about her. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t be there for me. If she was home, most times, it was only physically. She gave most of herself away to the men who entered and exited her life like it was a revolving door.
I had questions about boys, sex, peer pressure, and identity as a young woman. I needed her so much.
For a long time, I blamed her for ruining me. But now that I’m older and have a real relationship with God, He has taught me to release that baggage. Playing the blame game and rehashing the past helps no one.
As I cried my way down the road that chilly evening, just before I began totally wallowing in grief and regret, the Holy Spirit nudged me to turn on “Moving Forward” by Israel Houghton--one of my favorite songs. I obeyed, put it on repeat, wept, and prayed.
When I returned home, I turned the song on in the house.
I sang along.
Off key and all, I shouted the lyrics out.
“I’m not going back, I’m moving ahead, I’m here to declare to you, my past is over, in you all things are made new, surrendered my life to Christ, I’m moving forward…you make all things new and I will follow you forward…”
I could hear the Holy Spirit tell me, "Ashley, your past is covered in the blood. God has made all things new."
As I saturated my environment with a message of freedom, I had my own Psalm 18:6 moment: “But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to him reached his ears.” (NLT)
He met me at my point of need.
He'll meet you at yours.
If this spoke to you today, please let me know about it. Reading your comments and hearing from you is such a blessing to me and gives me even greater strength.
7 Comments
Reader Comments (7)
What a beautiful and timely post. For the last two months, I have been spending some deep time with the Lord. He exposed to me that I still had a root of abandonment and rejection buried in me. On the surface, I thought I was doing great. God has done some magnificent things in my life so I thought I was doing wonderful....until a very promising relationship failed. I asked God this "Lord, why did my desire for relationship overrule YOUR desire? What in me cause me to push relationship when you said something different?" The answer "Tamara, your signals for dealing with men were already confused by the time you were 10. Your father was never there and your step father molested you. That little girl never healed. You handle men through the eyes and mindset of an abused, abandoned and neglected little girl." That revelation sent me on a quest to be HEALED and WHOLE in ALL areas of my life!
So many women have been sexually abused but cannot connect the dots. I was one of them. I honestly thought I was healed from that until God showed me in great detail that I was not. His Word says that He is a counselor and He has truly counseled me to wholeness and healing. I pray that your mother continues to heal and learn new things in Christ. I love my life of completeness in God. I, too, have moved forward and have declared Isaiah 43:18-19 over my life.
Thank you for sharing your posts always reach me in a way others dont i have made more than my fair share mistakes probably enough for you and those who comment on this site praiseGod for God i mean lifes not perfect but He still uses the imperfect pieces to make something perfectly beautiful. I may b the result of a bad situation but God knows how to turn night into day, bitter into sweet. Ive learn the only perfect one is Jesus.
I know this story may sound a little strange, but I just feel the need to share this. I had a miscarriage a year ago this month and I kept the fetus. I went through the beginning stages of the miscarriage at the hospital, but when it was confirmed that there was nothing that could be done, I opted not to have the surgery to remove everything. Instead I chose to go through the process at home. It was such a traumatic experience for me, especially considering everything else I had been through in the past year with men, jobs, school and just life as a whole. Anyway, when the fetus finally came out of me I couldn't bear to just throw away my unborn child's remains. It's not right having to bury your flesh, even if it was never born. My best friend had an idea that I should plant flowers in my unborn child's honor and bury the remains among the flowers. I thought it was a wonderful idea. I started a couple of seeds and some of them died because I've never grown plants before, but I finally managed to keep one alive. It blossomed so beautifully. In the meantime, I kept my baby's remains wrapped up in the freezer.
A couple of weeks ago my roommate and I moved out of the apartment we shared into our own separate apartments and yesterday she decided to clean out the refrigerator. All this time I thought she knew that I never did take the paper towel and plastic that my unborn was wrapped in out of the freezer, that I had been both waiting for one of my seeds to sprout and procrastinating buying some larger pots and potting soil before I would take him out. Yesterday, I went to the apartment with the intention of finally bringing my unborn's remains home with me, but when I looked in the freezer it was gone. My roommate had begun to clean out the freezer and didn't bother to look in the paper towel that had been in there for a year before she tossed it out. I was devastated. I cried and prayed and finally calmed down, realizing it wasn't her fault, that if I hadn't procrastinated it never would have happened. I could have bought the things I needed to finish up the process a long time ago, but like I told her, I didn't want to deal with it. Even though it has been a year, I still think about that child everyday. I couldn't bear the thought of him ending up flushed down a toilet or tossed in the trash, which was why I kept him, but that's where he ended up anyway. So, last night when I finally got home I took a few minutes just to read my bible and reflect on some things. For the past several days I've kept my bible open to Jeremiah 17. I had been reading and meditating on verse 9, but last night the spirit led me to read a little further down to verse 14 that says, "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise." I read that scripture aloud and repeated it several times before I went to sleep and several times this morning. Even though I'm not where I should be, God has brought me a long way! I'll admit I have a problem with letting go and it absolutely breaks my heart to think of where my unborn child's remains are, there's nothing I can do about it. There was nothing I could do to stop the miscarriage from happening in the first place. But God has been working on me. The funny thing is, with all of this meditation I've been doing on Jeremiah, I'm not sure why I felt compelled to focus on that particular book, but I had plans to name my child Jeremiah if it had been a boy. God certainly has a way of speaking to you!
@Tara-several years ago, I also had a miscarriage. and you're right it is pain that is indescribable. Through God's help and the help of a Christian Counselor. I was able to deal with all of the emotions that I felt from the time I found out I was pregnant, until the fateful day when my pregnancy ended. I was so afraid to open my heart to the possibility of getting pregnant again. I did, and God has blessed me with an amazing daughter. God showed me that everything happens in His time. Although it is sometimes difficult to understand why things happen, we have to continue to rely on our faith and trust God to take care of us. You deciding to keep your child's remains, may be difficult for many to understand, but it was your way of coping with your loss. God wants us to live a happy, abundant life. I pray that you will continue on your path to wellness and fulfillment. God Bless You Sister!
Thank you so much for pouring out your heart. this blessed me deeply and gave me greater strength and confidence in my walk as i move on forward. i've stuffed up in the past and theres always little things there to remind me of it but i press on forward. im definitely sharing this with close friends going through some hard lessons. bless your heart Ashley!
Thank you so much for this article. I am sitting here crying like a baby!!! I have so many unanswered why's in my life, some I created. But what is such a blessing is that ... God can and will give another chance. I can't describe how I am feeling right now ... *tears* ..... but I know that God loves me. I have not been a perfect woman, mother, sister .... all that. But this article has opened my eyes to let me see .... that the hidden things can be revealed, acknowledged, and healed. I feel real freedom right now. The song Moving Forward ... I sing that in my church (lead), but the words bounced off the computer into my heart even the more. Thank you for being a blessing!!! I will continue to fight ... and MOVE FORWARD!!! ... I CAN'T STOP CRYING!!!!
I needed that thanks sista