God Embraced What I Couldn’t Face - Patty L.

For most of my life, I believed the lie that I was unwanted. My parents were very young when

they had me, and even as a child I could feel the strain in their marriage. No one sat me down

and said I was the problem, but children do not need things explained to absorb them. I somehow

came to believe that if I had never been born, maybe they would not have had to get married. My

home was full of things a child should never have to navigate: alcohol and drug abuse, infidelity,

physical abuse, emotional neglect. My grandparents were my refuge, my small place of safety in

the world, but when I was five years old, I was pulled away from them to come to this country.

After that, there was no escape. It was just me, my siblings, and my parents inside a home that did not feel safe. I learned very early how to survive. I learned to watch the room. I learned that being good might keep me from being yelled at, punished, or blamed. I learned that love was not something freely given. Love was something earned.

That became the system I lived by.

If I could perform well enough, be pleasing enough, quiet enough, good enough, maybe I would

be safe. Maybe I would be loved.

By the time I was in high school, that system was already running my life. I was desperate to

find love in all the wrong places. That same old system of earning love led me to do things I did

not want to do just to feel loved, but it never lasted. By the time I graduated, I was in and out of

depression after being betrayed by boyfriends and friends.

Still, even then, there was something in me that kept searching.

I can remember being a little girl talking to God, even though no one had taught me who He was.

I knew He saw me and heard me and that quiet knowing stayed with me. So I searched. I looked

into different religions and Eastern beliefs. I was hungry for truth, but I didn’t know where to

find it.

Years later, I was living at a surf camp in Costa Rica with my boyfriend, who is now my

husband, when one of the surfers gave James a Bible. I opened it and started reading Job. I

remember thinking, “this is true.” Not because I understood everything, but because it spoke to a

place that had been aching my whole life.

Even so, I was still lost.

I still kept looking to people to give me what only God could give. When I became pregnant with

my first daughter, I thought maybe this was it. Maybe now I would finally have someone to love

who would love me back. And there was real beauty in those early days. I remember holding her

against my chest while she slept, kissing the top of her little head, feeling a tenderness so deep it

almost hurt.But motherhood also uncovered places in me that had never healed.

When she cried uncontrollably, something in me would start to unravel. I felt helpless,

overwhelmed, and out of control. I knew something was happening inside me, but I couldn’t

name it yet. Beneath the love I felt for her, there was also emptiness, fear, and at times a

depression I didn’t understand.

Then after the birth of my second daughter, God brought someone back into my life. She was a

friend I hadn’t seen in many years. The first thing I noticed was that she glowed. She carried love

and joy in a way I had never seen before. Whatever she had, I knew I wanted it.

She told me about Jesus.

I started going to church with her. I drove an hour each way with my two babies because

something in me was desperate to know Jesus. I was hungry, but surrender still took time. I did

not fully give my heart to Christ until I was thirty-two after giving birth to my third daughter.

That was when the Lord started peeling back layers I had worn for so long I thought they were

part of me: shame, fear, unforgiveness, self-protection, striving.

I turned fifty last year, and one of God’s greatest gifts to me was helping me discover the little

girl inside of me. For years, she had been trying to say, I’m afraid. And for years, I answered her

with pressure.

Stop it.

Not now.

Get it together.

Snap out of it.

I thought strength meant keeping everything under control. I thought the only way to survive fear

was to crush it as quickly as possible.

But fear does not heal when it is silenced. It only goes underground.

I remember one particular time after I shared a devotion at a women’s Bible study. From the

outside, nothing terrible had happened. I had simply spoken. But afterward, I spiraled. I was

flooded with anxiety and convinced I had said all the wrong things. I felt sure that I had messed

up and that somehow I was going to get in trouble.

What I understand now is that the old performance system had been triggered again. Somewhere

deep inside, I was no longer a grown woman at Bible study. I was a little girl again, afraid that a

bad performance meant danger. Afraid that one wrong word would cost me love. At the time,

though, I did what I had always done. I pushed it down. I tried harder to pull myself together. I

treated my own fear like an inconvenience.

Then came the night I accidentally called 911. It happened in the middle of the night, and afterward I could not fall back asleep. I lay there replaying it over and over, my body filling with panic. It felt so much bigger than the moment itself. I knew that, but I couldn’t stop. I kept thinking, You made a terrible mistake. You did something wrong. You’re in trouble.

I tried so hard to snap out of it but nothing worked.

I was wide awake, panicking, and I didn’t fully understand why. Then I sensed the Lord say

something so gentle and so clear that it cut straight through the noise:

“It’s your little girl. She’s afraid.”

Not accusation.

Not shame.

Not, What is wrong with you?

For the first time in my life, instead of trying to silence the frightened part of me, I turned toward

her. I said to myself, “you made a mistake. You are not a mistake. You’re not in trouble. I love

you, and Jesus loves you.” And almost immediately, I fell asleep.

Not because I had mastered some healing technique. Not because I had finally gotten control of

myself. I fell asleep because something in me had finally been met with love instead of

condemnation.

I woke up that morning and realized how many times that little girl had been there, panicking

inside me, and how many times I had answered her with harshness. How many times I had

abandoned myself in the exact places I needed tenderness most.

That night became a turning point. It was not dramatic from the outside. No one else would have

looked at it and thought, this is holy ground. But it was. Because the very thing that triggered my

fear, my mistake, became the place where God started healing.

I started to see how much of my life had been shaped by shame. How often I had confused fear

with failure. How deeply I had believed that mistakes changed my worth.

How quickly I had spoken to myself in the language of my wounds instead of the language of

God.

I began forgiving myself.

I began grieving what had happened to me.

I began forgiving those who had hurt me.

I began letting Jesus meet me in the places I used to avoid.

That panicking little girl still shows up sometimes, but now I recognize the feelings.I meet myself with love and truth. I remind myself of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that He’s gentle.

More and more, I am learning that God is not like the people who wounded me. He is not

waiting for me to fail so He can punish me. He is not measuring me by performance. He is not

withholding love until I get it right.

God is my Daddy.

My closest friend.

The One who has never turned away from the parts of me I was most tempted to hide.

For so long, the little girl inside of me was terrified that every failure could confirm the voices of

rejection telling me I was stupid, unwanted, and not worth staying for. But Jesus has been gently

revealing that my value is not determined by my performance. And after all these years, this is

the freedom I am still learning to live in:

I am safe with Him.

I was never a mistake.

I was wanted and loved by my Heavenly Father from before the foundation of the world.