Haunted By The Distant Past

Haunted by the distant past.

It is crazy how quick the past rears its ugly head.

We are pulling off the interstate at the Kearney exit. We pull into a gas station. I get out of the car. I start walking to the door and with a quick glance to the right – the car. The car I've been in. The car I've been sick in. The car I escaped pain in. The car I used to run to when I wanted to forget. There it is. I glance away. Please don't remember them nor the memories. I grab the handle to the door to enter the gas station and suddenly it feels heavier than I ever remembered. I walk to the bathroom with my head down. I pray. I beg. The memory is so alive in that moment I can barely breathe. The bathroom is how I remembered. That same bathroom I used to cry in. The same bathroom, the same mirror. Washing my hands couldn't be more of a race. Then, I look up. I see me. I see the change. The weight that never was there before in that bathroom. The eyes that are alive that once were dead. The hair that is so different. I see the restored me. The blessed me. I leave, the car is gone, and I move forward. Just like that, it's over... so I think.

So what do you about all these stories? All these memories? What do you do with them? How can you turn them around? How do you possibly set yourself free from the pain? Yes, its in the past. Yes, you are not her any longer. I know these things. Yet, how do you stop flashbacks? What of the shame that comes with memories?

The best way I can describe the feeling is by screaming and because you can't hear that – well, the pain I thought was gone is very alive and was quick to grab me and shake me and remind me of who it wanted me to be.

While I am not the hopeless drug addicted woman anymore, those stories, those scary moments, those choices, those faces, those moments on bathroom floors, those moments of being left and hurt, those moments of lies, those moments of self – hurt, those moments you think you would never do, those moments of survival are inside me. They are my story. A part of me. I can't just erase them. I can't act like they didn't happen. So, again, what do I do with them?

I want to stop here for a second and mention I know while all this was happening, God was with me, walking. His love was lifting me up like helium in that moment. I am stronger because He fills me up.When the fear comes and I drift towards the ground, I am blessed He is right beside me to lift me back up. He lifts me up and I am found.

It is moments, flashbacks and feelings like today that scare me. I am scared the story I have is never told. I am scared of the memories that pop up at a gas station of all places. I am scared of how the Devil was so patiently waiting in a vehicle to swoop in with power. While God crushed the alternate outcomes of what could have come from a situation such as this, I am still a human being that carries fear around. I am a human being who literally fights addiction with her God every single day. I am a human being with such a long, sad, violent past I want to scream just to get it out of myself. Maybe then, I think, it'll completely go away. Yet, you, who are reading this, and myself know that isn't how things go.

Sitting in the passenger seat of a van I asked my past if I had a choice and the answer that came quickly from God was...YES! 

When I said goodbye to that life, I made a different choice. The past wanted me dead. There is no joke about that. The battle was lost because I am still here. God won a war I never dreamed possible. With that, I chose today to listen to God's voice and believe who He says I am. While I still don't know what to do with all these memories and my story, I do know this morning I gave my story to God and He lifted me up, like He always does. 

My past is my past. It isn't going anywhere. My heart was a heavy heart to carry and my past dragged me around for far too long until I made the choice to leave. I won't run away, I will take my past by the hand and give it the One who gave me life. There will come a time with no more tears, and love will not break my heart but dismiss my fears. I got over my "hill" today and found grace in my heart the only thing I was missing were flowers in my hair.