We live in a world that places so much attention on our outsides and whether or not they are pretty. Let's take a second to remember that it's your insides that make your outside pretty.. Because Jesus is in me, and you, we are beautiful. Because Jesus loves me, and you, we are never alone. Our joy does not come from any other source & Apart from him we can do nothing. You are enough because he is enough. It's time to be strong and believe that because God made us! He is the potter, we are the clay. The same God who created the earth formed you for a purpose. You are beautiful. You are worthy. You are adored... All because you are His.
FOUND: sometimes when the sun is rising just right and I’m driving Ollie to school I have flashbacks to when I would drive in my car, going nowhere, waiting for my parents to leave the house so I could go in and change clothes and then go to work. I would stay up all night doing drugs with my group of guy friends (who were ages 35-45 and I was 20 but that’s another post for another day to you young girls who think these people are your actual friends) and then usually between 6-8am I would drive around everywhere just waiting. I was so lost. Sometimes literally but mostly just figuratively. When I was raped in 2008 and I was told by the police I was asking for it, all hope was lost. Everything went out the window at that point. Up until then I struggled with my eating disorder but I was a very functioning human who always tried to do the right thing. I’m not mad that things happened how they did although I was at the time. It took me getting so lost in addiction and sin that I was able to recognize when I was actually ‘found’ by God. I think sometimes sin is so surface level (if that’s even the right word), like gossip or being mean to people on the internet or wishing you had another life, that there’s no easy way to see God rescue you from that.
I haven’t seen the testimony yet of someone who says “I would always stir up anger by commenting on news stories posted on social media but then God saved me from being mean, making people feel dumb and causing anger.” If you’ve seen that be sure to tag me but I don’t think we will see it because most people don’t see themselves doing these small sins or even think it’s sin at all.
I was SO LOST in addiction that it was very easy to realize I was not the one who saved myself. I had tried for years with all the self help books and researching addiction but I couldn’t seem to pull myself out. But then God did and EVERYONE saw it. It was an unfolding miracle (and still is) on display for anyone who questioned God’s existence and grace. Is constantly giving your life and sin to God hard? Absolutely. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
In addiction you will eventually come to a point where you want out. It might not be yet but when you do, you can’t do it by yourself. You have to have a support system and you have to have Jesus.
‘I once was lost but now I’m found. Was blind but now i see’
REDEEMED-
Every time I hear the word Redeemed I think of the book I read in Rehab called ‘Redeeming Love.’ It’s about the book of Hosea and how God redeems a prostitute. Our world looks on and judges people in sin fairly easily because it’s easy to comment on a picture and join the crowd of people throwing stones. If you look at social media it’s almost a game to see how hurt you can make people feel for things they’ve done or got caught doing. Thank God we didn’t have social media or camera phones when I was in my drug addiction because NO ONE would look to me as an inspiration. I always tell one of my friends when we share a mugshot of someone we knew that ‘this could have been me.’ Prostitute isn’t a good word to claim and tell everyone about but when you do anything for drugs, call it what you want, you’re a prostitute. When I was stuck in my sin of addiction I couldn’t see a way out. I did want to change but I was addicted to cocaine so I needed to do anything to get it. I wasted thousands of dollars a month on drugs and when I over drafted my bank cards I started stealing and when that didn’t work I used my body. But then I overdosed, went to Arizona and that’s when things changed. I met Jesus at a treatment facility and although I didn’t exactly know what I was signing up for I knew I was redeemed no matter what i would choose to do in the future. Once i accepted God unto my heart there wasn’t anything i could do for him to love me any less and that gave me hope. To go from feeing used up, addicted and hopeless to having hope and feeling new is something I can’t explain. It’s why I always say that I’m a recovered drug addict and I’m not recovering which is the label any recovery group will give you. When you’ve felt so gross and then you’re given a second chance, there’s nothing that could happen that would make you choose your previous life. I am redeemed.
TRANSFORMED
We often say things in our house like “you wouldn’t have known mommy then” or “that mommy wouldn’t have cared about you” and both things are true. 2008-2009 Valerie was very consumed with herself and manipulated every situation to get the outcome I wanted. I could create lies that anyone would believe but eventually you forget what lies you tell and you start mixing up stories and then you’re ‘found out.’ If you’ve followed me for a while you know I’m always an open book and if you’re new here you probably are thinking to yourself ‘Why in the world would she just volunteer the fact that she had sex with people for drugs?!’ The answer is easy. That’s who I was, it’s not who I am. I’ve been transformed through Jesus. When you bring darkness to light it loses power. When you can understand how someone chose something you have more grace for them and others who are going down the same path. It’s easy to throw stones at the person you see on the street or the girl who shows way too much boob in her selfies on social media but that’s because you don’t know anything about them. You don’t know their real story. I had help getting out of my addiction. I had a mom who sold cars and charged credit to get me into a treatment center that was christian (even though I was furious and thought God was stupid), I had counselors to walk me through trauma and met friends who didn’t expect anything from me in being a new Christian at 21 and they didn’t make faces or judge me when I’d share details of my self and little by little I shared more and more until it was all out there. Do I share everything on the internet? No. In recovery you’ll learn that in making amends and talking about things, you only do it when doing so won’t hurt you or others. It is freeing to tell your story and bring dark to light but you don’t want to hurt anyone in the process-even if they’ve hurt you. I have been made new. Transformed from a liar, manipulator, self seeking thief into a new creation put on the earth for a purpose. We all have a purpose and we all have darkness but if you’ll let yourself be transformed by the renewing of your mind through Jesus you’ll find out what that purpose is and the darkness loses power.
“Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.” - Isaiah 38:17
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The story behind the art:
It’s always hard to see how a trial or trauma is going to work itself out for good in your life, especially when the hurt is so deep. It’s no secret that sexual sin causes such deep trauma for the victim. You can look at all sorts of science that backs up this and how it effects the brain, even when it’s done during childhood and that person can’t remember. Trauma is trauma and at 32 the effects of being raped in 2008 are still with me (even though I’d say that I’m healed from it.) During my postpartum OCD and anxiety, the effects of being raped were very present. My greatest fear then and still to this day is that my kids will be molested or taken from me by another human and be sold. I was so scared after Hazel was born that I couldn’t leave the house or take the kids anywhere. I have worked through this with my counselor but I can still imagine scenarios involving my kids and start hyperventilating.
I have suffered anguish, we all have, but God is always working in the pain and the mess. Even when it’s hard to see.
If I wouldn’t have been raped I wouldn’t have started drinking.
If I didn’t start drinking then I wouldn’t have tried cocaine.
If I didn’t try cocaine then I wouldn’t have overdosed.
If I didn’t overdose then I wouldn’t have met Jesus.
In HIS love HE kept me from the pit of destruction. He put ALL MY SINS behind his back. He doesn’t keep track of sin or mark the slate every time we mess up. We could never do anything that would make Him love us less and there’s nothing we can do to make Him love us more. You’re just loved.
It ALL works out for the Glory of God if you’ll let it.
‘I don’t know what to do but my eyes are on you.’ This has become my life chant the past few years. Have you ever felt so out of control and nothing you do makes you feel any better?
No?
Have a kid. 😂
Control is like the water mirage. On the hot days when you drive in your car you can see water up ahead in the road and you keep seeing it and then when you get close it just disappears. That’s the struggle with control. You think you have it and then it just disappears.
I don’t know how your control struggle has played out, or if it’s even a struggle at all, but mine always chooses something to latch to. From ages 10-15 I chose to over eat, 16-20 I switched back and forth from anorexia to bulimia. When Brad and I got married I felt so out of control. I was so used to buying whatever I wanted when I wanted and then I married someone who never bought anything. Ever. 😳 This was rough for me. I chose to fall back to my eating disorder but then I got pregnant with Ollie and God, through Ollie, healed me from my eating disorder. I didn’t even think I could get pregnant and 2 months into marriage ON Birth control there was Ollie.
Fast forward to finding out about Ollie’s autism at age 1. ‘I don’t know what to do but my eyes are on you.’
He was nonverbal.
He only played alone.
He couldn’t eat solid food without throwing up.
Our battle today is meltdowns, obsessive behavior (hello, Mario😂) and ‘non-compliance’-the fancy word from his therapy that means he won’t listen to anyone. Since the start of COVID everything in his schedule has been messed up. He has school and then he doesn’t. He has a teacher and then he doesn’t. He can physically see kids at school but can’t talk to them. He has no idea what’s going on and his body is telling us. He has so much anxiety which makes for unusual behavior. It’s all a mess. ‘I don’t know what to do but my eyes are on you.’
We have no control over Ollie’s mind. Obviously. As a parent you’d like to think you sort of know how your child’s life will end up going. School, friends, college, marriage, kids.
We don’t know if any of that will happen for Ollie and that’s heartbreaking.
‘I don’t know what to do but my eyes are on you.’
No matter what happens with Ollie’s life and our life, we are safe and He is safe. We never go through the day alone and we don’t have to worry about the future because we know God is in it. We can look at Ollie and see exactly how God was working in each detail. We can see the evidence and we can be secure in knowing that he’s not going to stop showing up now.
2 chronicles 20:12
“We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”