Scarred

I don't talk about this part very often, but today it feels important.

Sometimes I'm scared that the things that happened to me long before this chapter of my life are going to cost me something good in this one.

Trauma is strange like that. You can know you're safe and still brace yourself. You can know you're loved and still wonder when that love is going to disappear. You can recognize that the person standing in front of you didn't cause the wounds you're carrying and still find yourself reacting to them as though the past is happening all over again.

And sometimes I am scared that my trauma will push away the person I love.

That's a hard thing to admit.

I'm learning that surviving something and healing from it are two very different things. I became really good at surviving. I learned how to protect myself, how to anticipate what might happen next, how to keep going when things hurt and how to function when everything inside of me was screaming.

Those things helped me survive seasons of my life.

But survival skills don't always know when the war is over.

Sometimes protection looks like pushing away. Sometimes fear sounds like anger. Sometimes needing reassurance feels like being "too much." Sometimes my mind starts preparing me for an ending that hasn't happened because somewhere along the way I learned that expecting the hurt might make it hurt less.

And I don't want to live that way anymore.

I don't want yesterday deciding what I'm allowed to have today. I don't want someone I love paying for wounds they didn't create. And I don't want fear convincing me to destroy something while I'm desperately trying to protect it.

So I'm learning.

I'm learning to recognize when an old wound is speaking louder than the truth in front of me. I'm learning that I can communicate instead of assume. I'm learning that being vulnerable is different from being unsafe. I'm learning that love doesn't have to be earned with my body, my usefulness, my silence or my ability to keep everyone else happy.

Most importantly, I'm learning that healing doesn't mean I never get scared again.

Sometimes healing looks like being scared and choosing differently anyway.

God has brought me too far to believe that my past gets the final word over my future.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”  2 Timothy 1:7

Today I'm still scarred. But I'm also loved. I'm learning. I'm healing. And I'm still becoming.