Returning

I don't know where to start. This is the most eye-opening, painful, loneliest, yet refreshing and chaotically peaceful part of my life I've ever experienced. So many changes. Good and bad. Blessings. Re-directions. Rejections. Reconciliations. Restoration. As I'm typing I'm noticing a theme that plays into the title I just came up with for this blog: Returning to Me. "Re." I just looked up the definition and it states, "a movement back to a previous location, state, or condition." It all points to us finding our way back to who we were first created to be. Who God created us to be. Before we were shaped by people, circumstances, opinions, projections...before people tried to dim your light before you even realized how bright it was..or that it even existed to begin with.

Though I've always been a reserved person, preferring to observe and adapt, I definitely remember being more outspoken as a kid. Asking questions, speaking ideas, searching for community, laughing, loving, helping. Most times this was met with rejection, judgment, getting blown off, talked down to, talked out of things, told to think smaller. Or in some cases, I was met with the same energy I gave off. It felt good. Felt like I belonged. That is until people felt the need to "humble" me, find things to "critique," make me feel like an outcast. It started to work. In hindsight, they were actually seeing me better than I ever did and hoped that I would shrink, second guess myself, feel less than. All to stroke their egos, feel better about themselves, fill their cup while emptying mine. That worked too. 

That is, until I found myself in the darkest place I'd ever been. Isolated, living in shame, guilt, confusion, loneliness, trauma, fear, doubt, plagued by betrayal. But God, the light of life, found me. He rescued me in the darkness. Breathed life back into me slowly, but surely, even in the midst of chaos. Even in the midst of my mess. I've learned that so many of us feel like we have to be this picture perfect person before we fully surrender and give ourselves to God. But no. That's the world's standards. The devil's tactics. To condemn us. Shame us. Tell us we're too far gone. But that's not how the unconditional love of God works. We can't earn it. Ruin it. Run from it...for long. We don't have to perform and meet unrealistic standards like society makes us believe. All we have to do is bare our souls, fall apart, ask for help and he shows up. In a way like he never left. Because he never did. We strayed. But once we remember, once we return, he welcomes us back with open arms like we never left. Because the truth is we haven't. We may have gone our own way, but he was within us the entire time. Whispering, guiding...until we finally found our way back home.

Comments

  1. SheewanNovember 17, 2025 at 1:09 PM

    The ability to allow oneself to be vulnerable as they redefine themselves is a gift very few allow themselves to open, congratulations to you as you return to yourself and redefine what you want for yourself.👏🏾

    ReplyDelete

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