Leaving "Wonderland" | Entering Personal Recovery

On January 1st, 2019, I smiled for a picture after starring as a guest speaker on a video-interview for a friend's ministry segment. My smile was nice, but purely empty. My eyes concealed a different story. I tried. I really tried. Like, I put-up-with-and-pushed-through-hell-and-high-water, kind of tried.

I wanted things to be put together in my world like they were in my mind. If I just kept telling myself things were slowly but surely falling into place, maybe I wouldn’t completely fall apart.

If I just kept busy, choking back the tears, or the desperate cries for help coming from inside, maybe they’d go away. Can you sleep off agony from a reality you pretend you’re not living in?

I couldn’t. I was just living in denial.

The sinking feeling in my stomach didn’t cease until I hit my rock bottom in mid-2019. Things had to get UGLY. Thank God they did. Without such extreme ugliness, my blinded, stubborn eyes might have remained shut... closed to truth... pierced tightly together avoiding the monstrous elephant that wasn’t only in the room with me, but constantly trampling over me.

EYES WIDE OPEN

I remember the day my eyes opened.

They were wide open, actually.

If second salvation were a thing, I would believe this to have been it for me. Tears cascaded down my defeated face in sheets as I blinked right through them. I was motionless. I felt dead inside.

Rock bottom is cold and lonely. It’s quiet there. Only faints echoes of the reality you’ve been pressing down accompany you, but they are barely audible. The screams in your head that there HAS TO BE MORE TOMORROW … after I give this up… are louder. They come from the tiny, obscure opening at the top, where the only form of light and hope beckon you upward.

In 2019, God blessed me with relationships, circumstances, and grace that led me, inch by grueling inch, towards the tiny opening where light and hope called to me from above. From that time until the following year, I worked my own program, recovering from severe codependency, severe love addiction, toxic relationships, abuse cycles, self-victimization, and attacks from spirits of dysfunction and wickedness. Because of this, 2020 became the REALEST year of my life, up until that time.

Exiting life in denial feels sort of like I imagine Alice did, coming out of “Wonderland,” back through the mirror, to find her actual world, again. When I began functioning in reality, I truly started to live, again.

This generation needs parents and young people who will step up and go through the hell of facing themselves and their demons in a journey to find their true selves; the purest parts of our identities - that make us human, make us soft, make us real.

Living in reality requires shedding fake personas, in-genuine excuses, and artificial patterns of living.

Our children want to know the real “us.”

Do you know the real you? When I asked myself in early 2019, “Who am I?…” I asked for the question to be rephrased. What do you mean “Who… am I?” I didn’t understand the question, much less the answer.

How do you lead your life not knowing WHO you are?

When we don’t know our true selves, we are 100% vulnerable to someone else telling us. Oftentimes, when we aren’t fully tuned in to God, the enemy sends his demented messengers to whisper in our ears who they think we are.

THE LIES

“Well, that’s easy, you’re the drug addict and criminal.”

“You’re the person nobody trusts.”

You’re the person who can’t trust anybody else.”

“You’re the black sheep.”

“You’re the odd one out, the one who just isn’t as good as the others.”

“You’re the one whose parent didn’t love and no spouse will ever respect.”

“You’re the liar and the thief.”

“You’re the “not quite attractive enough” friend, but can make up for it by sleeping around.”

“You’re the loser without an education who should avoid investing in your future now.”

“You’re the lazy mom who stays home when you should be helping your husband provide.”

"You're the woman not worth taking care of."

“You’re the screw up divorcée who can’t make a man stay.”

“You’re the idiot whose standards are too high; you should have just stayed.”

“You’re the self-centered child who will always disappoint your parents.”

"You're too much."

"You're not enough."

THE TRUTH

As I leaned into a personal relationship with Jesus to start my dependence on my Higher Power, I began feeling chains break off my spirit - I became a little more free, step by step. As I worked my "program" I gained strength I didn't have access to on my own. I got honest with the deepest hurts held in my heart since childhood, taking them in ugly cries to the Lord in prayer, and receiving kind, unexpected answers from Him in return. I confessed my struggles in group at Al Anon or Celebrate Recovery meetings with other family members of addicted loved ones who understood. I read powerful books on Codependency and Love Addiction by Pia Mellody. I invested in a discipleship counselor who specializes in addiction and codependency. I journaled and prayed until I felt relief. I practiced worship and chose to start believing better about myself, God, and the world around me.

I began to learn who I am - not who the world, my painful past experiences, or the enemy had tried to convince me I was - my entire life...

The beauty of recovery is when you start taking steps towards the light, you realize you were actually made to live in it; you had just became acclimated to the darkness for so long. We are not intended to live there. We are made to carry light from within us, out into the hurting world around us.

Leaving the Wonderland of your shame-filled alter-reality means stepping through the mirror of recovery back into the light you were originally born into, to lead a life full of clarity, freedom, and authenticity. This can only come after we've had our own self-will broken, leaned on a Higher Power for help, and accepted the grace that comes when we humbly admit our wrongs and take steps to grow and heal.

Now, a few short years later, I can honestly say I know exactly who I am...

I am a perfectly loved, imperfect sinner. I am a child of God and a friend of Jesus! I have been justified and redeemed by the Blood. My old self has been crucified and I am no longer a slave to sin! I have been set free from the law of sin and death. I have been accepted by Christ and called to be a saint! In Christ Jesus, I have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in me! I am joined to the Lord and have one spirit with Him. The hardening of my mind has been removed in Christ! I am a new creature in Christ. I have been set free in Christ!

I've faced my demons, and I have won. What was meant to take me out has only created a self-defeating platform for me to now reach people in a deeper way. My wounds have became scars I will show others to connect them to my heart, and then to the heart of the One who made them. He offers salvation, healing, righteousness, eternity, and hope-filled promises.

It’s time to walk into our futures with our heads clear, and held high.

We know who we are.

We are now ready to truly live - not in Wonderland, anymore - but in the land of the living.