Tell Your Story
Bringing others into healing by sharing the scars of your past
Isat in the room with my hands awkwardly fidgeting in my lap. Wiping away the humidity and sweat that my palms were creating, trying to ignore the insistent pounding of my nervous heart racing.
I knew it was my turn next. I knew what God was calling me to do but the very thought terrified me. It was 2009, and I was in a small room in Peru surrounded by around 20 faces of other teenagers who had given up their summer vacation to serve on a mission trip in Peru.
Our team had gathered to start the process of sharing testimonies and after a friend of mine had shared, I knew God was impressing on me to share my own story. I can’t recall if I had ever shared it before — perhaps with a close friend or two — but I had never admitted the reality of my struggles with food in front of a huge group before; not to mention in front of men.
There were a few moments of silence where the team waited to see who would deciede to be vulnerable and share next. I remember interupting the silence as I shouted something weird along the lines of “Okay, I guess I haveto share.” As the team laughed at my unwilling boldness, I told them that I didn’t want to share but felt like God really wanted me to. It was in that room that I told my truth and detailed the ways in which I battled through bulimia as a teenager. After sharing what I had experienced, I remember grabbing a pillow and pulling it up to my face in shame and relief as uncontrollable tears began to fall.
As I cried, I heard others meet my pain in solidarity and also begin to sniffle a few tears of their own — perhaps out of pity, or perhaps out of the story being close too home.
In that moment something powerful happened: a male leader who I deeply admire, with tears in his own eyes, told me how proud he was of me and that he couldn’t believe that someone as beautiful as me had struggled with such self-hatred (a statement which made me feel uncomfortable, because I was still far from thinking I was beautiful). I remember how shocked I was when shortly after I shared, two other women came forward and began to share their stories of pain, saying “Kristine, if you wouldn’t have shared your story I wouldn’t have shared what happened to me.” This reality took my breath away.
In this moment, a process of healing and acceptance began for me in that room. My story of overcoming addictions, bondage, and pain was far from over, but there was something powerful about knowing that despite my past and present struggles, I was loved — and that my junk could somehow liberate others to share their own pain and find freedom.
I guess I didn’t realize just how alone I had felt. I grew up in the church and in a Christian school, but I rarely remembered people openly talking about their pasts and their scars. The majority of what I remember is being told what not to do, but no one ever told me what to do with my brokenness and shame.
Afew days after this experience I felt God calling me to fast food. This very thought terrified me, as I did not trust myself to do this in an appropriate way without setting off another eating disorder. I felt God affirm me, and decided to only fast lunch. I didn’t know what to do during a fast, and so the only thing I could think of doing was going to my room and worshipping. Every day as the team ate I would go into my room, journal, turn on my iPod (remember those?), and worship.
I was praying for my future, asking God what He wanted me to do with my life. At the time, I was strongly considering becoming a full-time missionary in Asia but found that as I prayed I was hearing nothing from God. I was getting frustrated that my prayers weren’t being answered, but quickly felt God’s peace in that I was supposed to just worship Him and wait. My last day of the fast I remember feeling compelled to get on my knees and lift my hands in surrender. This surprised me as I am more of a ‘lay prostrate on my face’ kind of worshipper, or prone to get up and move around, but I listened obediently and began to worship like never before and in that moment I heard Him speak in a way that again brought tears of awe and wonder.
He said:
“Kristine, I want you to tell your story on how you were once on your knees (making yourself throw up in bathrooms) and how you are now on your knees in worship.”
I know this was the voice of the Father, because that sentence was way too beautiful and powerful for me to come up with on my own. I was amazed at this response, and knew this was the mandate of my life. No matter what I choose to do or where I go, sharing my story with other women will always be my passion and calling.
I’ve been reflecting on this Peru trip, because recently I had the oppurtunity to share at Tampa Sisterhood, a community of women who weekly meet with a desire to pursue inimacy with God together and make an impact in our world. A good friend and mentor of mine who leads this movement, Erin Blair, asked me to speak and share my story. If you know me, you know that any time I get on a stage to sing or speak I am so terrified and nervous. I’m not kidding, like, I’m really terrified. Ready for some TMI? If not, then ignore the next two sentences.
I’ve been singing since I was in middle school and I still get diarrhea every single time I get on a stage because I am that nervous! I told you, I was not exaggerating.
As Erin asked me, my stomach began to churn, but I remembered that moment in Peru and knew that this was an opportunity to share the freedom from abuse and eating disorders I have experienced. I was more than eager to declare how good God has been to me.
As the day approached to share my story at Sisterhood, I had a serene peace that covered me. I was excited to share what God had done in and through me. As I shared my story and unveiled many layers that I have never even shared before, I noticed a woman in the front row constantly wiping away her tears with each word I shared. I knew then and there that she related very closely with the brokeness I had experienced and had a feeling we would connect afterwards. As my talk ended I felt like I was supposed to pray for the room and give time for healing.
I felt like God was saying, “Tell them I am safe. Tell them I am safe.” I sensed that perhaps the fathers of those in the room were absent or abusive, but God wants to speak to that wound. I wanted to say “He’s not like those other men. He’s not like your father. He’s safe. He’s different from the others.” (…and reader, perhaps this truth is also for you.)
After I shared, the woman I noticed came up to me. She told me that it was her first time at Sisterhood and she was moved by my story because she had never heard someone share so openly about what they’d overcome. After talking for a few moments, she asked me something that I will never forget, saying to me: “Can I take a picture with you?” At first I was taken aback, but I had no problem doing that. As she pulled out her phone to take the picture she began to explain, “I have a young daughter, and I want to take this picture to show her that women who have been abused, like you and me, can overcome and be beautiful on the inside and out.”
Even as I type this now, tears well up in my eyes. She took the photo, because she needed a picture as proof of a living miracle, to inspire herself and her daughter. What God had done in my life spoke hope over their past and potential present struggles with trauma. I was the proof she needed to assure herself that she was going to be alright. What God had done in me gave her strength to challenge all the lies she had once believed and to realize that perhaps there is life after trauma.
Isn’t that something? Isn’t that a breath of fresh air? That there truly is life after whatever it is that you and I have experienced?
I am struck with the reality that every time I have shared my story with others I see two things happen: I feel a new layer of revelation and healing within my own heart, and always, by the grace of God, freedom for others. Sharing my story gives someone else the permission to acknowledge their own hurt and yet embrace that they are more than what they’ve gone through.
The beautiful reality of the gospel is that as big, as painful, as horrifying, and as incredulous as the abuse, trauma, and addictions we have endured truly are — they are not bigger than God. He has the last word, and He is a master of turning broken messes into masterpeieces.
Tell your story. Tell others of how the gospel has been made alive and known in you. The only reason we do not share the truth of what we have overcome is because of fear and shame — or because we have not dealt with our pasts, and they are still our present.
Ifyou find that your scars are not yet scars but are open and infected wounds, I want to ask ‘Why do you feel as though you are the exception to grace? Why do you feel like God loves and can redeem anyone, yet you exempt yourself from this truth? Why have we lived behind the facade that our lives are perfect, minimizing our pain? What do we gain from this but a life never fully lived?’ Again I wonder, do you know that God is safe?
Some of us, no matter how hard we try, live under the lie that God is this big guy in heaven ready to smite us when we fail. If we believe this, than of course we can’t deal with our pasts because there’s too much fear and shame for what this means about us and what God thinks about us. God is not mad at you for encountering trauma, in fact it’s quite the opposite. He is mad foryou. His heart is wildly grieved about the pain you have encountered. He is not shocked by the poor choices you have made out of your brokenness. He gets it. He gets you. He’s with you.
Give yourself the permission to grieve, the permission to share, and embrace your story for all it is. The good, the bad, the past, the present. The relapses, the failures, the victories. Get real, that’s all He asks of you. That’s all our sisters want from us too. We’re all waiting for someone to give us the permission to be authentically ourselves. Today I give myself that permission, and I also give it you — even though you never needed it in the first place.
Ifyou find that shame and fear keep you from sharing, let today be the last day that it wins. For far too long we have allowed shame to dictate how we live our lives. Our personalities, relationships, and decisions have been formed around lies. It’s time for freedom. It’s time to move past our insecurities and know that the world is waiting for us to embrace who we really are, so that then it can to find courage in what you bring.
My story is one that is far from being perfect (trust me, you could ask my husband — he knows what’s up). I am still daily finding freedom from my relationship with food, and have to depend on God one day at a time, to give me the strength I need…but I am also daily finding freedom I never knew possible. I want to scream from the mountaintops that I am no longer actively engaging in any eating disorders! Not over-eating, not throwing up, not experiencing that subtle but constant sense of self-loathing. If you could walk in my shoes you would see just in fact how miraculous that is.
I have come to a place of acceptance and love for myself and for my body only because of Jesus. He has freed me in ways I never dreamed possible. Each layer of healing has been remarkably painful, but I would go through it over and over again to find myself in Him.
Will you join me on fighting for healing together?
