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You Can’t Move Forward By Looking Backwards
Written by Sophie on Saturday, April 17, 2010
I’ll say in advance this is another post that involves my faith in God, not everyone here will agree with the things I’m dealing with at the moment but this has been a big issue I’ve been trying to deal with the entire time I’ve been consciously aware of my BIID.
Some of us have discussed in the past our trouble trying to get our BIID and our faith to meet eye to eye and although I’ve said myself "God made me who I am. He knows the desires of my heart and he loves me anyway" I’ve still struggled with how I’m meant to be honest and open to what God has for me in a situation with a group of people who are least likely to accept this important part of who I am. I slowly drifted away from church over the last four years, sometimes I would despair over the fact that none of my church "acquaintances" came looking for me wondering where I am, other times I would just be feeling like the two worlds simply can’t be mixed and wouldn’t bother.
When I was a little there was a couple at the church I grew up in that were special. They were the sort of people you seem to "adore" and look up to as a child and they always see the best in what others would just see as annoying, clingy bratty kids. The lady ran sunday school and bible in schools and was basically my first exposure to who God really was outside of my private home life. She told me recently that when I was a little kid I told her I saw angels when I prayed. I don’t see angels any more and I don’t even remember seeing angels so really for her to remember that in me is a reflection of how much she loves her church family.
They moved away when I was eight and I never saw them again until recently when they moved back and started going to my old church again. The lady had moved away from childrens’ ministry a long time ago and had moved into preaching in the time they’d been living elsewhere. I went to church last Easter Sunday and if it wasn’t God’s calling I don’t know what it was. She was preaching that day about us each having a song (or a purpose in life, calling, however you want to put it) that we sing to God and that sometimes along the way when life experiences lead us to forget our song he sings it back to us until we remembered it. I was pretty much bawling my eyes out for the rest of the service with the thought circling round and round in my head asking "How am I meant to find my song if I can’t be honest with my church family about an important part of who I am?"
We met up a few days later at a coffee shop to have a one on one chat and I told her about all the horrible things that had happened in my life since she’d left. I told her about all the times I’d been passed over and set aside in youth group so teenagers who went to that group’s church could do the thing I was passionate about…music. All the times I’d felt inadequate because my friends were well travelled on a path of music when no one had ever even mentioned those things to me let alone invited me to take part. I told her about my failed attempt in nursing, about the emotional abuse, depression and anxiety that had resulted from a flat I’d lived in…and I told her about my BIID and how it was affecting me. I told her the struggle I was having trying to find a way to come back to God when I had this big thing going on in my life.
Once I’d pretty much poured my heart out to her and cried into my orange juice she talked to me. We have two parts of ourselves. Regardless of what belief you follow most of them will agree that we have a human self, and a spiritual self. If you spend too much time nurturing one part of yourself the other half weakens (like your muscles if you don’t walk). Although my BIID was preventing me emotionally from crossing back over to caring for my spiritual self it wasn’t what had initially lead me down the path of caring for my human self. All the pain, all the rejection, all the horrible things that had taken place in my life from the moment I started primary school, they all played a part in pushing me over to my human self. Looking after your human self isn’t a bad thing, and it was obvious that I had done as much as I could with counselling, seeing my doctor, seeing a psychologist and medication to try and deal with my human problems and I couldn’t move forward with those any more, especially my BIID. It ain’t going away and it’s just sucking up more resources than I can afford to spend.
Tonight I went round to their house and they prayed for me that healing would take place in my heart. The lady hadn’t told her husband anything about my past or what had happened to me and he pretty much hit it bang on the head when he said growing up I’d been like a sponge who’d absorbed everything people had said to me, all the accusations, all the criticism, all the times I’d been passed over, I’d absorbed it all and now my sponge was dirty and was becoming a part of who I am. Regardless of what you guys think of prayer and healing I’ve walked away from that knowing that God has at least started to heal my heart. The things in my past feel less important now and I feel like there is nothing stopping me from going back to church and going back to having the close intimate relationship with God that I’d enjoyed in the past. I can go on in life looking for solutions for my BIID and none of it has any reason to stop me from caring for my spiritual self. This is only the beginning of the story, please watch this space as my mind catches up to my heart and I start living a new life rather than living in the past in my old experiences. I wasn’t initially going to share this stuff with you guys, I was worried you wouldn’t want to hear it, but I know for a fact that there are others like me out in the world who is a Christian and has drifted away from their relationship with God with their BIID acting like an anchor stopping them.
Tags: BIID, Christian, God, Prayer
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10 Comments
2 On 17 April, 2010, Phil said:
Dear Sophie,
you seem to have got two really good people back in your life, and that does good.
And it sounds as if you are making peace with your past, with God – and yourself. That is good.
We need this peace, because only peace allows us to love ourselves, and only when we love ourselves, we can really love others.
And loving ourselves means loving our BIID, too, which is very difficult, because it hurts so much and because I still often think about it as wrong.
I think God has given us most answers, but we don’t dare to hear them and live them. But life is development, and we need to give ourselves time.
I have only found out for myself that some times I made a minor mistake. I took mere feelings of community for a feeling of the spirit, and I thought that I could melt in instead of more and more become myself and go my own path.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Sophie. Once in a while a post will move me to tears. This is one such.
Yes I want to hear about it even though I’m not a Christian. I believe this is somewhere we can trust each other to be mutually respectful. To me, your experience goes beyond any particular religion.
Perhaps I cry because I see so much of myself in you. I would have been bawling my eyes out, just like you; because I have had analogous experiences and feelings.
I think I am healing, as you are. Thank you for helping me with that. Your song is a very beautiful one.
Sophie, I’m a Christian and although I’m still regulary attending a churc I am struggling with a lot of the same things that you mention with regard to you BIID and it’s very useful to read about your experiences and hopefully use them to help in my own life.
I know from experience that faith can be very hard to share about when you don’t know what response to expect. Thank you for sharing and please know that I find it useful.
5 On 18 April, 2010, Sean said:
@Beth, nice to see you poke your head back here :) I’m sorry you’re struggling though :(
6 On 19 April, 2010, Claire said:
:o) God bless you, Sophie.
You know what…you don’t have to apologize for your beliefs or be worried about sharing them. *hugs*
7 On 19 April, 2010, Sophie said:
Thanks guys. Things go up and down but I know I’m headed in a good direction.
I sang with the music group in church last Sunday for the first time in year, I surprised a few people when they saw I was up there. I was nervous as heck but it felt good to be doing something I love again. The lady in the above post kept complaining afterwards that she kept wanting to hug me, I have no issues with hugs :)
@Sean, I didn’t really go away for long. I tried to ‘forget’ about all this BIID stuff but as I’m sure you’re aware that doesn’t work for very long.
I’m currently struggling to figure out what I want to do. I could start wheeling in public, with people I know, but that would involve telling them something. and I’m not naive enough to think that I could select some friends to wheel with and others to never tell.
I could do my job from a wheelchair and I have been very tempted to wheel at work, but I have absolutely no idea how to explain it and how to tell them I don’t want to use the company private healthcare scheme to investigte the ‘problem’.
I’m not even sure I want to start wheeling in public really. It’s a big decision and one that would be hard to reverse. I’m well aware of the convenience of walking and although I dream every night of being paraplegic and wake up disapointed every moring when I can easily get out of bed onto my feet, I don’t know if actually using a wheelchair without physically needing it would be better or worse than continuing to use the convenience of working feet and legs, even though I know in my heart I’m not supposed to have them.
I’m probably rambling now, suffice to say that I didn’t go away for long. Sorry to those of you who missed me, I had to try again to forget about all this stuff but it didn’t work. I’ve been lurking without posting for a little while now but now I’m back properly.
9 On 20 April, 2010, Sean said:
@Beth, yes I know how we all have to get away and see if we can repress the jack back in the box. Doesn’t usualy work. As for wheeling, it’s a hard decision. What to tell people, well, there are plenty of different things that can be said. As for not using the work health insurance, tricky, but I’m sure you could figure it out :) And that paradox of needing to be paralysed, yet enjoying the convenience of walking is conflicting and confusing, at best.
And now, I return y’all to Sophie’s thread :) Sorry for hijacking!
Dear All,
Only reading your lines, coming from your hearts, is a true encouragement for me, thanks folks :) *hugs*
I believe in God myself, though I wouldn’t consider myself Christian, nor any other religion’s follower, and just today, while I was cycling -yes, unfortunately not wheeling :(- to work I was just thinking what is God’s answer to my transabled-ness?… And as a response… a most pleasant warmth filled my whole being and the fact that we have free will and yet we can’t loose God’d endless love – was enough for me ;)
We all have the freedom to be who we are until we don’t hurt others and: bicycle or wheelchair – I think it’s really a peaceful question and decision :))
God wants us to love ourselves as well and… what if I can love myself more in a power chair?…
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1 On 16 April, 2010, Sean said:
The Romans used to say “mens sana in corpore sano”, a healthy mind in a healthy body. You can’t ignore one indefinitely. I’m glad you had that epiphany and I hope it effects long term positive change for you.
As for making “Christian posts”, I don’t see an issue. You’re not trying to convert us, you are sharing of you and your experience, and BIID, and it happens to include your Faith. I don’t share it, but I respect it.