So, I've been looking at my life differently lately and it has changed my perspective. I tend to focus on what I do wrong. My failings are ever before my eyes. You know how it feels when you can't see the good in you for all the bad? Well, I saw a movie two Thursdays ago that has had a huge impact on me. It's called Soul Surfer (based on a true story). It's about a female surfer in Hawaii, named Bethany Hamilton, who was attacked by a shark at the age of thirteen. The shark bit off her entire left arm. Despite this she trusted God in her struggles, didn't give up on her dream of becoming a pro surfer, and in the end learned that God enabled her to reach millions of people through her injury and courage. Bethany Hamilton is now 21 and a pro surfer. She is continuing to inspire others around the world who have suffered trauma. The message that this movie shared helped me to see with new eyes. Bad things happen to people, but God makes the bad into a good and uses our wounds and struggles to strengthen us and others. He turns bad things into opportunies to share his truth, life, and gospel. I knew this already, but seeing the story of someone who lives it out today really opened my eyes to this truth. Bethany's faith in God is amazing. I think the most amazing thing about her faith in God is that it isn't passive. She acted on her faith, though she couldn't see the big picture. She didn't just wait around, she worked towards her dream and took her walk with God one day at a time.
Having suffered from trauma in the past, Bethany's story really hit home for me. I am a survivor of incest. My older brother sexually abused me for many years and raped me more than once when I was around 13-14. I developed delayed onset chronic post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) my freshman year of college. Within just the past year, I can now say that I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. I still struggle with some issues of self esteem, confidence, body image, anger, and anxiety, but I have come so far in my healing. Bethany's story helped me to look beyond simply healing from the trauma to looking to how I can use what happened to me to share God with others. I decided years ago that I want to be a counselor and help fellow survivors of sexual trauma, however, I wasn't getting the big picture. Yes, it's great that I want to help other survivors like me, but God can work through my experience to reach more than just one specific subgroup of trauma survivors. Just as Bethany's story spoke to me, my story can speak to others who don't necessarily share my experience. Being sexually abused and/or raped can seriously damage self image, confidence, relationships, and especially future marriage and having children. Working through the pain and struggling to heal is a huge job. There is nothing easy about it. So I guess, in a way, my story is similar to Bethany's. I haven't given up and I never lost faith in God. Instead I work actively, every day, to heal from the trauma. I am also reaching for my dream: to be confident, to look at myself and see beauty, to meet and marry my future husband and trust him, to have children and be close and nurturing to them, to have deep, enduring, loving relationships with others, to be myself and not be ashamed, to share God's love with the world.
Looking at my life differently also led me to see the good things in me and in my life. I am surrounded by so much of God's blessings, grace, hope, peace, love, and mercy. I have gone from being a hurting, heartbroken girl with PTSD in a dysfunctional family to a healing woman with a healing family. God has blessed me in so many ways, I don't know if I can even scratch the surface in this blog post. Every day I see more of God's love for me and every day I love God a little more. I see my family healing from past dysfunctional ways of acting; I see my connection to and communication with my family growing stronger. God is so good and I know that it was in his plan for a young girl attacked by a shark in Hawaii to, years later, reach a woman healing from sexual trauma. God is just awesome like that.
You have been reading Simply Life by Faith.
May God bless you abundantly, as he has blessed me.
-Faith_inpresentdarkness
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