“You’ve been through that? But you’re so normal!”

Have you ever felt like you were stuck? Like satan hit you hard with an attack or maybe even a few and you just weren’t sure if you could get back up? You weren’t sure you even wanted to fight anymore?

Lord knows I’ve been there.

After what has felt like a lifetime of back to back attacks, about a year and a half ago, I finally felt the Lord calling me to spend a year of healing with Him and in Him only after a serious of trials in college. For me, it consisted of coming home for a full year after college, no boys, no relationships for a year, dedicating the time to regularly seeing a counselor for a year (which is still going strong because counseling is awesome and I’m the biggest advocate ever for it now - one of the most freeing things ever was to finally ask for help and take the time to care for my emotional, mental, and heart health. 10/10 Recommend), and any time I got an urge or temptation to numb my pain or emotions or find healing outside of the Lord, I would immediately open my bible and retrain myself to run to Him instead.

(Side note: After seeking healing in all of the wrong ways for so long it’s funny how you get to a point where you just don’t want anything but Jesus and don’t want anything to do with anything that He doesn’t have His hand all over.)

Even in the midst of healing, it’s still been a rough road. With my biological father passing in March, losing some of our foster babies very abruptly, and dealing with some scary stuff with a stalking issue that I’ve had for a few years now, I started to become blind to what the Lord was doing in my life. My eyes started focusing on the difficulties I was facing rather than keeping them on Jesus. And for anyone who has done that before you know that Jesus starts looking a whole lot smaller when we try to see His goodness through the lens of our struggles. I wasn’t able to see how far the Lord had brought me.. how much the Lord had healed me.. how much He’s taught me and was struggling to see any of the good He was doing. For a moment I started looking at my life and all I could see was more defeat and what felt like no victory. After everything the Lord and I have gone through together these last 23 years, for the first time I started to question His faithfulness and His goodness. I started to doubt His power and His love. I started asking questions like, “How can You be good when You’ve let all of this happen to me?” “How do I know you’re going to pull through if it only seems like theres ever defeat and absolutely no victory in my life?”

I’m thankful for a message at Shoreline City Church (the g.o.a.t) when Pastor Earl said this and I honestly started to tear up. He said,

“How beautiful is God’s grace. It’s because of HIS amazing grace that no eye can see and no nose can smell the stain and stench of your past and everything you’ve gone through. He picks us up out of the pit, dusts us off, and cleans us up SO much so that people think who you are now is who you’ve always been. We’ve been cleaned up and set free so much that no one can tell where you once were.”

I sat there today in awe for a moment.. of God.. and truly what He’s brought me through. In this time in my life where it feels like satan has handed me a beating after beating after beating.. I needed that. I needed to remember how hard things had been in different times in my life. I needed to remember how life once looked, how I once looked. I need to remember all the things the Lord did to get me to where I am today. I needed to recognize that the Lord has transformed me and my life into something my 6 year old, middle school, college self once thought wasn’t possible to become and statistically, shouldn’t have become.

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God’s timing is always funny, isn’t it? Recently, the Lord has started to open up some different opportunities to share my testimony, and every time their reaction is pretty much always:

WHAT? But you’re so NORMAL! You’re so happy! There’s no way you went through that. I would never have guessed you wouldn’t gone through any of that at all.”

Until today, I didn’t recognize how many times I’ve actually heard that over this last year and especially these last 2 months. I can’t even tell you how many people will DM me or reach out to me and they’d say they thought I was just another privileged girl who’s never been through anything and has the perfect life and tries to talk about Jesus and they could not believe my testimony and how happy and normal and ok I was. Until recently, I didn’t realize how awesome of a thing that was. I didn’t realize how much the Lord has done in me over the last 15 or so years. I didn’t recognize how many of my friends and family members have commented on the difference in me, my heart, my lifestyle, my joy. It was all there before but has been refined in ways that I couldn’t begin to describe.

For the first time, I fully recognized and understood just how much my past and pain and all of the heartache wasn’t defining me anymore. For the first time I feel like the Lord blessed me with the gift of opening my eyes to be able to see just how much He has wiped away. How He has cleansed the stains of my past, my guilt, my shame, my brokenness and my pain over the years. How much He’s freed me from chains that I had since I was a kid that I didn’t even know were there. I’m able to see how much He was molding me and strengthening me even in the midst of years that I considered to be hell on earth.

It’s so crazy to think about it now. Most people who meet me or come across my page would never know that as a child I went back and forth between my parent’s homes. Most would never know that my father was abusive and married a spouse who found pure joy and amusement in torturing us mentally and making multiple attempts on both my life and my sister’s life. No one would know they held guns to our heads as kids and locked us in our rooms without food for days at a time. No one would know that I battled depression and anxiety throughout middle/highschool. No one would be able to tell that the weight of life seemed so heavy that I couldn’t even get up in the morning and wanted to end my life at that age. No one would know that I struggled getting free from an abusive relationship that broke me down and stripped me of my identity so deeply while using the name of the Lord to do it and justify his actions. No one would know that the first time I had sex I was woken up in the middle of the night by the man I fully loved and thought I was going to marry who decided he didn’t care that I wanted to wait until marriage anymore and was going to have sex with me anyways. Most people wouldn’t know that I drank myself to sleep most nights for a year after this. No one would know that later on I was drugged and raped by one of my very good friends in college 2 years ago this past monday.

Am I completely healed and fine and nothing is ever going to bother me about these things anymore? No that’s not how life works. Honestly the anniversary of the rape last week was a hard memory to revisit.

But WOW. I can’t help but take a moment to look at God…

People see the paragraph above and are shocked in horror but all I can think is holy mama!! I’m ok! I’m healthy! And I say that with excitement because that was not always where I was. For a long time, I wore my stains on my sleeves and I hadn’t even noticed how sovereign God had been in the way that He refined me into a completely different woman today than I used to be. God is so good that He looks at our pit and says, “No longer are people going to look at you and see the stains of your past. I’m doing a work in you so that when people see you, they will see ME.”

Today I recognized that as I’ve been so focused on the bad - I haven’t been able to recognize just how great God’s goodness has been through it all. I was blind to the fact that He was in the trenches with me.. pulling down chains, breaking strongholds, cutting down lies and generational curses that I didn’t even know where there at the time and restoring my soul and my heart so that I could walk FREELY, the way He created all of us to walk.

He was setting it up so that when my story was told, there was no other explanation for my joy or my healing except for Him.

And boy, does He deserve all the credit! Hahaha because if it were up to me, I would’ve rolled over and given up a long time ago. But that’s not the end of our story, is it?

The Lord has greater plans for each of our lives than we could ever imagine or plan for ourselves. So today, I’m extra thankful for a Savior that washes us clean. That knows better than we do. A Savior that walks with us in the dirt and uses our pain to create something new within us. That uses what satan meant to destroy us to refine and build us up and to bring glory to His name.

He’s not done with me yet. And He’s not done with you either. And I’m excited to see what He has in mind for the future.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” -Jeremiah 29:11

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To my beautifully broken friends,

I sit here writing to you and just remembering it all and I can’t help but shed a couple tears. One reason being that although I’m not there anymore.. I remember it. I remember the pain.. how deep and overwhelming it all felt. I remember the moments that seemed like it was too much to handle. I remember the times I numbed myself and ran to things that I never would’ve imagined running to in my entire life. I remember becoming someone I never wanted to become. I remember when people knew me and saw me differently than they do now.

I know there are some of you reading this today who haven’t had the same revelation about the Lord and His goodness that I have. I know that some of you out there are struggling. Some of you are stuck. And some of you have been fighting for a really long time and you’re starting to get really tired.

Please.. please, hold on my friend.

I know that this fight seems long and seems hard.. I know that some of you are feeling like your pain is too much to bear… but one thing I can promise you is this: This is NOT where the story ends for you. This battle, this pain, this destruction, this trauma, this pit WILL NOT have the last word.

We are told that,

“Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:38-39

As Moses said to the Israelities, I will repeat to you again today,

“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” - Exodus 14:13-14

And a reminder of what the Lord says in Isaiah 41:10,

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Sometimes you go through some traumatic things and you get STUCK. You feel like you can’t move, like the pain is unbearable, like it’s never going to end but I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone!! And it’s not over for you. This is not going to last forever! The Lord has precious plans for you that He has been preparing you for in every step and stage of your life.

Hold on.

I know that some of you are so tired. Some of you are broken and shattered.. And I gotta tell ya, I know a thing or two about being broken and shattered, about being beaten down and overwhelmed to the point that you’ve got nothing left in you to fight…

…but more importantly, I also know a thing or two about Jesus.

In all that’s happened in my life He has always been there and He has never let me down.

He will fight for you.

He will hold you.

And He’s doing more in the midst of your situation and your pain right now than you could ever see or imagine.

Trust Him. Cling to Him right now. Call out to Him and tell Him what you need. He is desperate to hear your voice and to lift your head. Forget everything else right now and go find REST in His presence. Life is a lot and the weight of it all can be so heavy.. but Jesus is not. Instead of being overwhelmed by the rest of life right now, let Him overwhelm you and cover you with His peace. Let Him give you rest tonight. We all need it.

Don’t give up on Him… because He’s not going to give up on you.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

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A lot of you guys have been requesting some prayers at the end of my blogs so if you’d like, here is a prayer I’ve prayed many times in the deep:

“Dear Jesus. I’m a little lost right now. And honestly I’m a little broken. My heart aches and I’m not fully sure where to go. Thank you for giving me another day and for opening my heart back up to you. Lord right now I ask that you would forgive me of my sins and that you would wash me clean. I need you, Lord and I invite you into these trenches with me. I invite you to take this mess that I am and have Your way in me. I ask that you would be here and hold me tighter than you ever have before because I need you and I’m barely holding it together. I ask that you would strengthen me and provide me with the wisdom and guidance I need to get to where you’ve called me. And Lord I ask that you would just be here. I rebuke any distraction or fear or doubts in this moment and Lord I ask that your Holy Spirit would fill this room and that you would overwhelm me with Your mighty presence. Lord I want nothing but you. Meet me in this moment. Show me who You say I am and reveal to me the lies that I’m believing about myself. I need you to hold and protect my heart in this moment because I don’t know how to put the pieces back together.. but I know you do. I love you. In Jesus name I pray, amen.”

I love you guys so much.

- syd