Redemption

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I’m not sure why. But, it is a story of God’s redemption in my life.

When I was 14, my aunt fought and died of ovarian cancer. 

This kind of set a lot of emotions off inside of me.

I became numb to a lot of things going on around me... I was miserable. 

It will be two years in January since the last time I cut myself. 

It has been over five years since I made a conscious decision to stop cutting myself. 

Through the years, my mind would still connect my emotions to cutting. I would cut myself inconsistently hoping it would relieve my pain. Thinking that somehow when I was a young teenager that it helped and that it could help again. It never did, I would instantly be in remorse over my decision. 

I have been throughly redeemed over the past two years. I have not had any desire to cut myself. I stopped in 2005, and the summer before I went back into public school God interceded in my life by using a music ministry that I became involved with. That summer I gave up some of my control over to God. I remember how hard it was; not only giving to God this idea of control, but healing... God used that summer to make sure that I knew He forgave me, but it took much longer to forgive myself. 

An analogy that I like to use is that God gave His son, Jesus, to die and suffer and bleed on a cross for me... so that I wouldn’t have to. So that I wouldn’t cut myself. 

I eventually forgave myself. Cutting myself no longer controls me. I have been freed from that kind of thinking.

I still struggle with depression. I still struggle with giving God my trust and my control. But I do not let these things conquer me. My Savior is so much bigger than these things.