Forgiven, Fearless and Free

Wholeness can be defined as an undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting.
For the first time in my life, I feel “whole”.
How did this happen? I remember vividly when I began my search for wholeness. It was in the summer of 1992. It was at that time that I began to question the foundations of my “religion”. Please understand, I am not saying that I questioned my faith or my God … I just began to question how my faith was being lived out in the real world.
I encountered true worship for the first time that summer. I began to hear about others who were experiencing God in a new, more intimate way. It was something I wanted – something I longed for – to experience God in a more personal and vital relationship. And so began my journey to wholeness …
As I became increasingly dissatisfied with my “religious routine” I also became disillusioned with the way that the church was dealing with hurting broken people. It seemed like church, as I knew it, was more like a social club than a hospital for sick people. I felt alone and isolated because of my “questioning”.
At the same time, I grew more and more miserable on the inside. Something was missing. Something had always been missing. I see now that I had been defining my worth by what I did.

When I was a child, I thought I’d be happy as long as I had a best friend. I wasn’t.
As I grew older, I thought I’d be happy as long as I had a best friend and a boyfriend. I wasn’t.
In high school, I just knew that I would be happy once I got my driver’s license and a job. I wasn’t.
At age 14, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. I was assured of my salvation and going to heaven. But to me, my relationship with God was based upon what I did (or didn’t do). There was still something missing.
At some time during my junior year in high school, I thought that if I could just graduate high school and get married … THEN I would be happy. I still wasn’t.
I graduated in November of my senior year and got married in December of that same year. As you have heard me say, I wasn’t pregnant … just stupid. I was happy … for a while. But that happiness didn’t last.
Shortly after we married, I lost 60 pounds – I was SURE that would make me happy! But it didn’t.
I got involved in ministry at the church. Still not happy.
Then … I thought if I could just have a baby – I would be happy. And happy I was! The birth of my children were two of the most happy events of my life. But that happiness didn’t last either.
I continued a vicious cycle of trying to earn approval from both people and God through what I did or did not do. My life was a constant striving to be better … to change … to finally be content with my life. But I wasn’t!
In 1997, after a period of illness and a serious bout with depression, I became convinced that the problem was ME. I thought I would finally be happy if I divorced my husband of almost 19 years. So I did … and I wasn’t.
At some point during the time I was going through my divorce, it is if I divided into two pieced. Just lovely – here I was, not a “whole” person to begin with … separating in to two different pieces. Now – I don’t mean that I had a split personality. What I mean is that it is like I was two different people – the person I was the first 36 years of my life (pre-divorce) and the person I became after my divorce. Neither person was whole.
Over the past 11 years, I have continued my quest for happiness .. for wholeness.
My quest included a second, brief marriage that ended in divorce; multiple relationships with men that I just knew were “the one” (including sexually relationships) … an endless search for love and acceptance.
Still not happy … still not whole.
I was bound by fear, guilt, and shame.
In 2004 I found myself at an all time low and found myself attending something called “Celebrate Recovery.” This was definitely a step in the right direction. Over the last 4 years I have been working through the 12 steps of Christian recovery to help me gain victory over depression, co-dependency, love & relationship addiction, food addiction, grief and guilt. I found out that one of my core problems is not that I needed a man to love me – but I needed to love myself!
It’s funny … a dear friend had told me that about 10 years earlier. But I didn’t think it was true!
And so … I discovered a lot about myself, formed some incredible close friendships with women in CR and found victory in the area of sexual purity.
But guess what? I was still miserable inside. I still continued to seek out love in all the wrong places.
Over the past 3 weeks I have been going through a program called “The Road Adventure”. This past Saturday, while attending Part 2, I experienced something that was life-changing. I finally became whole again. It was truly a miraculous moment that I cannot begin to explain here. All I can say is that, somehow, through God’s mercy and grace, the “old” Suzanne and the present Suzanne merged into one complete whole woman. I know who I am. I am learning to love myself. I look at myself in a whole different light when I look in the mirror. I ask God daily to help me see myself through His eyes.
I realize that all these years, I wasn’t seeking happiness after all. I was seeking WHOLENESS.
I am finally at peace with God and with myself. My past is in the past and it’s there to stay.
I am forgiven, fearless and free.

I trust that the people I want and need will come into my life.

I picked up a book that’s been sitting on my shelf for years the other day. I needed something to read while I was trying to fall asleep at night. I picked up “The Language of Letting Go”, a devotional book written by Melody Beattie – the author of “Co-Dependent No More & Beyond Codependency.”

The devotional for that day hit me square between the eyes and right in the heart!

Since then, I have been reading this devotional every morning and every night before I go to bed.

Last night, I prayed the prayer at the end for the 3^rd night in a row – but this time I read it out loud. By the time I got to the end I was crying. There is something about reading it out loud that is powerful!

I have decided to read this portion of the text out loud every day at least once – I say it in “1^st person”:

The more I overcome my need to be an excessive caretakers the less I will find myself attracted to people who will love and respect me and who I can safely love and respect.

Initiating Relationships

April 29

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

Often, we can learn much about ourselves from the people to whom we are attracted.

As we progress through recovery, we learn we can no longer for relationships solely on the basis of attraction. We learn to be patient, to allow ourselves to take into account important facts, and to process information about that person.

What we are striving for in recovery is a healthy attraction to people. We allow ourselves to be attracted to who people are, not to their potential or to what we hope they are.

The more we work through our family of origin issues, the less we will find ourselves needing to work through them with the people we’re attracted to. Finishing our business from the past helps us form new and healthier relationships.

The more we overcome our need to be excessive caretakers, the less we will find ourselves attracted to people who will love and respect us and who we can safely love and respect.

This is a slow process. We need to be patient with ourselves. The type of people we find ourselves attracted to does not change overnight. Being attracted to dysfunctional people can linger long and well into recovery. That does not mean we need to allow it to control us. The fact is, we will initiate and maintain relationships with people we need to be with until we learn what it is we need to learn – no matter how long we’ve been recovering.

No matter who we find ourselves relating to, and what we discover happening in the relationship, the issue is still about us, and not about the other person. That is the heart, the hope, and the power of recovery.

We can learn to take care of ourselves during the process of initiating and forming relationships. We can learn to go slowly. We can learn to pay attention. We can allow ourselves to make mistakes, even when we know better.

We can stop blaming our relationships on God, and begin to take responsibility for them. We can learn to enjoy the healthy relationship, and remove ourselves more quickly from the dysfunctional ones.

We can learn to look for what’s good for us, instead of what’s good for the other person.

God, help me pay attention to my behaviors during the process of initiating relationships. Help me take responsibility for myself and learn what I need to learn. I trust that the people I want and need will come into my life. I understand that if a relationship is not good for me, I have the right and ability to refuse to enter into it – even though the other person thinks it may be good for him or her. I am open to the lessons I need to learn about me in relationships, so I am prepared for the best possible relationships with people.