From a very young age I was part of a broken family. I knew I didn't live with my natural father, unlike my friends, and felt ashamed of this. As I grew up only my closest friends knew. I would often withdraw from people because I felt more secure alone.
I also struggled with my Mum being ill very often. It would annoy me that she would be unable to care for me and my siblings. In her 50's she became terminally ill. I felt like I had lost her altogether. Whilst doing Celebrate Recov-ery I realised that I had been angry and resentful toward God for allowing all this to happen to my Mum and I felt let down by my Mum.
Despite the struggles and growing resentment toward God, I have always been dependant on Him and have trusted Him. I have always seen Him as a Father—a lot of the time, I have seen Him as my only Father. He never let me down and never left me.
I always had a few close friends rather than a lot of friends, and tried to be loyal to them too. It was difficult to ac-cept if ever I was let down by them. I would also withdraw from anyone if faced with confrontations. Having a dis-agreement with some friends left me at a very low point. I believed the thoughts that I'm not understood and not liked, so why bother. I wanted to back off and not communicate with anyone anymore.
So when I began CR I had a number of struggles. Some of them I have overcome through God releasing me from them; others I am learning to overcome and not fall back into. I had many hurts from childhood which resulted in resentment, lack of confidence, dislike of myself, a fear of people and damaged relationships.
Before recovery, I allowed all these struggles to take control and so was held back from being the person who God had made me to be. This caused me to worry about what others thought of me and I believed the lies that I was hearing in my thoughts. Instead of being confident in myself, I relied on the confidence of others. It was easier for me to withdraw from any situation that I did not feel comfortable in especially if it was confrontational. I felt very closed up inside, didn't know how to be, felt so different to everyone else and so didn't think I fitted in.
God’s grace has been amazing. He has been gentle with me and highlighted different struggles as the course pro-gressed, but never forced me to face anything before I was ready to.
The things covered on CR were not new to me. I had heard about them all before at some point, but now I saw them all from a different angle. The more I saw things in my own life, the more I fully understood things and began to see myself more clearly.
God had told me, through others, that there was a beauty in me that He had put there. As I couldn't see it, I didn't believe it! Eventually I just had to trust God that it must be true, especially as God doesn't lie! A change in my atti-tude toward myself began to unlock the good and the skills that God had put in me.
I found a lot of release came when I dealt with the resentment I had been holding against God. I became over-whelmed that God loved me so much even though I had been blaming him for allowing my Mum to be so ill and for taking my Mum from me. I was amazed at how different I felt by letting God release me from these feelings and al-lowing me to experience the freedom that was so freely available to me.
I have made new relationships both with people on the course and outside of it. Previous relationships that were hurting are beginning to heal again. My confidence is still growing, but I'm accepting that people really do like me for who I am and not just because that's the nice thing to do.
Now I am far more relaxed with my children instead of getting irritated easily and stressed with them. My husband has been very patient with me and has given me a lot of support and encouragement. I know he could see a lot of good in me and the beauty that I couldn't see.
I am so grateful to God for showing me where I needed to change, where I needed healing and where I needed to say sorry and also forgive. My faith in God has been strengthened.
I have found the freedom that has always been there for me to enjoy, but have felt too bound up in my struggles to enjoy it. There are other things that I need to face, but I know that I can overcome them as I keep trusting God to help me and keep things in the right perspective. As my confidence has increased, I have found myself in situations that I wouldn't usually be in without support from others.
The Lord doesn't want us to be bound up. He died and came back to life so that we might be free!