Experiencing the Fullness of God

In my last post, I shared about how I decided to follow God. I wrote about the hope that entered into my life and this wonderful connection between me and my Heavenly Father. I also shared that the abuse I was experiencing didn’t stop when I chose to follow God.

After that moment of choosing to follow Jesus, there was so much refinement and sanctification that had to take place. Not to mention, God is currently and always will be refining me and sanctifying me as I go through life.

Immediately after getting saved, I had a strong desire to read the Bible and learn more about Jesus, I was more engaged at church and Bible study, and I felt like I had purpose. Reading stories about God’s character and His people was very exciting. I felt like I started to understand how much more there was to being a Christian than just “being good” or going to church.

I remember wanting to honor God with my actions and choosing to be intentional about the things I said and thought. There was a lot of work going on under the surface, in my heart. God made me new.

While I did experience all of these changes, I feel that a huge portion of my spiritual growth was extremely stunted. Spiritual growth requires vulnerability, honesty, and accountability. Those were three things that I did not understand or completely avoided. I always thought I was an open book when I was younger, I was willing to talk to anyone about anything. Well, looking back now, I see that was definitely not the case.

I was willing to talk about anything, EXCEPT the abuse I was experiencing and anything that had to do with it. Almost all of the hard things I went through from the time I was age 4 to 17 pretty much had to do with being abused. This resulted in me putting forth only my best self, the parts of me that were happy and smiley and not struggling, leaving me with very shallow relationships. I ended up feeling misunderstood or alone even with my closest friends and family.

A huge part of being a Christian is the aspect of community. We meet up as the church to spur one another on towards Christ and worship Him together, to support and encourage one another, to grieve and to celebrate with each other, and to hold each other accountable for our actions. The church isn’t just meant to come together, listen to sermons, and maybe have a few surface level conversations and then disconnect. We are meant to truly share in each other’s lives and really love one another.

It was not completely the fault of the church I was in that I wasn’t in fellowship with other believers. Though churches and church leaders have to be intentional about the fellowship and community they are cultivating, it is still each individual churchgoer’s choice whether they will participate or not. I participated to the level that I thought I could, which was not a deep level.

My dad made me feel like I could never tell anyone about the abuse. He manipulated and scared me into thinking that everything would fall apart, and it would be all my fault if I said anything. Because I felt so much fear for what could happen if I was open and honest, I just wasn’t.

I felt like I could have my relationship with God and speak only to Him about the real things, and that was enough. But we aren’t meant to just share our lives and hearts with God. We are meant to bear one another’s burdens and help each other in every way possible as the church.

So, in not having vulnerability, honesty, and accountability with the church, I wasn’t experiencing the healing, freedom, and security in my identity in Christ that followers of Jesus have access to. As I have mentioned, I felt a lot of loneliness, I felt very misunderstood, and I was bound in a lot of darkness. For me, it was hard to understand how I could possibly still be in this predicament after choosing to follow God. I knew that He promised a life full of light, freedom, and healing, yet I felt like I was still in chains.

When I was 17, God led me to tell my family about the abuse that had been happening. I will make a more in-depth post about that story, but for now I will just say—I am confident that it was God who made the way for me to speak up, and He has been moving miraculously in my life ever since I did.

Soon after I told my family about the abuse, there were more and more people in my life who started to figure out. My family was respectful about who they told, and I told whomever I was comfortable telling. It was very strange going from absolutely no one knowing, to most of the people in my everyday life knowing. I got a HUGE wave of love and support from family members and friends, and it was completely overwhelming. I never knew how loved I was until that happened.

I had never in my life felt so visible and so seen as I did when the people I loved knew the pain I had been through. No one ever knew how hard my life was when I was younger, and it felt amazing that I could finally talk about it. My church family truly became family after that, and that changed my life, it certainly changed my spiritual life.

I began to experience real, deep friendships and relationships like never before. I started sharing the really hard things I was working through, I let myself breakdown in front of people, I was honest. I learned how to empathize with others in such a beautiful way. I decided I wanted to be vulnerable with others, I sought accountability. After doing all these things, the spiritual growth I had been craving skyrocketed.

Once I became more open about being abused, others started opening up to me about the abuse they had been through. I never realized how many people, especially women, have been through abuse, even sexual abuse, and how common it is within the church. God allowed me to support and encourage those women and they did the same for me. There was so much healing and chain breaking as a result of us choosing to open up about our lives.

I dealt with my own sin in a way I never had before. I finally began to see that I was also a big sinner, not just everyone else (imagine that…). God showed me so many heart issues that I had, and so many lies that I believed. I wanted to become holy and righteous, I didn’t want to fall into sin anymore.

I now feel 100% free from the shame I once felt, the worthlessness, the dirtiness, the ugliness—all of that is gone. Through putting my identity in Christ and in His love for me, God has shown me my value, my beauty, my worthiness, my purity—I am a daughter of the King. My value is no longer placed in what was done to me or what I have done, my value is in what Jesus did on the cross and who He is.

I have also experienced so much healing over the last few years from the abuse I went through and its effects. There was so much trauma involved, I was dealing with PTSD very strongly, and a lot of anxiety and depression. Though I still struggle with PTSD, anxiety, and depression, I have seen so much progress and healing in those areas. I know that I could be 100% healed from those things someday, I used to think that was impossible. I know that God is the ultimate healer, and I will be healed to the measure He allows on this earth, and I will be fully healed and whole in heaven.

God also used my relationship with my husband Dillon to help me grow exponentially. I met Dillon a month after I opened up to my family about the abuse, so he entered into my life when I first was learning how to talk about all of it. Dillon helped me learn vulnerability more than anyone in my life, and it was terrifying for me. He helped me learn how to trust again and he gives me faith in godly men.

There are so many things I could say, I could go on and on about how God has changed me and helped me to grow. I am so thankful for what He has done in my life, and I am so happy that I can sit here and write this all out to share with others. Five years ago, I never could have imagined sharing my story with anyone who chooses to read it, or even just one person for that matter.

God has shown me over the last four years what He can do with the most hopeless circumstances. God has allowed me to share my story with many people in my life, people at work, in church, on mission trips, and even strangers. I felt inspired by God to start this blog and even specifically to write this post. God will use your story if you let Him.

I would much rather use what I have been through to help others and allow God to make something beautiful from the ashes, than just act like it never happened or keep being angry about it. The truth is, it did happen, and I can’t do anything about that now. All I can do is choose to let it not be in vain. So here I am, telling you what God has done for me and what He can do for you!

If you are feeling stuck in your relationship with God or your spiritual growth is stunted, I would challenge you to ask these questions. Am I being vulnerable with other believers in my life? Am I being honest? And do I have spiritual accountability in my life?

If you aren’t sharing your hopes, dreams, struggles, and fears, if you’re holding in your feelings and emotions, or you are struggling with sin in secret—you will only be able to grow so much. Whatever that thing is that comes to mind, or whoever that person is that comes to mind—address it, share it, confess it, talk to that person, make a plan to change.

If you are an introvert or you just don’t especially like vulnerability and sharing life, I would encourage you to move past that discomfort or those preferences. If you are a Christian, you are called to be vulnerable and share life with other believers.

I would also like to say for anyone who has ever been in an abusive or traumatic situation, there is healing for you. I know it can seem impossible or just way too hard, but there is healing. It is a very difficult and long journey, but it is well worth it. Keep praying for it, keep seeking support, keep asking for help, keep pushing for it. The first step is sharing with someone what you have been through and getting out. You can’t experience true healing until you get out of that situation and into a safe place.

I really hope that my story can be encouraging to you, and I hope that you know that God can change lives with your story if you are willing to share it. Thanks for showing up,

-Elena ❤