It’s Not Them — It’s Us

Don’t let the next paragraph deter you from reading this. I wrote this for you, reader behind this screen. This isn’t sly propaganda for something else. It’s actually about you.

As I read profile after profile on Project Zero’s heart gallery of children waiting to be adopted from foster care, something profound stood out to my heart. And it’s not about the children — it’s about the rest of us.
99 times out of 100, the profile mentions the child(ren) will thrive in a “structured, loving, caring, understanding” home. Those quotation marks aren’t verbatim, but a summary of keywords that appeared again and again. And I thought, “Most of us don’t have homes like that to offer a child in need.”

But why?

We’re secretly addicted. To screens. To alcohol. To pornography. To food. To shopping.

We’re struggling. With depression. With past trauma. With grief. With our addictions. With co-dependency.

We’re in denial. That we have issues. That we’ve been hurt. That we’re lonely. That we’re insecure. That we’re struggling. That we’re addicted.

All the things listed above tear us down. Like a black hole, they suck us in and rip us apart. As long as we stay in them, we’ll get worse. Feel worse. Physically, mentally debilitating until we’re not ourselves anymore. Until we’ve literally become someone we despise.

People, our enemy will have us believe that we’ll always have these imperfections, that we’ll never be enough, that healing could never come to us, that the struggle will always be real.

But he’s wrong.

You can overcome.

You can become who you want to be, a version of yourself you’ve never dreamed could even be possible. Maybe you don’t yet believe it’s possible, but I do. And Jesus does, too.

I know, for many, this quarantine has been trying. Secret addictions thrive in the privacy of our own homes, and that’s where we’ve all been stuck for the better part of 8 weeks.

But now, as we’re headed back out into public spaces again, let’s take this opportunity to emerge as a creature in transformation. Let’s shed the first layer of our addictions, insecurities, trauma, prejudices, and let’s allow a little more of the light to penetrate the thick armor we’ve slowly layered upon ourselves.

If you’re ready but just not sure how to do that, I can recommend Celebrate Recovery. It’s where my transformation began and where my new emerging self was nurtured into completion, a person I honestly believed I’d never be. Bonus: It did the same for my husband. And, now, if you’ve got an image of someone in your head right now and you’re thinking, “I’ll drag them to Celebrate Recovery because they really need to change,” then it’s 100% guaranteed that you’re in as much need of change (or more) than they are.

And I didn’t write this as an ad for Celebrate Recovery — or even as propaganda for the 100,000 children waiting to be adopted from US foster care.

I wrote this because of you, reader sitting behind that screen. I love you, no matter who you are or what you’re struggling with or what secret you’ve spent years guarding. And I have a deep longing for this world to be healed, to be free from the chains of our enemy, and I know that begins with you.
So, please — don’t go another day trapped in the shell of who you don’t want to be. Today is the day you can begin to break free, your first step into becoming the person you’ve wanted to be for so long.