Hiding

I started counseling about a month ago and since then I have, at times, been hiding from both myself and God. I know I can't hide from God but I sure can get busy and fill my time up and go from surfing the net to watching the Olympics to listening to the radio, and on and on. I have been afraid to look at my past and the pain. I had been trying to write out the pain through poetry, but the pain is just always under the surface. So, I decided to go to a Christian counselor and I have gone 2 times so far and I go again this Monday, August 23rd. When I went almost 2 weeks ago I was really shaken up and I cried. Now I know that is the sort of thing one does with a counselor, but I was caught off guard. I end up leaving that time with a lot to think about. There are a number of things that I want to resolve but I didn't really know I had self-worth issues to deal with. That seems like such a cliche.

To back up a little, on my first visit I told her about my broken childhood stories and gave a bunch of my pain poems for her to read. She brought up one of them, "For The Children", which I talk about my parents divorce. She read part of it back to me, which was a little weird, but anyway here's what she read:

"You think the pain is gone, then suddenly the scab
is ripped off your wounded heart—again. . . . . .
The pain has shaped your whole life.
It's like you are wearing rose colored glasses
but these are more like gangrene covered glasses
thatyou can't throw away.
You try to shake it, you try to find healing and solace
and at times, you do.
But you know that damage has been done
and at any time or place there might be a reminder
that you are collateral damage
of a marriage tossed away:
a radio commercial for a quick and easy divorce,
Hollywood couples changing marriage partners
as if just changing into a new outfit,
a Blended Families Bible Study at church,
someone you know who has thrown in the towel—“It’s just too hard,
we've grown in different directions and don't love each other,
anymore.
All of these things, like little daggers, prick and poke you,
reminding you of what was taken from you."

My counselor focused on the part about the gangrene glasses and how in this poem, and and others, I really saw myself as wounded and that she said that this is true, I can't change this. But also at the same time, I was a fully devloped personality when I was 8 years old and that now there are great things about me and that I am so valuable to God. I was hearing her, but she must have seen that I was not getting it because she repeated it a couple different ways until there was a bit of understanding in my eyes. Next she did something that really struck me hard:
She took one had and she said that hand represented me as a child who was wounded. Then she took her other hand and said that that hand represented God valuing me as a person who I am today. Then my counselor put one hand on top of the other and said they are both equally true. That simple illustration made me cry, a lot. While crying I said that I felt robbed of my childhood, uncared for, unloved.

I sat in my car afterwards and jotted down a bunch of notes on an evelope and the image of putting both hands on top of one antother kept coming back to me. Since my counseling on August 9th I have been a little numb and scared. I don't know what I expected, but I was surprised at the emotion that came up. I have been trying to hide from myself and God. But I can't hide from God. A couple days later I read in Psalm 139:7-12, the following, which I have read many times and I have know them intellectually, but not emotionally:

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you."

I could go on a lot longer but will close off for now with a verse that I am going to be clinging onto for a while:
Psalm 34:18
The LORD is close to the
brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in
spirit.