"Volcanoes melt me down."

A year and a half ago, I started down a path that would lead me back to my heart. For so long, I’d been denying my feminine soul. I exchanged relationships for workaholism. I exchanged desire for the status quo. Although I stuffed my craving for human connection beneath busyness and efficiency, that exquisite, aching loneliness of a heart “unworthy” hounded my being as I fought for sleep each night.

And so the summer of 2004 found me awakened to the possibility of who I could be. My dreams were validated, my hope was restored. The prospect of Romance lured me with purpose. For the first time, I saw myself as a woman uniquely bearing the image of God. It was then that I dared to hope.

Looking back, I see how naïve I truly was. I didn’t really understand that by awakening my heart, I had opened myself to suffering, violence, shame, intimidation. In waking up, I had to wade through a dark and tragic past I would have rather forgotten. But only after recognizing this past could I find my redemption.

Tonight, Dan Allender extolled us to let our lives “be about death AND the resurrection.” God uses the Curse to break us and to draw us back to him. You have to die before you can be brought back to life.

Everyday is a battle, but too often I misidentify the enemy. I think of the wounds I have received over the years: The father who abandoned me, the lovers who forgot me, the companions who betrayed me. Perhaps none of their actions were intentionally malevolent, but the implicit message declares that I am not worth anyone’s time, effort, toil. I am too much of a hassle, a mess, a burden.

I have often found myself sitting with my girlfriends, our arms crossed tightly over our chests, bemoaning the atrocities men have wrought on our lives. We blame them for our eating disorders, our self-esteem issues, our faulty perceptions. And Satan has us right where he wants us.

I’m becoming increasingly aware that the true Enemy of my soul is not my father, or my ex-boyfriends, or that crazy old woman who said I was a demon when I was in eighth grade. The wounds in my life were orchestrated and designed to break me and drive me back to God, but too often Satan gets ahold of them and rids me of hope. He makes me feel stained and dark so that I won’t give or receive love. But Allender said, “Evil will not win if you have the courage to name what is true.”

So I will do just that. I will get angry that evil has accomplished so much in my life. I will heed the Curse and not be afraid to let my desperation lead me back to the only Being who can ever satisfy my relational desires. I will not stop telling my story, my Truth, because I know it is the Truth of so many others. Keep reading. The battle has just begun.