Imagine yourself free. Completely free of all hang-ups, vices, addictions, worries, voids, and messes...What exactly does that look like in your life? If you no longer struggled with any category of things that dragged you down, where would you find yourself?
This is what I'm pondering today.
The first time I was addressed with this type of question was several years ago when I was reading through Dirty Girl's Come Clean, written by my friend & colleague, Crystal Renaud. In the 2nd chapter of her book, she has you create a timeline of your addiction, cataloguing your first exposure to sexuality and progressing from there. Following the creation of that timeline she asks you to consider where you want to go from there.
For me, these two tasks were hard enough... then she hits you with this question: "How does it make you feel when you think of what it would be like to be free from your pornography addiction?"
At that time in my recovery, it was an incredibly difficult question to consider. I couldn't even imagine what freedom for a few months would feel like, let alone being eternally free. Nonetheless, the question forced me to consider what freedom would look like as it pertained to my life and my recovery.
Over the years, as my recovery journey ebbed & flowed, I would constantly find myself coming back to that question. Now it includes additional categories, not just freedom from pornography, but from other junk as well. Sometimes it grows increasingly frustrating to see how slowly progress is being made. Other times I look back to 3, 4 years ago and am humbled by how far God has brought me.
As I pondered healing and wholeness as it applies to my life TODAY, I was hit with something pretty significant. As I was envisioning complete recovery & freedom, I was covered with the strongest sense of hope I think I've ever experienced. Normally when I think about healing, it is often saddled with shame & guilt surrounding my past & current behaviors. Today that was not so. There was no shame, no guilt, no fear.
It seems that the concept & the act of extending grace to myself has finally sunk in.
HALLELUJAH.
This has been one of the biggest challenges in my recovery journey. For some reason I can easily offer grace, acceptance, and love to others even if they wrong me. But when it came to doing the same for myself I'd constantly hit a road block. As I mentioned yesterday, 2012 was a huge year for awareness & God made it abundantly clear that He was not going to give up until I learned how to cover my own self, all of me in grace & love.
Today, I got there. I prayerfully envisioned freedom from all the junk that's been weighing me down & instead of dwelling on the past or wallowing in self pity at the extent of my undesirable qualities, I felt hopeful.
Hopeful that further breakthroughs are coming, that this vision of release for 2013 is already in motion and hopeful that God will continue to use my story for His glory as I seek freedom & complete healing in Him.
