Pain Doesn’t Have To Be In Vain

 

What is done is done. We can’t change what’s happened to us, and we can’t forget whats happened to us. There is no denying the things that have happened in our lives impact who we are and how we move forward. There can come a point in our lives when we decide that we will not be defined by those wounds, when we won’t be trapped by them, and we most definitely won’t repeat those offenses on those in our sphere of influence.

Some of our greatest wounds can become a spring board for growth, and our impact that we have in the world. This will not just intrinsically happen in our lives- if it is going to happen, we have to fight for it and work through our crap to turn it into something beautiful.

I grew up in foster care. To the best of my recollection, I was in between 30-40 different foster homes over the course of my adolescence. My birth mother was an addict, alcholic, prostitute, and a multitude of other things. For a long time I did what I could to hide this part of my story. I didn’t talk about it with my closest friends and even did what I could to leave it out of conversations with my husband.

As I was growing in my ministry, and after writing Love To A Whore’s Daughter, I felt more and more complelled by The Holy Spirit to share this truth; and if I’m being honest, the weight of keeping it a secret just got too heavy. When I decided to come clean about my truth in being a Foster Care Alumni, my whole world changed. It was then that I was able to be a part of something called Brave Global, which is an empowerment program for girls in foster care.

I helped give this movement wings, and increase it’s territory within The Salvation Army and beyond. I wrote the first guided journal that has been used across the world to help girls in vulnerable situations like foster care, youth probation, and girls experiencing homelessness. The journal that I created has been in the hands of thousands of girls, who were like me when I was their age. Sometimes, I stop and wonder how my life and the trajectory of ministry would look if I just kept the secret of my foster care experience. I may have felt safer, or that less people knew of that part of my story when I walked in the room, but what a loss for the Kingdom that would have been.

I think that God wants us to be partners in freedom. He wants us to be honest about the wounds of our past, heal from them, rise above them, and then go even further to make sure our pain will not be in vain. That our pain can still be used for His glory and to make this world a brighter place.

Call me an idealist, but I think we really can do that. I think by sharing our stories after doing the hard work of healing, that we can transform our homes, our families, our communities, and even our world. I hope that in my broad strokes of this dosen’t make it seem insurmountable. The small incremental changes can do a lot of great things.

One of my earliest memories of my mother going out of her way to be hurtful was when I was around six years old. We never had a car so we took public transport or walked everywhere. We lived in southern California where the sunsets can be filled with vibrant pinks and orange. We were walking who knows where, and I looked up and was in awe of the beautiful sunset. I remember there being so many different shades of pink, from pink so light it was almost white to brilliant bright fusha- my favorite color then, and still my favorite color now.

I pulled on her jacket, pointed to the sky and said “Wow mommy, look how beautiful the sky is. It’s like a painting from God”

She looked up and saw the scene before us and said to me, “Yes, that is really beautiful. Did you know that when the sky is pink it means the angles are making cookies?”

I remember being filled with joy and the feelings of a connection to our creator. I thought, wow- how cool is it that God would paint such a beautiful picture for us in the sky AND his angles are baking cookies at the same time? I felt seen and loved.

Then my mom said, “But I hope you don’t expect to get any of the angles cookies, because you are too bad. You don’t listen. They are only for good girls, and you are too mischevious to ever get any of the angles cookies.”

I was crushed. I felt verbally beat up by my mom again, and I thought that there was no hope for me. Me and God could never really have a relationship if I was so bad. Those thoughts- even though they were formed in my six year old mind stuck with me for years. When I saw a beautiful sunset, that memory was usually the first thing to pop into my mind. In a way, it haunted me.

I had children and I did what I could to work through my mommy issues and parent the best I could, but so often I felt like I had more failures than successes. I had no idea how to be a mother, and really, I felt like often I didn’t even know how to be kind.

My son was about 3 and we were on a walk. The sky was lit up in a sunset full of more colors than I could count. He pointed to the sky and mentioned how beautiful it was. Without even really thinking it through I said, “Did you know that when the sky is colorful like that it means the angles are making cookies?”

I said it even before the memory was a conscious thought. Once I said it, it all flooded back. I held back my tears as I looked at my boy and saw the joy on his face. The same joy I remember feeling when I was first told those same words before they became poisioned. I saw his joy and I said to him, “I can’t wait until we can eat those cookies together. I bet they will be the best cookies we’ve ever had. And Little Ant, you are so loved- I know you will get so many of those angels cookies”

We laughed and talked for the rest of our walk about what kinds of cookies they would be, and if we would get to help the angels bake them, and if there might be other desserts too… As the years pass, and we had another child, it has become a family tradition to talk about the various baked goods we thought the angles are making based on what the sky looks like. We laugh and make up stories to go with it all.

I can’t undo the ugly words my mom said to me that were designed to hurt and shut me up. I can’t take them back, I can’t change them into something else, I can’t forget them; but I can take them, and use them for good. I can take the pain and not let it be in vain. I can use the hurt and make it a spring board into healing and joy and peace.

Now, through making that conscious effort- when I look at a beautiful sunset I think, I can’t wait to get at those cookies. I smile, and I just keep walking.