No Longer Forsaken

The last few days the Lord has beautifully taken my heart towards rebuilding my trust in Him.

Many people have let me down in my past. I will do a timeline blog post about my bullying journey over a 20 year span.

I had many people in my life neglect to stand up for me when they should have. Adults who were strong enough to do something stood by and watched the abuse.

When I share my testimony with adults today, particularily mothers are baffled as to where the adults were when I was being relentlessly harrassed and why they did not step in and defend me.

I have struggled with this question myself.
It has left me feeling abandoned and not worth standing up for.
Was I just too annoying?
Did I winge or cry too loudly?
Why was it so funny to watch older teenage boys pick on a young girl who was screaming out in pain?

These are the painful questions the committee inside my head has asked subconsciously as far back as I can remember.

I sadly concluded I was nothing but a big fat joke. A strange skinny kid with red hair and a loud cry.

I have had these adults or kids older than myself who have now grown up still joke about me being bullied and the reactions I made.
The last time I was made fun of for being bullied was sadly on the day of my mothers funeral.

Yet God in his great tender love has reached out to my questioning heart and whispered his tender words of hope that only He can.

He reminds me of this healing truth:
You are worth more to me than the way they treated you
I never meant that for you

 God spoke these words to my heart when He revealed to me that I was bullied for 20 years. It was just 4 years ago, when I was 34.

I have heard it is common for someone who was abused at a very young age to discover they were bullied to truly accept it in later adulthood.

I was in a cloud of denial for a very long time.
Yet I am thankful for that denial. I honestly believe God used it to protect my heart until I was ready to heal. I needed to band aid to cover my very deep wounds until I was able to accept this painful reality without falling apart.

I know God opened my heart up to the reality of my past at a time when my heart was able to handle it.

My bullying journey began when I was just 2 years old. Many of my earliest memories were of me being physically and emotionally bullied by my older brother and his teenage friends.

So the above words are what I hold dearly too. These are my words of life. Straight from my precious heavenly Father who will never leave me.

The last few days the Lord has guided my heart back to his word on how he will never leave me or forsake me.

The below verses have been my anchor verses as I venture out to make new friends at my kids school.

Hebrews 13:5b - 6
For He has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you"
so we can confidently say,
The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear;
what can man do to me?

Psalm 27:10
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.

Isaiah 62:3-4a,b & 5b & 12
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no longer be termed forsaken,
and your land shall no longer be termed Desolate,
...for the Lord delights in you
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride
so shall your God rejoice over you
And they shall be called the Holy People,
The redeemed of the Lord;
and you shall be called Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken

Wow those verses are so incredibly refreshing to my soul. I feel like as I ponder on each verse and allow these powerful words to go deep into the broken places of my once abandoned heart.

So these verses gave me some courage this week. I decided to take a possible rejection risk and ask both of my kids classes on an excursion for their schools enrichment day.

I will not fear what man can do to me right?!?...all they can do is say no.

I invited both classes to the Manassas battlefield for a picnic and a hike/bike ride
You know what...a few families said yes!! Ahhh Praise God!!

I was nervous of rejection but praise God I got acceptance and planned fellowship in return.

So go on step out and put these verses to the test. Ask somebody to hang out..in person that is.

You are cooler than you think you. That's what God thinks and His thoughts are all that matter!