i don’t remember the time my sister got into my father’s chemicals that made her legs burn. i don’t remember falling into a door hinge and getting stitches. i don’t remember disney world, learning how to ride a bike, or if i ever saw my father hit my mother. 

the earliest years of my life never happened…not to me. it’s as if i were born at the age of 7, a 50 pound baby, entering in to a world more painful than my own mother’s childbirth. if i had known then what i was bound to experience, i’m sure i would have stubbornly positioned myself feet first, or clawed my way back up the birth canal to my mother’s womb. i don’t remember being in her womb, of course, but i know it was safe. i yearn for safe places. 

i do have one memory. i think i was five or six. our living room had a sliding glass door that looked out onto an extended carport, where i would often play with neighborhood friends. on this particular occasion, my father was there, gutting a fish he had recently caught. my father loved to hunt and fish. there was something about it that thrilled him. to this day i don’t understand killing for sport, but it was one of my father’s loves and loving did not seem to come easily for him. 

i wonder what my father thought when he saw me, his first born child, with her wide eyed face pressed up against the glass. i wonder how much love he had in his heart for me then and how that love compared to his love of fishing. 

i’m not sure what i was thinking in that moment or why i remember it. perhaps watching him carve in to that fish at such a young age was a traumatic thing for me. or maybe everything in my life points to that shared moment between my father and i — a relationship obstructed by a single plate of glass, close, but far away. whatever the reason is, it seems appropriate that my earliest memory is of him.

as i become an adult, i try to shed the memories left. still hardly a day goes by when i do not think of him or i do not struggle or learn or feel things because of him. 

the beauty of my memory is the way God has used and is using and will use those things for good. to make new memories full of tenderness and tenacity and healing and love. there is no other God in any other religion who will so lavishly and freely promise such beautiful things. 

so on nights like tonight i remember those promises and pray to trust He will complete His good work in me. 

words from the (less) unlovable. 

dear friend,

this time last year i was man-hating.
you probably know what i mean because if you’ve ever been a girl or known a girl then chances are you’ve encountered reasons to talk bad about the male sex. maybe it was one guy. maybe it was several guys. maybe it was cheating or lying or abusing or name calling or belittling or being selfish. whatever it was, he(they) did it, and consequently you were forced to play and replay a host of kelly clarkson and taylor swift songs to remind you you’re not alone. 

in some severe cases of man-hating, it may be that you have to give it up for lent…a feat, i’m sorry to say, that was easier determined for me than accomplished. 
one thing i learned from the pathetic 2 weeks i managed to give up is that all the anger toward men was a front for how i felt inside. i didn’t know why, but i really loved men. and i wanted them to love me, too. 

the thing is that none of them ever had. they’d said it or tried to act like it, but in the end i proved to be far from anything like that. and by the time i turned 22, i’d pretty much decided none of them ever really would care for me. 
and maybe it wasn’t even their fault. maybe, i thought, i’m just unlovable. 

in Mark there’s a story about Jesus and a leper. the leper is an outcast of society. he cannot come near anyone or be approached without, as mandated by law, yelling “unclean!” the leper is not only sick, but he is alone. 
unlovable.
but Jesus. He comes along and chooses to heal the leper, not by saying “be healed!” or thinking it in His head, but by touching the man. by being close to the leper. this is powerful, because we see that Jesus is not only healing the man physically, but healing his heart, letting him know that Jesus is not afraid to be near him and that he is worthy of love. the unlovable is loved. 

i felt like the leper on friday night. i spoke to my boyfriend for the first time about much of the shame i had and things that had happened that made me lesser than him. i cried because it hurt to be vulnerable and i was angry that i had to tell him things that would make me less beautiful or desirable to him. i feared making things awkward, losing his respect, or making him see me in another way. but something told me to take the chance, to answer his questions, and to be honest to him about the things that break my heart. 

my boyfriend responded, “you are so beautiful…susanna, i love you. you don’t have to say it back, but i’ve been wanting to say it for awhile. and while you were talking i wanted you to know it even more.”

even more! everything i said made him want to say he loved me even more.

amazingly, i believed him. and i realized i loved him too. 

i’m not sure if he knows the impact he made on me when he said those words. i’m not sure if he knows it all was so much bigger than me and him. but in that moment i felt not only loved by him, but God. i knew this was just a small glimmer of the way God sees me. it seemed that God had sent me cole…spoken through him…wanted the man-hating, self-loathing part of me to listen and understand what i’ve been told over and over again. 

it’s sad to me that it took so many wrong guys to discover a good one. and it’s sad to me that it took so long to really see that i reflect the image of God. but if i can find it in my heart to believe my boyfriend and trust him, how much more so should i with the One who created me and has been here, loving me, always? 

this is my biggest wish for you as well. that you would know how loved you are, no matter what you have done or what has been done to you or what you’ve thought or felt or believed. i pray that God’s heart overwhelms your own. i promise, you will never be the same.

healing comes through different vehicles, but the source is always the same. 

love (and being loved), 

susanna

i’m still not over you. i love you, like I did the first time I said it. i love you like when i lost you. i love you all over again and haven’t stopped loving you. but what do words mean? how can words take away what was done? how can words mend a heart?

for months i felt i have been alone. i thought you didn’t care about how i was doing. i thought you didn’t really mean it when you said you would protect me. the days have passed, empty, meaningless without you. i haven’t gotten a solid night’s sleep since. you’re everything to me and you never left me. i know that now. i’m not the same person. whether i’m better or different, i can’t decide, but i’ve realized my faults. it takes me a long time to trust people because of the way i’ve been treated, but i know now that you are not just anybody. if anything, you gave me a new outlook and shaped my character. i admire you more than you know. you are everything i wish i could be - strong, moral, stable.

it’s so hard for me right now. but here you are, teaching me. you show me how to achieve my dream and fulfill my purpose. you grabbed hold of me, and look what happened. my joyous moments are all owed to you. i’m eternally grateful for you.

it’s hard to know where to go from here. you’ve graced me with your presence, and i like to grace you with my foolishness. so much has changed. so much innocence lost. nothing feels the same anymore and it seems an eternity has passed, but really it’s only been a few months. it seems like looking years into my past when i think of how in love i was.

quotes and books that reminded me of you were shelved away in shame, gathering dust. i recently turned them back up. your words were resting in one of my notebooks, and just now i stuffed it in my purse. i said i’d tried to recognize you, but everything was hazy. i’ve missed you.

instead of pushing you out with the pain, i’ve decided to use you to help me rise above it. i can only find outlet and expression through the things i love. and you, dear friend, surpass it all.

i love you. i see it all so clearly when I take a look in to my heart and feel your comfort radiate from it. it all makes sense with the tiny, timid, half smirks we let each other steal.

it all comes back to me with the familiarity of these feelings. i know it’s not based on feelings. how did I get so lost? i want to be with you forever.

i love you Jesus.