Self Love, Self Portrait

Where I once was blinded by my insecurity and doubt, God renewed my sight to teach me how to love.

I thought forgiving others was the most difficult thing I would have to learn, but it has always been easier to accept someone else’s imperfections than to accept my own. I used to act as ticket collector of all my flaws, letting them pile up and making myself pay for them without fixing them. Then, I would look at the shortcomings of my heart and project them onto my body. But God made us all intentionally and perfectly. 

Ephesians 2:10 

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ to do Good works.

Psalm 139:14 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Song of Songs 4:7

You are all together beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

He has made everything beautiful in His time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Proverbs 3:15-18

She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and those who hold her fast will be blessed.

Proverbs 31:25

She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. 

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates His love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Proverbs 31:26

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. 

1 Corinthians 15:10

By the grace of God, I am what I am.

1 Peter 3:3-4

It is not fancy hair, gold jewelry, or fine clothes that should make you beautiful. No, your beauty should come from inside you –the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. That beauty will never disappear and it is worth very much to God.

Psalm 93:4

Mightier than the waves of the sea is His love for you.

Praises

The Lord is stirring so deeply within me. I have been ignorant to His blessings and straying from a relationship with Him. I learned that He is constantly pursuing me and longing for a relationship with me, even when I reject His love. There is nothing I can do to push the Father away. Only because of His unconditional love for me am I capable of showing compassion. 

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Our greatest strengths come from God: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) My ability to exude these qualities has been tried time and time again. The Lord tests us, giving us opportunities to grow in faith and enrich our spirit. 

I am grateful for my trials. It has taken years of confusion and loss for me to understand, but when I give in to His grace, I am filled with joy and peace. The last time I wrote, I was conflicted and feeling convicted because my human default is to be still in my sadness. I isolate myself from the goodness I know and surround myself with my own negativity. I know the truth. God has gifted me with a heart that knows what I’m doing is wrong and challenges me to change. 

Ignoring his mercy does not succeed in lessening it. God is a sovereign, Holy Father that cares for his sons and daughters and wants what is best for us, which is knowing a love beyond compare and a forgiveness beyond reason. 

He designed me with hands that feel lighter when they are raised in worship. My lips are dry without singing His praises. I am blessed to have a sinful body that is still used to glorify His name. And He is jealous for me. I am overflowing with sweetness poured into me that I, with reverence to Christ, am meant to share with others. 

Thank God. 

Anna

Sloppy Candor

I just spent an hour and a half writing a completely different blog post because I didn’t feel like I had anything positive to say. I struggled through paragraphs trying to find my typical “everything is great now!” tone. It’s not great; I’m not great. But it could be worse.

One night my freshman year, I came to my mom in a hysterical state. I had been self harming, and I knew I wanted to die. I wanted to, but I didn’t want to feel that way, and I knew it wasn’t normal. I told her I was scared and didn’t want to do hate myself anymore. She stayed with me all night, and the next morning she said she thought I should be hospitalized. I pleaded with her until we went to visit my behaviorist, who calmed her down and suggested she keep me with her instead. 

My freshman year, I missed three days of school because I was on suicide watch. 

I was caught cutting myself for the first time in seventh grade. At the time, I did everything I could to hide. I wore basic, large t-shirts to cover my body every day, sat in the back of the classroom whenever possible, was quiet. Around the friends I did have, I put on the innocent, happy-go-lucky persona of a girl who was pretty dumb and extra smiley. It was very much an intentional contrast to the dark feelings I was hiding. 

People bought it for the most part. My social anxiety was labeled respectable shyness. I milked my depression to make my lack of motivation seem like a lack of knowledge. Eventually, I got annoyed with myself, but it took a grand shift to actually make a change in my life. 

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for too long. I let myself get lost in who I thought he wanted me to be and became dependent on him. It got to the point where I couldn’t go to school if he wasn’t there. I had completely isolated myself to give him all of my attention. When we broke it off, rumors were spread about me, and I had to build entirely new friendships. Understandably, he was more likeable, and I wasn’t about to tell people what had really happened in our relationship. I didn’t, and still don’t, see it as anyone’s business but mine and his. The point in me talking about it isn’t to slander his name but to help other people who see themselves in a similar situation that appears endless. 

Whenever I feel incredibly hopeless, I look back at pictures of myself from that time. I was a totally different, sunken, defeated person. 

I was telling someone recently that I used to like this picture because I thought it made me look skinnier. Remembering my old thought processes breaks my heart. 

I’m not entirely happy now. I still suffer, and I get caught up in old things that truly don’t matter, but I am able to talk myself down. I know the world isn’t out to get me, and I know I’m going to be okay. I have to stop expecting things to get better and accept where I am mentally and physically and make the most of it when I am able. 

Thank you, friends, for being encouraging and kind while I am learning. 

Anna

Suck it, Anxiety

It’s been a moment since I’ve felt confident enough to bare my soul. A month, to be exact. For the sake of being completely honest, I’ll admit that I have been overwhelmed by self doubt and insecurity. 

The Lord did not burden my heart with the need to expose myself so that I could stop when I felt uncomfortable. This entire process is uncomfortable; I’m uncomfortable. He prevails. 

I am choosing to focus on not what I am capable of, but what He is capable of doing through me when I trust in Him. 

I write now because I am exhilarated, and I am exhilarated because I went on a run this week. It’s not special. A little over a mile in a mostly exposed, but at some points wooded and isolated area. It is special to me because I haven’t been brave enough to run alone in years. 

Whenever I attempt to go out, I’m overcome by anxiety. I am sure that the man running opposite me is going to wait around the corner to do something. Anything. Images of rape, assault, murder go through my mind. So I turn around, make my way home, maybe tomorrow, maybe never, no. 

But yesterday, thoughts flooded, and I persevered. 

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

I’m running, and I focus on my feet. I count my steps. I time my breathing. I take my earbuds in and out and back in and back out according to when I feel more or less vulnerable. 

Having anxiety can make simple tasks feel impossible, and it doesn’t really get easier. You can bet I will be just as terrified the next time I go out. But I will continue. It’s like when you lose somebody you love. There is no remedy for that. You just keep existing and keep existing until it hurts less. You pray for peace, and God gives it to you, but it takes time. 

A year ago, I didn’t know at least half of the people that I know now. And I had the opportunity. A year ago, I never could have written a blog. I especially couldn’t have publicly talked about my personal experience with sexual assault. My own father didn’t know then. A year ago, I was still throwing up before nearly every Sunday morning worship set, I couldn’t stand to be touched, and I made no effort to talk to people outside of my (small) friend group. 

Growth took pursuit. It took God putting lots of really amazing people in my life to show me healthy, unconditional love. I am reminded of all of those people and their kindess towards me every time I reach out to someone or give a compliment. It is because of your generosity and love that I am who I am today. Everyone who has taken the time to read this, everyone who has been so supportive of my raw confessions, thank you. 

In love and compassion,

Anna

Why Porn Kills Love

My first experience with pornography was when I discovered it on my (ex-)boyfriend’s phone. 

I thought, “Why am I not enough for him?”

I thought, “Can I do what this girl is doing?”

I thought, “Does this count as cheating? Am I even allowed to be mad?” 

With my entire body, I yearn to go back and tell myself that I am enough, have always been enough, will forever be more than enough. I allowed myself as a daughter of Christ to sink down to a level of comparison that I would refer to more than once. I was with a boy who did not know how to love or respect me, and I didn’t ask him to. I was unable to find the courage to address him about it. I moved on. I excused him with, “It was my fault. I didn’t do what he wanted.” 

Shortly after our break up, I developed a deep passion and active involvement in the Anti-Human Trafficking movement. Throughout my research, one of the largest trends was the recruitment of underage girls and vulnerable women for porn. With a new era of technology rising, pimps don’t have to leave their rooms to force someone into sex. You can put an add in on craigslist, watch her come to you, and exploit her via website. 

To provide a glimpse of the general high school attitude regarding porn: I was having a conversation with a few of my classmates about how the porn industry directly relates to human trafficking. I remember saying, “It’s basically rape on video because they’re manipulated or forced into it so often.” 

Her response? “Ooh, kinky.”

To be clear, not every man/woman involved in porn has to be coerced. To be crystal clear, just because they aren’t coerced doesn’t make it okay to watch. 

Another close call with porn was, again, to my devastation, with a significant other. After refusing to send him pictures of myself, he reminded me of the porn addiction he had before we started dating and cautioned me with the idea that he may turn to it again. 

So, I was faced with the option of sending compromising photos of my body or knowing (thinking) that I was the reason someone turned to an industry that made money off of exploiting women’s bodies, plenty of times non-consensually. 

This is what porn does to your brain: you watch, develop unrealistic and often times harmful expectations, exert these expectations in real life, and sometimes lash out when the response isn’t what you thought the situation merited. It is a very real addiction. In some cases, it can become real enough that you’re willing to give your girlfriend a potential ultimatum, like “send nudes, or let me watch porn.” 

I have had romantic relationships with people whose inspiration for how to treat my body derived from porn, and it sucks. 

It really sucks.

I have never felt more dirty, disrespected, unappreciated, or unloved than I have in those moments. My heart was broken time and time again over a girl faking an orgasm in a room with bad lighting. Pornography ruined multiple relationships and distorted the way I saw myself/my sexuality. 

Porn kills love because porn isn’t love. What you see isn’t real. She doesn’t like that. And that is not how you treat her. 

Ephesians 5:3-13

3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. 7 Therefore do not be partners with them. 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 

Everything you do in secret will one day come to light. God already knows what you have done, are doing, and will do. Can you shamelessly stand before Him and profess His goodness? 

Part One: The Willow Tree

This is what happened, and these are the lessons I learned. 

She has woods near her house. She’s one year younger than me, the daughter of a family friend. We return from the woods as a teenage boy pulls into her driveway. I am seven. He is her cousin. 
The air does not shift before disaster strikes; you do not feel it until after. 
He has brown hair and baggy shorts that succumb to gravity more so than the rest of his body- the rest of the world. We are in her room, her and me. It is a girl’s room, and there are pillows decorated with fairies and a netted dreamcatcher hanging over the entirety of her bed. There is an unlocked door that adjoins her room to her brother’s through a bathroom, and there are hands opening it from the other side. 
Sometimes, even as the disaster trickles in, you still do not feel the shift. 
I still do not feel the shift when he tells her to leave. We’re playing a game. We’re alone. 
Gravity kicks in. 

His voice cracks like thunder. 

I can see my clothes moving from my body, and the fairies are watching me. 

When he tells me the rules, I realize the fairies are judging me. 

It’s dirty. It’s my fault. I can’t tell anyone.
First: I concentrate on the rug in the corner with the red nail polish stain underneath. 

Second: I concentrate on the Snow White costume I can see inside her closet. 

Third: I’m turned around, and I concentrate on the willow tree outside the window. 
He’s leaving, making me promise that I won’t tell anyone. I am so small; I am microscopic dirt. 
You feel the shift when you’re laying in the floor of your best friend’s pink room grieving for something you can’t place. It’s an ache on the tip of your tongue that affects everything you taste, eventually working itself into your fingers, toes, skin, bones. Your rib cage is filled with clay. 
I didn’t know how to move. I didn’t tell my parents or my friends or my brother. I was unable to put a name on what happened to me, so I blamed myself for years. It wasn’t until the past few months that I shared my experience with my parents. 
I’m going to say the words, start the conversation. I was molested. 
Writing this, I am terrified and still astounded by the guilt that courses through my body. It’s become my nature. 
There is no way to list all of the repercussions in one sitting. My life has been permanently changed. 
I have no idea what this teen had going on in his life that drove him to force himself on a child. I pray every day that the hatred and dirtiness that was in his heart that day is gone, and I pray every day for God to help me love him and forgive him. 
What could have helped me was knowledge about what I’m allowed to let people do to my body. By no means do I blame my parents, but I cannot enforce enough the importance of having open conversations with kids and adolescents about sexual assault. 
If you think it’s too soon, it’s not. The conversation is happening anyway. Make it the right one. Had I known what was happening, I may have had more courage to resist, or at least to inform someone and get help. 
And if you think it’s too uncomfortable to bring up with family and friends, really? I wrote a blog about it. 
In love and compassion, 

Anna.

“One Person Can’t Make a Difference”

For years, I have put my fingers through the holes of the chains that my anchors burden. Simultaneously, I layered others’ expectations onto my own back like a hot, itchy coat. But its pockets are dream-ridden. I bury love letters, bits of songs, quotes from books- pieces of me that cry, “You are more.”

Today, I unlace my fingers from my burdens and shed the coat. 

Recently, the word I have found most appropriate to describe my condition when I succumb to despair has been caught. I have felt trapped, cornered, and unmoveable. 

Consider this my uncatching. 

A few weeks ago, a woman I very much admired and respected advised me to stop poking the societal bear, so to speak, by drawing attention to the plethora of attacks on young women’s sexualities. I was explaining to her that I find it important to take advantage of the platform we have in social media to bring awareness to important issues. A few of these issues that I’ve touched on: human trafficking, the idiocy of rape jokes, teen dating violence, etc. She advised me to stop, saying that it would only frustrate me further seeing people’s responses, and that one person can’t make a difference. 

I cannot imagine something more discouraging and nonsensical to say to an adolescent, and I disagree. 

If someone is capable of performing a negative action that impacts one’s life continuously, should we not attempt to do the same in a way that benefits people? I am one person just trying to make a difference to one person. Why is that not enough to be considered? 

In response to her advice that I stop speaking out about these issues publicly, I am making a blog. We must stop discrediting today’s youth by denying our capability to be impactful. Have you even heard of Malala? Give it a try in your search engine the next time you feel the urge to tell a young girl she is incapable. 

I am capable; I am uncaught. 

I will not be silenced. 

This is the beginning. 
In love and compassion, 

Anna.