““No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.” -Luke 8:16-17 ESV
Luke 8:17 has been heavy on my heart. God laid on my heart to share something. But I have been putting it off for a few weeks now. This thing I’m sharing has a lot of feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment. It’s something that I’ve hid for quite some time. So it’s time to share.
To you this might not be an issue but to me this thing that I do (or lack of things I don’t do) is a form of self harm. It’s one of my coping mechanisms that has been part of me for a long time.
Some people see it as laziness, others might see it as untreated ADHD or depression, and I just see it as something I do not have to care about and I can hid it away in my own little world and no one has to know. But I know God doesn’t want me to stay there. I literally have never taken this to God or really talked about it because it was just “who I am”.
What I struggle with is cleanliness. Before you judge me, I love the feeling of just walking into a place and feeling at peace. I want that for me. I know some of it has to do with respecting the place in which live and making it your own and this place I don’t feel like is my own, it doesn’t feel like home. (That’s a whole other conversation to be had) So it doesn’t help my coping mechanism, it just fuels it.
I rarely clean. I rob myself from feeling at peace or at home. I rob myself from feeling calm. I often times will convince myself, “I just don’t have time”. But the reality is I don’t do it because as long as I’m the only one who has to deal with it, I’ll just suffer and it’ll be fine. That’s literally what I tell myself. So the only thing being robbed is my sense of peace and I live life like that’s ok and it’s not.
My lack of self love is evident where I live. The feeling of unworthy is piled on the sofa and on the love seat well there’s a whole lot of negative thoughts just sitting there.
I know I might get judgement on this and that’s ok. I’m not looking for validation. I’m not looking to stay where I’m at, I’m looking to move forward.
I don’t know why sharing about my other coping mechanisms was so much easier. This one was hard and something I have been putting off. This is a dark space in my life, so I know I needed to share it and bring it to the light.
Tanya Elise 