Crutches & Labels

When I was 18 years old, in the midst of a fight with my mom and among other reasons that had been piling high on my young shoulders I decided to spontaneously move out of my parents house…I had a job and a car and was going to be moving in with my older sister and her boyfriend. It seemed like an adventure just waiting to happen. At last I was free! Free to do what I wanted when I wanted and no one to answer to! Through my new found “freedom” I began to experiment with alcohol, and cigarettes. Later came marijuana and sporadic experimentation with a few other illegal drugs along the way. Luckily and thankfully none of them ever stuck with- or were quite as appealing to me as THC.. (Marijuana, Mary Jane, pot, weed, etc..Oh the many nicknames this one drug has acquired)
I found friends and dated guys who smoked it, so I never had to buy it. By the age of 24, I started to grow tired of the party girl lifestyle and hangovers and wanted to settle down, but I was still chasing temporary highs with alcohol in bars and places I didn’t belong. During that time I met that father of my child on a blind date (we were set up by a mutual friend) and to my surprise, he didn’t smoke…(anything)! We started dating and I hid my habits…ashamed for him to know how often I smoked cigarettes and even more ashamed for him to know that I often smoked pot. Six months later I found out I was pregnant. It was easy to stop smoking and drinking and take care of my body at that time because I knew I had a precious life growing inside me.

By the time my daughter was 2 years old, my relationship with her father was failing and those old habits had started to come back out…I started smoking cigarettes again (even though he frequently told me he didn’t like it and begged me not to). Soon I started smoking pot against his wishes as well…my excuse was always “I’m outside”,  “I’m not doing it around you or the baby”, “I am not hurting anyone.” The truth was I WASN’T hurting anyone…I was just HURTING and masking my pain with a substance. I was aching for intimacy that my significant other couldn’t give me, that he chose to give to alcohol or video games instead of me and his daughter. I longed to feel needed and desired and just kept feeling like I was coming up empty handed no matter how hard I tried. Smoking pot made me not feel those things…in fact, it made me feel REALLY good. In my opinion, it made me funnier, more easy going, and fun to be around. I even believed it made me a better, more patient parent.

My relationship with my daughter’s father did not last and after we split, I jumped quickly into another relationship, and then another.  I found myself wearing a lot of labels about myself, “not enough”, “too much”  and “failure”  are just a few that come to mind.

I  started attending Revolution church here and there in the midst of the most toxic relationship I have ever been in.

I was still smoking pot. At this point I was buying my own supply and it was now an everyday ritual…smoke just a little bit in the morning to help take the edge off “my anxiety” but still be functional, and the worst part was in the evenings…I’d come home and lock myself in my room for sometimes up to an hour and lie to my child about why Mommy couldn’t come out yet. I experienced the shame of losing a good job opportunity because of a failed drug test and even constructed some elaborate lies as to why I didn’t “take the job” to cover that shame. My relationship was a roller coaster of fighting, breaking up and getting back together, filled with lack of trust and false accusations, and loads of screaming and yelling. I knew it wasn’t good for me or my child but I was trying so hard to convince my significant other that I was good enough, meanwhile believing the lies he told me about myself and piling on more and more labels. I was worthless, I had nothing to offer, I was a bad mother, no one else would want me.  When that relationship eventually resulted in physical violence, I FINALLY realized I didn’t even know who I was anymore and ended things for good.  I was broken, defeated, and at my worst.

I kept attending church and had even became involved in a life group at this point… I was starting to learn who God said I was, and that I wasn’t defined by my past. I stopped hanging out with certain friends and stopped smoking cigarettes during this time…I could feel God pruning me and clearing a path for growth in me and healing me but still l clung to my secret habit of smoking pot and still felt anxious and afraid. I kept telling myself that my hidden habit wasn’t hurting anyone, all the while feeling more and more guilt for the time it was taking away from my fiance and my precious child.

Home alone one day I found myself crying out to God on my bed, “God I’ve surrendered all this stuff to you, I’ve given up so much that you’ve told me to…why am I still carrying around this hurt? Why do I still feel this weight around my neck?” And God clearly spoke to me and said “Give up your crutch. A crutch is something you lean on and you keep making excuses for the one thing I’m asking you to give up…you keep sweeping it under a rug with the excuse of “it doesn’t hurt anyone” and “it’s for your anxiety”.  It is a CRUTCH…when are you going to give up your crutch and lean on me instead? Trust me to calm your anxiety and fears.

And just like Matthew the tax collector in Matthew 9:9-10  Jesus called Matthew from the middle of his sinful lifestyle and he literally got up and followed Jesus. Sometimes freedom is in our surrender and sometimes freedom is movement. To quote my Pastor Richard Myers “it’s not focusing on what HAS left but what IS left.”

Through every relationship, I had been in I had traded parts of my true identity in Christ for names other people had given me. Names that were given to me when I was in a place God never intended for me to walk in.
I traded trust in God for a substance. A crutch to make me feel like everything was ok, it was temporary and fleeting. In Romans 8:5-6 AMP version Paul said:
“For those who are living according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh [which gratify the body], but those who are living according to the Spirit, [set their minds on] the things of the Spirit [His will and purpose]. 6 Now the mind of the flesh is death [both now and forever—because it pursues sin]; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace [the spiritual well-being that comes from walking with God—both now and forever];”

Dearest Holly told me shortly before she encouraged me to write this, that once we expose our areas of sin and darkness the enemy can’t use them for shame anymore.  I definitely struggled with vulnerability when writing my story, but I write these things that the devil would use to shame me with the possibility that someone else might experience freedom from their shame and it has made my exposure worth it. My “failure”, my emptiness made me free to be a vessel. In Luke 5:1-11 Simon Peter saw his empty boat as a sign of failure, but Jesus saw it as an opportunity. He stepped in and Peter caught more fish than his boat could handle so much that it began to sink. Friends I hope that you will be encouraged by this, freedom doesn’t always happen all at once. I am learning that I have to daily be in God’s word to remind myself of who God says I am, to avoid labels the world might give me. To avoid taking on a crutch to limp through life when I could be walking upright as a daughter of the King. I found my freedom in surrender, therefore  I will leave you with one of my favorite verses- Proverbs 16:3 “Commit your plans to the lord, and your plans shall succeed.”

With Love, Lyndsy