Restoring the Soul

This is the last meditation of the year. (Don’t worry, the blog is staying!) One year ago I started writing meditations for survivors of sexual assault from the gentle nudging of God. He used a writing coach I hired a couple of times to show me what exactly He wanted me to do with them; use them on this blog.

Now, a year later I am amazed God has poured out His words through me. In this year long process God has been pruning me, and making me into the woman He wants me to be in Him.

Most of all He has been restoring my soul. A soul which when I began I felt was lost and forgotten. There was no hope, no future, and no reason to go on in life.

Now, realizing He has plans for me which are larger than I can even begin to imagine and am only catching a glimpse of what He wishes to do in my life.

I know He wishes for me to continue writing this blog, and other writing too.

He wants me to continue to heal from my eating struggles, and I am amazed how far He has brought me in that journey in only a year. My nutritionist says it usually takes several years to get as far as I’ve come in only two and a half.

I have been slowly, with the help of my doctor, working off of some of my medications. Progress.

He has brought me closer to Him and deepened our relationship. Through the trauma work He is helping me recover what I thought I had lost forever. My life.

I realize I still have far to go, but now I am traveling the journey with God, instead of keeping Him on the sidelines. He has brought me back to where I depend on Him, and when I forget He gently reminds me.

Recovering from sexual abuse and assault is a long, hard, journey and it is not one we can do alone. We need God, but we also need those He provides for us. Trauma therapists, doctors, people to walk with us.

I have a trauma therapist and a psychiatrist, but I am still acquiring this team of people to walk with me.

It is hard to find people willing to walk through trauma with you and truly stay with you the entire time. Not tell you what you should be doing or what the “Christian” thing to do is. Just to simply “be there” for us.

I continue to pray for these people to show up in my life. It is part of the recovery I still need.

My prayer for you is God is restoring your soul and you will continue to join me each week as this blog, Restoring the Soul: Finding Hope After Sexual Assault, renews along with us. It will be a place not only for meditations, but my own experiences, tips I’ve learned in coping, and information which may be beneficial to those of us recovering from sexual assault.

What is it you still need? How is God working in your life as you journey to recovery?

My prayer for you as we begin another year together is Paul’s prayer to the Ephesians in chapter 3:16-20. “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” Ephesians 3:16-20

Blessings,

Susan

© 2018 Susan M. Clabaugh. All Rights Reserved.