There were years upon years where I went nowhere but to my appointments. Partly because my anxiety was so high, but also it felt safer to hide out and isolate. I felt no one understood my story or what I’ve been through, and what I was dealing with. I began to view everybody and everything through one single lens of my experiences.
Once I decided to start actually working through my trauma, processing it, and seeking God’s healing, I realized that God knows me and my pain. Matthew 10:30 says that God even knows the number of hairs on our heads, and I realized that God knew everything I’d been through what I was feeling now more than anyone else. I began to realize I am understood by a loving Father who not only created me, but loves on me each and every day.
He didn’t want me to stay isolated, but Satan wanted me to stay isolated. Satan wants to take you out of the game of life and isolation is where he thrives. Satan does not want you to be known and loved, but God desires for you to be known and loved because He created you for those things.
In isolation I was struggling with what defined me, and I was defining myself by who my family said I was or wasn’t, what was done to me, or who I was or wasn’t based on what I had not done in life.
I never had the chance to have kids, so I was not a mom, and I felt like I failed as a daughter despite the fact that I was abused. I am not a wife and have never been a wife. All of those things that our society defines I no longer was any of those. I was no longer, in my mind, a teacher during the years I was unable to work. Despite the fact that God had me teaching in other ways including through this blog.
Every one of us, even those who have not endured significant trauma, struggle with who we are and what defines us. I began to see myself as a child of God because I have accepted Jesus and God says then that we are His adopted children. Once we have accepted His gift of Jesus, then we are his children. That is all that defines me. I am a child of God.
I began to see that everyone has a story. As I came out of isolation, I began to see the truth, which is exactly what Satan does not want you to do. Satan doesn’t want you to see that others have a story and others can relate.
He doesn’t want God to redeem your life and heal your life. But the truth is that God can heal, and He can redeem! It may not happen overnight, but God will use that time to draw you closer to Him. God loves you and He wants others to share His love with you and He wants you to share His love with others.
None of that is possible when we isolate. God has not abandoned you even when it feels like it. We may not “feel” God, but He is still with us. Feelings are not truth. What happens when you come out of isolation is you see the lies and you see the truth.
Because darkness does not like the light. When we come out of isolation we are coming into the light, and it shines in the darkness and exposes the lies. The lies that you are nothing and that no one will understand. The lie that God has no plans for you. The lie that you are defined by what you have been through or what’s been done to you, or the choices you’ve made.
When we decide to step out of isolation, we break those lies by bringing light to the darkness. This included me letting go of all the excuses of, “well I can’t do that because of this or this or this”… You know what I mean?
God created us for community, and I encourage you to go to church and get involved in a group, recovery group, etc. Find your group, walk out into the light, and defeat the darkness. Break the isolation and allow God to continue to heal and guide you in your journey. Ask Him what excuses you are using, lies you’re believing, and what’s keeping you from experiencing all He has for you.
Step out of the darkness and into the light of truth.
© 2022 Susan M. Clabaugh. All Rights Reserved.
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