Recently a situation with a guy I met helped me see that my heart was shut down because my dad doesn’t talk to me. I’ll open my heart to connect but then suddenly it’s like he doesn’t care anymore. It’s like I don’t exist. I had to reach out to the guy to understand why he didn’t text or call me. We had to communicate. A part of me thought what’s the point, we are not going to be together. But it really did help, I didn’t feel ignored and I felt loved to hear truth.

I grew up feeling emotionally shut down, sometimes depressed. I thought God was ignoring me. I wouldn’t let people in and when I did, it hurt and sometimes when I told the truth, most people left.

The truth was too much for them. They wanted me to be silent. They wanted me to fit in. They wanted me to be what they expected of me. They liked me when I didn’t speak up, when I conformed.

I was attacked my whole life for standing out, so I shut down and people pleased.

Then when God told me to speak up, I lost friends, I got persecuted, I was rejected, I was judged.

I lost everything that was false. I sold everything to follow Jesus. I got rid of my car and my apartment. Everything was a facade of success. I was struggling to pay my bills, I was broken inside. When I did that people criticized me. They didn’t understand I was being set free from what bond me.

I had only experienced conditional love. The type of love that loves you only when you conform and fit in. The type of love that only loves you when you listen to them.

That was the bondage, the spirit of lack.

I never experienced being loved for who I am.

And now as I’m coming out of hiding, I tell my complete truth, I need help, I’m not perfect.

I want to be loved for who I am, not the perfect me, the me now. Enough in God’s eyes, whole in God’s eyes.