(Phuket, Thailand)

I’m stepping out and letting my heart be exposed. I’m letting go of control. Your heart is safe for me.

I’m learning emotional vulnerability with God. I’ve had a relationship with God since I was very young. I didn’t grow up with my dad, and my mom was rather emotionally unavailable. I often played under the table in my room. I had a really wild upbringing, mostly being home alone at a young age. I was free in a way, but always looking for protection, always defending and protecting my heart. I read an article I wrote about my life in a newspaper to my mom once and she got really mad, told me not to write about it because it seems like she was really irresponsible and neglected me.

But I realize that when I’m vulnerable with the world, perhaps I can reach one person who feels alone, someone in pain, someone who isn’t brave enough to ask others for help.

I’m afraid to write honestly because of how mean the world has been to me. Because of the response I’ve gotten to my writing, because of the judgement I’ve heard from strangers. Here’s vulnerability. 

I’ve been afraid to be myself because how the world has treated me, or perhaps how I’ve treated myself. 

For awhile my heart was numb because of all the pain I went through in my life. I felt pain because of I felt like I couldn’t breathe again after a broken relationship, I felt pain because I lost friends that were dear to me, I got mad at God, I closed my heart off. Instead of going to God for comfort, I pretended everything was okay.

Joseph had a dream, a big dream and his brothers laughed at him, he was tricked and sent to prison for years. That was his desert. I’m just walking out of the prison. The prison was people who were close to me laughing at my dreams. The prison was my shutting my heart off. The prison was pretending to forgive and forget, but feeling the pain still. The prison was my unwillingness to believe that God was safe. 

And slowly I poured my heart out, it is a physical tension I still feel. I’ll feel a literal ache in my heart, my neck starts to hurt and in the pressure of all the stress, my hand has felt numb as if an after effect of my heart tension.

So in it all, I let go of controlling the pain or the fears. Because I know you are safe God.