Hey Siss! Thank you for spending more time with me as I share more of my testimony. In that relationship I realized that I was truly depleted of everything that I was. I had always suffered with low self- esteem and often tried various ways to soothe this pain. I never felt that I was beautiful. Actually most of my childhood, adolescence, and young adult years I was plagued with feeling unpretty, worthless, and alone. The man that I was in relationship with made me feel that I was beautiful because he had chosen to be with me despite so many other failed relationships. His willingness to stay and be with me led me to believe that finally I had been validated. He knew of every single insecurity, trauma, and abusive thing that I had ever encountered in my life. He promised not to hurt me the way that everyone else had.
As I reflect on how deeply broken I was, I am able to see how predatory he was. It can be mind boggling to believe that someone is listening intently to your pain, trauma, fears, and things that you still have flashbacks regarding with the intentions to cause you to feel more of those things! It is hard to believe , but we should start accepting truth for what it is. It is the only way that you will be able to heal and stop repeating the same destructive cycles. You are playing a vital part in being abused because you are unconscious as to who you are and how deeply you are loved by God. I couldn't see that I had continued the same format in all of my relationships.I met a person who professes this undying love and interest in me, I share every single thing about my life with them ( distraught, in tears, overly emotional), and they in turn retraumatize and abuse me. I couldn't see that these men never cared about me, but they had a strong desire to use, manipulate, and abuse me because I was so desperate and broken. They saw my powerless state and this caused them to desire to execute power over me. It was all about domination and control through use of my emotions!
I think ultimately I needed to learn that a man or relationship can not heal the brokenness of my soul. He was just another human being like myself. I was desiring something of him that was impossible, yet made him feel empowered. This caused him to continue to seek to have power over me. I had placed this person where only God has the ability to reside which led to him becoming an idol. Narcissistic relationships are forms of idolatry. Idolatry is an abomination to God Sis! He has allowed terrible things to happen in the past ( Old Testament) to his children who practiced idolatry. It angers him tremendously and breaks his heart. ONLY GOD can heal me from the things that happened in my childhood and life. God alone is the only one that can restore to me my true identity. Only my Heavenly Father has the ability to heal me and dry the tears that I have cried for years while alone in my bed or even when sharing my bed with a man.
The very things in which I had looked to this man to fix where the very things that he intensified and brought even more stress, pain, tear, agony, and trauma. Every single action, word, or gesture from this person was calculated so that he could get me right where I was seven years later. I had found myself entrapped with a relationship that had become a dungeon. I was the captive. I was provided with breadcrumbs of attention and affection in which I gladly received because he had been successful in adding additional trauma. I was gaslighted tremendously as well as frequent silent treatments. He would fly into a rage whenever I challenged him or corrected him. This helped to implement fear and to be in compliance. Whenever I had the nerve to mention ending the relationship, then he would flood me with apologies while crying uncontrollably on his knees. He would also buy me gifts, my favorite dinners, and he would "behave" for maybe a week or two before he continued the cycles of abuse. I endured this for SEVEN YEARS SIS! The same narcissistic cycles of love bombing and devaluing.
I became a shell of my former self and he intensified in his evil actions to continue his desire to control, dominate, and manipulate me. The abuse was emotional, physical, sexual, financial, spiritual, and mental. There were so many tears shed. I was so unhappy and confused. I was so afraid of leaving and starting over. I had been tormented my entire life with being ostracized by family, isolated, alone, and feeling worthless. I found myself eroding. Whenever he came home from work, I felt the anxiety of anticipating what he was going to do and what the day might consist of. This is the definition of “walking on eggshells “.It got so bad that I would pretend to be asleep when he came home in an attempt to avoid interaction completely. It is so interesting to think of the way I used to get excited when he would call and text in the beginning of the relationship and now I was doing all that I could to avoid basic interaction. This was not love, it was bondage.
Isaiah 61:3 says that God will give us "beauty for ashes; joy instead of mourning; praise instead of heaviness". I felt that I was completely covered in spiritual ashes because of the contant spiritual battles I had endured unknowingly throughout my life that I constantly sought men and relationships to heal. I was always in cycles of fear, sorrow, defeat, despair, and worthlessness. I had only known a life of pain and tears (mourning). I had always experienced depression (heaviness) my entire life even as a young child. I read this bible scripture and it all unfolded for me! If I chose to give God my ashes, he will give me BEAUTY! If I gave him all the years of mourning, then he would give me JOY. If I gave him the heaviness, then he would give me PRAISE. The answer was in God the entire time, not this man and his acceptance or validation of me.
The moment that I became conscious of this, I stopped looking to this man, who was abusing me to save and love me. I stopped believing that I was nothing unless he loved me and stayed in a relationship with me. I refused to continue to allow myself to me depleted for another day, month, year of my life! I begin to pray intensely everyday. If I was grocery shopping, in my mind and heart I would pray. As I drove around doing errands or cleaning, I would pray. I begin to believe the promises that I was learning about that God promised his children who come back home to him. I stopped being sexually intimate with him and ceased all physical interaction. I stopped allowing him to manipulate my emotions. I would no longer engage in the emotional and nonsensical word salad arguments (intended to cause brain fog, depression, confusion, helplessness). When he would pout or proceed with not speaking to me for days ( silent treatments to foster the feelings of being lonely, undesired, unworthy of acknowledgement), I would smile and continue to read my bible, pray, and journal (prayers in the form of letters to my Heavenly Father). He was losing all the power he had previously had over my emotions, mind, and life!
Even while praying for God to save me and my daughter from that abusive relationship I experienced something supernatural. God had indeed, in the midst of my enemy ( the evil spirit inside this person), given me BEAUTY FOR ASHES. I gave my life to Christ in November 2019. God delivered me from that relationship in July 2020! I created my Sis Shantel DOTMHGOI Women's Restoration Ministry in December 2020 Sis! I created this blog and God is birthing so many other things to come as well. I found my true healing, identity, and purpose the moment I chose God and stopped allowing my previous pain, traumas, fears, and abuse to hold me hostage and allow me to believe that I should be treated this way by someone who professes that they "loved me".
Sis I encourage you to choose life! Choose to live as the Kings daughter. You too are a DOTMHGOI you just have to spend time with him so that he can uncover your hidden identity. I promise your life will change. Give him everything that has ever hurt you, confess your sins, and receive the gift of everlasting life that Jesus died for you to have. Come back home to the KIngdom and receive all the BEAUTY THAT GOD HAS FOR YOUR ASHES TOO SIS!
WE ARE A SISTERHOOD OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE MOST HIGH GOD OF ISRAEL AND THIS IS A SAFE SPACE. PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW AND OPEN UP AS WE ARE ALL HEALING TOGETHER AND WE NEED THE SUPPORT OF OUR SISTERS IN CHRIST. NO SISTER IS TO FEEL AS IF SHE IS ALONE. YOU ARE NEVER ALONE SIS!
*** PLEASE UTILIZE THE CONTACT FORM ON MY BLOG WEBSITE TO SEND ME PERSONAL PRAYER REQUESTS, ADVICE ABOUT YOUR SITUATION, AND PERSONAL QUESTIONS. I WILL RESPOND AS TIME PERMITS SIS AS I AM A PRAYER WARRIOR/INTERCESSOR FOR CHRIST. I LOVE YOU SIS AND BE BLESSED!***
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