30 Days of Truth: You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
Truth #20: You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8 NLT
I was crying alone in my car and God gave me a visual. What came to mind are those hard, compressed towels that are minimized to the size of your fist until you put them in water and then they expand. This issue is HUGE, yet I have compressed it and minimized it into this tiny ball in the pit of my soul. As it rises to the surface now and gets wet, it expands and wrings out the tears.
Tears that represent:
•Years and years of trying to appear happy, and not crying at all
•Extreme sadness realizing that ALL THIS TIME, I thought that God had singled me out, didn’t love me, allowed my pain and had not protected me. My concept and perception of God were majorly thwarted. I realize now with his tender leading how much HE WAS THERE, and he did care, and he loves me, and he protected me. His grace and love are HUGE and I am so thankful now, but sad that I even felt that way growing up.
•Loss of Innocence. Stolen. Gone. No excuses. No more taking the blame and owning it myself…and sadly while releasing some of that guilt I become more aware of how evil, selfish and manipulative it all was and that breaks my heart.
•Realizing how I had to live…to cope. Seeing the word ESCAPE makes me sad because I think of what that really means and how I had to dissociate.
•Manipulation, grooming, and silencing takes PREMEDITATION… a conscious willingness to trespass and violate. Was selfish pleasure really valued higher than me?
•Fear – being so afraid of so much that may not seem logical or rational but it is very real for me. Police, fire, catastrophes, always thinking the rug is about to be pulled from up under me. Intense Fear.
•Alone. My closest friends in life barely know me. I barely know me.
•Expecting disappointment. Expecting to be harmed, hurt, misled, lied to, abandoned, forgotten, cheated on, yelled at, hated, ignored….you name it. My mind will play the tape before it happens so that when and if it happens it “hurts less” because I saw it coming, expected it and I just keep going. What a way to live, to think.
Every single tear is sweet release. Sometimes, I don’t even know why I am crying.
But God does. He has a record of each tear.
He knows.