Memories are interesting things, often taking on their own life, their own personality. They decide when they want to be remembered and forgotten, sometimes they lie, other times they tell the brutal, honest truth. There are memories that bring you joy, memories that bring nostalgia and a tinge of sadness, and memories that bring you nothing but pain.
And there are those that hide.
They remain buried somewhere in the far recesses of your mind. Buried so well that it's not even a matter of trying to remember something that seems to have been forgotten but rather a matter of not even knowing that these things ever happened to you. But you see, there's something all hidden things have in common: they never stay hidden. Darkness always gives way to day. Lost things are always found (even if it is years and years later and not by the person who lost it.) And hidden things always crawl out of the dark recesses into the light. It may be years later and it often is without warning.
The first time I discovered this was six years ago when a memory of the day after my dad's funeral suddenly surfaced (if you want to read more about this, to gain some context you can go here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=70105884860 ) When this memory surfaced I was stunned. I could not believe that I could have forgotten something like that for so long. I was even more surprised that though I had forgotten the specific memory, I had been living under the curse of those words spoken by five year old me. I had told my mom that my rose had died because my daddy did not want it, it was not good enough for him and I lived my entire life thinking that I was not good enough for anyone.
A couple years ago I was sharing this with a friend and he said to me, "Melyssa, I think there had to have been something else that happened to you before that point that planted that thought in your head. It doesn't make sense that you would have jumped straight to that conclusion because a flower died." I thought about this a bit but I couldn't think of anything that possibly could have planted this idea in my head. My dad was an amazing dad. My mom and everyone else who knew us then, always told that I had him wrapped around my little finger and he was constantly telling me how much he loved me and how beautiful I was. But then some other memories began to surface.
I discovered in October of 2008 that I was very likely molested when I was three. I did not have memory of the event itself, but I had some fragments of memory of that day so I knew where it happened and I remembered feeling scared and alone. When I found this out, I tried to remember. One night as I was lying in bed I asked God to show me what happened. I thought that I wanted to know because I thought it was the only way I could move past it. He did not show me what happened but showed me another small glimpse of the events surrounding that moment. I soon realized that I was probably better off not knowing exactly what happened and I stopped asking God to bring back the memories. I thought I had pretty much dealt with it and moved on as best as I could. Until this past Friday.
We were having a ministry time in class after our speaker had taught on the Holy Spirit. We were all just standing around the room with some worship music playing in the background asking God to just show up and do whatever he wanted. The speaker came over and began praying for me and that was when it happened. This memory began to resurface. I saw myself as a three-year-old girl being gently led into a room by a man I did not know. I realized immediately what this was. And I began to panic. I started begging God not to show me. I kept saying to Him, "No, please don't make me see this. I don't want to know. I don't want to go there." But I knew I had to, I knew there was something that I absolutely needed to know. So I surrendered.
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