Victims of a broken world, where hurting people hurt people, and the cycle never ends...

There has been a deep aching in my soul to write for the past couple of days, but it's almost as if I have been so unaware of how to write what I want to write that I am looking into a deep void. For days now, my stomach has been in knots -- knots so painful that I believe they are what caused me to have flu-like symptoms last night. I am yearning for relief from the brokenness of this world. I am yearning to see relief not only for myself, but for those around me. Abba Father has opened my eyes to so much reality lately, to the sick condition of our world. I no longer look at what we call society's "low-lives" today as such; I see them as helpless victims who are, too, yearning for that relief.

I'm not one to be fake anymore. I've had my fair share of masks [all 22 years of my life]. I've had my fair share of pretending to be a perfect Christian [all 9 years of my new life]. I am so tired of it.

And so I will say -- I've spent my entire life looking at broken people with judgement in my heart. I've spent my life looking at prostitutes and porn stars as idiots, losers, low-lives, disgusting, terrible people. I've looked at drug-addicts and alcoholics as the same. Wasting their lives, caring about nobody but themselves.

The sad reality of it all is that I myself am an addict. I have had an eating disorder for as long as I can possibly remember. I don't know life outside of spending hundreds of dollars on food and purging sometimes up to 20-something times a day. This has been my entire life and identity for as long as I can think back to Why? Because I want to look good? Does the prostitute sell her body because she wants to feel good? No. And no. I have a disease, a mental illness, that stems from the deepest wounds known to mankind. I have an emptiness I long to fill, and so I eat, a numbness I long to deal with, and so I purge, a longing for control in a world unable to be controlled, and so I defile my body in any way I find able. My eating disorder is my identity, all I know, and it's a mask I've hid behind for most of my life. I have had feelings of unworthiness that cause me to not care how my body is treated that stem from being a victim of a broken world, where hurting people hurt people, and the cycle never ends.

I'm just like the prostitutes, the porn stars, and the drug addicts. All part of a world where feeling like the body is worth anything is unheard of, and is therefore something to be thrown away. Why? Because of wounds. Wounds that feel impossible to be healed. One reality that my eyes have been opened to over the past year is that almost every single prostitute and porn star in our world has been trafficked by broken men. As someone who has struggled with pornography, I can tell you that I have seen the pain deep within the eyes of the women, but I never would have guessed that they were victims of slavery. Young, vulnerable girls who feel like their lives are worthless and that selling their bodies is the only thing that they are worth. These are girls who have been enslaved for sex. Society sees them as women who are just stupid, sick, and making stupid choices. I know, I once did too. But, they are victims of a broken world, where hurting people hurt people, and the cycle never ends.

And, all I want to do is reach out, to no longer be the victim, but the over-comer. What this world needs is a group of radical lovers, people who will open their hearts to truly receiving the heart of the Father for His children. When will we stop automatically jumping to conclusions when we see a 16-year-old girl that is pregnant? "Oh, she's just a slut." How do you know that that 16-year-old has not spent her life as one who has been ignored, and gave her body to a man just to be seen and heard? Or, how do we know that this girl was not raped and made the beautiful decision of letting that baby live, hoping that he or she would have be their redemption? How do we know the "druggies" are not hurting so much because of the negligence or abuse they endure at home that they have no other choice but to be numb? How do we know that the girl with anorexia does not come from a completely out-of-control household where her entire life seems to be spinning out of perspective, and all she can do is control her body? Or, how do we know she was not raped and feels her body is so worthless that she starves it away? How do we know that the cutter that hides in black is not a truly beautiful person inside who has never been given the chance to see the sunshine behind the clouds? And maybe they are crying out for attention because we are people who ALL long for attention, and they really are unable to get it in any other way. They are all victims of a broken world, where hurting people hurt people, and the cycle never ends.

When will we look past all of this? When will we allow the heart of the Father to become one with our sinful, judgmental hearts?

We are all broken people, longing, crying, aching for redemption, for peace, for some sort of relief. It is hard to see and recognize beyond all of the chaos of this world that we are all looking for reconciliation with the Father. Ecclesiastes 3:10 says that eternity has been set in the hearts of all people. We are all born for eternity. We are born for relationship with the Father, but when everything around us spins out of control, and everyone is hurting, and everyone is hurting everyone else, it is terribly difficult to see or recognize this.

So, in our pain, we put on our masks, and we point the finger. All the while we have the resurrected Christ crying out to us, "Come, My beloved, My sister, My bride! Come and follow Me. I have so much better for you. I have life to the full. I have life beyond all of this. I have a well of freedom for you to drink from. You will never go thirsty again. I have love for you that is better than wine. I just long for you to drink from this. Just take my hand. We'll do this together. We will do this together. We WILL do this TOGETHER. You don't do anything. Just take my hand. You're not alone. You're not alone. Do you hear Me, My beloved? You're NOT ALONE."

But we sit content in our Christian lives, hiding behind our "Christian 'fines'" and masks, and we judge. And we judge. And we judge. We hear the messages -- "reach out to the broken" ... "love the unlovable" ... "speak life into the dead valleys." And we're convicted, but we are so broken ourselves that we do not realize what it means. And so the "outcasts" and the "prostitutes" are still alone. Unloved. Judged. Condemned. Unfairly... Victims of a broken world, where hurting people hurt people, and the cycle never ends.

And so I am broken, and I am yearning for relief. I yearn because I am one still healing and still being set free -- I am one who HAS SEEN and who KNOWS the miraculous healing and restoration of the Father. And because He has, IN MY HEALING, opened my eyes to all of this. I long to DO something, to BE love. But I long for this message to awaken the hearts of God's people. I long to speak to a world of broken Christ-followers to allow the PERFECT, UNBROKEN heart of the Father become one with their hearts.

I yearn for the day of Christ's return. I yearn, and I yearn, and I yearn. I am desperate to see to see tears wiped away and complete restoration finally come. I am desperate for our "resurrected and glorious bodies" to finally be something we can be happy with. I am desperate for that time when pain is gone forever. For everybody.

But I know that while I am here, I am here to share my story. I am here to speak about the healing of Christ. About that well that never runs dry. About the heart of the Father that perfects our hearts. About the salvation of Christ that makes us perfect in His sight. I'm desperate to be WITH the broken people -- the prostitutes, the drug addicts, the eating disordered, the orphaned, the homeless. I yearn for their healing on this earth before Christ comes. I hurt with them, alongside them, hand-in-hand with them. And I'm willing to be broken for their sake, because I've experienced it, and I know it -- but also because I know it doesn't stop there. There is HOPE. There is hope for the hopeless. There is a LOVE that heals. There is a resurrected Savior that brings life to the fullest. And I won't keep this to myself. I've EXPERIENCED the resurrection of the Messiah. I've seen the valley of the dry bones awaken. I've TASTED the goodness of the Father. And I won't be alone in this.

I want you to join me.
 (We do not stay victims with a victim mentality - we become ones who overcome with the resurrected Messiah.)