misunderstood...

I really do not like myself a lot.  People have always put me down and said mean things about me. Even though some of those things were dumb like a boy telling me how I'm "not hot, not ugly either, just kind of there...nobody notices you"; others were far more hurtful and really about me as a person.  I once had a youth leader tell me that they cringed every time they saw my name on a sign up list for a youth event.  This has stuck with me all these years.  For someone who was supposed to help share God's love with me, and teach me that I was a princess of Christ, that person did the opposite.  It put me in a very dark place, and wounded me in so many ways.  It changed me.  That following year I went down a dark path.  I stopped going to youth group, worked constantly, slept through my classes, snuck out of my house to see a boy, lost my precious virginity, and ended up failing a semester my senior year of high school.  I became suicidal and made my life all about sex.  Luckily I was smart enough to only have one partner and married that man, so my regrets aren't as bad as they could be.

I am a loving, loyal, dependable, caring, and sensitive person.  I am not perfect, but I have never seen myself as a troublemaker. I did not ever try drugs, didn't smoke, and didn’t drink any alcohol until I turned 21.  Even at my most rebellious, I still came home on time for curfew. I had problems with friends sometimes, but they were all emotional disputes that could be solved once we calmed down.  I am a passionate and emotional person, so it is easy for me to get worked up.  None of these things should make someone in leadership CRINGE to see me.

As a wounded 16 year old girl who really has no friends, I was devastated.  I am 25 and I still wrestle with this pain and am not fully healed from it.  I have thought of facing this person face to face, but wouldn't that just make that person cringe all the more?  I do not want to be confrontational and through the years I have become less and less confrontational. 

How do I go on and see myself as the bride of Christ?  How do I go on and try to help anyone?  Plus, this has made me so socially awkward that I either nervously babble (and say really stupid and embarrassing things) or I am silent, with nothing to offer.  My social anxiety has gotten so much worse, as has my overall anxiety.  I deal with anxiety problems, some of which stem from this person and the many ways they mishandled me and wounded my very being. This was someone who I respected and looked up to.

Yes, I am socially awkward.  Yes, I feel like a misfit.  But does that take away my place in the kingdom?  Does that make me worthless?  Am I unlovable?

I have been told that I am unlovable before in my life.  The actual words have flown out at me.  And all the other comments that people have said to me and about me make the equation of being unlovable, as well.  It is so hard to accept God's love for me when I am unlovable.  Why must I be so different?  Why must I be so alone?

At Sunday school last week Mo Gaul said how he struggles with being a misfit.  In questioning God as to why he was a misfit, God revealed to him that He (God) made him exactly how he wanted him.  That God can still work through him.  And that without being a "misfit" he would have less need for his Creator.

I have had mentors who have felt that they have been "called out of my walk".  I have had very close friends either drift away or choose to walk away.  I feel very much alone in life, and have legitimate abandonment issues that I have practically been born with. So what is so wrong with me that nobody can love me?

I recently had someone who was encouraging me that I will soon have someone that I can talk to.  She encouraged me that I have changed so much and that I am different than I used to be.  I have "calmed down" so people will enjoy being around me more.  Bless her heart, she truly was trying to love me and encourage me.  But, I couldn't help to feel like, what was so wrong with me before that people didn't want to be around me?  Was I so wild?  Was I so crazy?  In what way?  My husband is almost always with me, as I am too anxious to go anywhere alone, and even he is not really sure what she meant.  Now, I do put my foot in my mouth sometimes as things just fly out of it when I am nervous, but it is my poor husband that I usually sell out.  Yet, he still loves me.

She is right.  I have changed.  I am NOT the same person that I used to be.  But I still hold some of the same pain.  I still long for a friend and for a mentor.  I still long for relationship.  I still long for love.  I really long for acceptance.

In some ways I am misunderstood.  In others I am understood to well.  I don't really know where to go from here.