By His Wounds

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;

 yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

 But he was wounded for our transgressions; 

he was crushed for our iniquities; 

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

 and by his stripes we are healed. 

All we like sheep have gone astray;

 we have turned away, every one, to our own way; 

and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" 

Isaiah 53: 4-6

"Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands;

 and put out your hand and place it in my side..." John 20:27 

When I look back on the past years it is hard to say what made me depressed, or if anything triggered it. Now that the sin in my life is forgiven and the major sources of it are gone, so is the sadness. I would have to say that for me depression was a spiritual thing. My heart was hardened by a build up of small hurts that never healed. Pride was expressed in my life by being obsessed with not being worthy. I lived everyday letting things declare over me "unloved and impure". I made a choice each morning to wake up and let my focus be on me and how horrible I was. My parents do love me, and all my friends at the time were so kind to me. But somewhere in the mix up of divorce and remarriage I got the message that I was too much. My step dad played a big part in convincing me (not on purpose) that I was in the way between him and my mom. Everything he spoke to me felt like a direct command to get out of his way. I took my mom's silence as confirmation that her relationship with him was priority. This was the way I perceived it, not the way they meant it. A build up of those feelings coupled with a break up, lost innocence and some lost friendships caused too many feelings to be bottled up that they eventually exploded.

This is why I hurt myself. Not because I wanted to die but because I had no idea how to get the pain on the inside out of me. I felt like I had no "real" hurt in my life so I didn't understand why I felt so hopeless. I didn't know how I would ever explain to someone how I felt. There were too many little things. Small situations and a few words here and there that had just collected in my heart until it was all too much. These feelings combined with guilt and unworthiness were the triggers behind me cutting. As soon as the cycle started, I could not feel anything any other way. Cutting then became a way to battle with numbness. Long story kind of short is that it became somewhat of an addiction. A dependence. Anything in my life that reminded me of hurt, emphasized guilt, or surfaced my unworthiness resulted in a need to hurt myself.  I suppose it is called negative coping!

This pattern left me emotionally damaged with deep rooted issues and scars. How do you seek help for something when you know you are causing it yourself?  Besides in a few trusted friendships, I hid it well. It was never about anyone else seeing, it was about the way I felt so ashamed and so unworthy. I was saying to myself, I am unworthy, I am used, I am wounded, I am in pain.. and here is the proof. 

Even though the outward act had disappeared over time all these inner problems were still there. Cutting no longer was enough to make me feel anything. I turned to boys and alcohol instead. I stop hurting myself physically and started doing things I knew would hurt me differently. And those things hurt way worse than any inflicted injury. I starting believing it was what I deserved. I hated it. I would get so frustrated with myself. I would cry out, to God and every time I would vow never to make those mistakes again. So each time I did, I lost more hope. When all hope was gone I started crying out from the bottom of my heart for freedom. I wanted to be healed. I longed for God to take away all the bad things that happened. I wanted to be told I was loved and special and beautiful. But hearing it from people was never enough. God spoke to me. He held me. And He continued doing this until every single chain was broken. 

He gave me a picture of His wounds. He made me touch them like Thomas did after Jesus rose from the dead. He said to me "Don't you see, the bad things have already been dealt with. The punishment was already taken. The scars are already enough. Not on you my broken daughter, but in Him, My Perfect Son." 

He said "Beloved, I am not going to take those things away from your past. Instead let me show you that every single emotion, the nights of crying, the journal entries, the times you hurt yourself, the people that hurt you, the relationships that took your purity, all of those things I placed on My Son. The banner over your life saying unloved and impure, I tore it down and hung it over the cross while He died for your freedom. You were bought at a price. You were bought for freedom. Leave your slavery behind."

The words He spoke to me changed me instantly. I received prayer from others and healing again and again, but it always came back to this. There was no longer a need to feel unworthy. There was no need for punishment. There was no price I could pay. No coping I could come up with. My scars were not needed to give me worth. Because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was wounded for me. He was cut and bruised. He was hated and named unworthy. By His stripes I am healed.

The freedom God gave my heart from the pattern of self-harm made my heart dance with joy.

For some reason there is still a lot of shame attached to those times in my life. Maybe because people don't understand it, or they are afraid of it. Maybe it just isn't something we need to share out loud. Or maybe Satan has been telling me to be ashamed of it because he knows that the testimony of freedom will set others free as well.

Whatever the reason, I will not let fear of man dictate the way I tell my testimony or the way I celebrate God's freedom. His work in my life is too great to keep inside. His freedom is too big. His power is too much. It cannot be contained. And I will no longer try to edit what He has done in me. If He can set me free from this sin and addiction, He can set you free from yours. I am not going to let my fear keep God's movement in a box. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Freedom is here. It was made available by immense pain, and suffering, by many wounds and with lasting scars. All of this was placed on the Lamb. For on Him was laid the iniquity of us all. 

Let the powerful God of all creation into the depths of your heart and every area of darkness will be set on fire for Him. And when compared to His glorious light, the things of earth are incredibly dim.

Martina Sobey