gracefully broken

 I hate the word empowerment. Like, a lot. It feels like a trendy word to say selfishness is the new fad. Is bulldozing people the new black?  Are you going to throw me in a classic white button up, jeans, and heels combo and watch me take control of this situation-paying no mind to who I hurt along the way. 

But what if the opposite is actually true. Perhaps there’s a better way to treat people when you have security in who you are and Whose you are. Are we actually kinder and provide more impact where we live when we have a strong sense of what you stand for instead of falling for everything. What if you’re used to falling for everyone-anyone who gave you a second of attention or built you up with pretty words. Compliment your appearance or the things you accomplished? Then over time you believed that and suddenly everything that you bring to the table comes from what your body looks like and all the twisted ways you can move it? It’s entirely plausible that all you’ve ever been good for is a way to make someone else forget their own problems for a literal few seconds. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve leveraged my appearance to get ahead. How many times I’ve let people talk down to me and insinuate that I’m getting things just because I provide an opportunity for them to imagine what I’m like outside of these clothes. I’ve not had the ability to see myself as bringing anything else to the table besides a possibility to be with me. It’s become second nature to just assume the role of someone who may be intelligent but that’s irrelevant because where I really shine is behind closed doors. 

I don’t know where the disconnect between what I believe the Bible to say about purity got traded for it becoming exactly what I was put on this earth to provide- have I so long wanted to be someones safe space that I’m only that when I’m on my back? To write it is humiliating and disgusting. It is shameful and ridden with guilt. But no more.  Not one more time. It’s not a crutch or a band aid. It’s not a pawn or an opportunity to get ahead. I don’t know how I’ll ever unlearn to not use myself leverage in new or uncomfortable situations. It’s easier for me to spin things to be sensationlized and sensual than it is for me to lean into the emotional side that drives the conversation in the first place. It’s a defense mechanism rooted in control. It’s an opportunity for me to take charge of a situation when on so many occasions I wasn’t in control. 

I didn’t have a say laid out on a bed in Missouri so drunk I couldn’t consent but I didn’t say no which meant there was an implied yes. I will never touch a bottle of Armani Black cologne. I won’t touch a condom. I won’t have anything to do with boating and alcohol, the Lake of the Ozarks and the guise of a frat party with a high school “friend” again. I will never forget sitting as far to the right side of his SUV the three hour trip home feeling like trash and calling him the next day asking what happened and why because I just remember him coming into our shared room before the others got back, getting on top of me, coming in and out of consciousness fully aware of what was going on and not knowing I could say no except to run to the bathroom and either throw up or who knows what and grasping the full reality of what had actually happened. I lost a lot of myself in 2005. And I think I just accepted that all I was good for didn’t require me to be an active participant. I didn’t need to do anything but be still and quiet. And over time this has ebbed and flowed taking matters into my own hands and just using people as they used me back or just saying yes because no wouldn’t matter anyway. It never has. My opinion has never mattered. I can consent all day long and my consent isn’t enough. It’s just not fucking enough because Ashley’s mattered more. And Jennifer’s. And that bitch in Europe. And everyone else who was better or more readily available than me. And I hate that. 

 I didn’t have a say when I was laid out on a couch in Nebraska, also drunk, as Josh? Kyle? Who knows, put their hands all over me and I froze in fear not knowing how to respond and when I spoke up about it the next day looking for someone, anyone, to help me process how I even got in that situation in the first place because there was just more than the two of us in that room, I was told I was wrong and nothing happened. But I’m not dumb. And I don’t imagine things. I can remember as clearly as I remember the subpar salmon I had for dinner the defining moment of trying to sleep and being suddenly and very uncomfortably awoken to hands that were not mine over my body. But there’s nothing I could do about it then or now because I didn’t have a say. I didn’t have a say then and maybe I have a say now. 

As I enter a new phase where I’m going to be presented with opportunities to say yes to a variety of things the last thing I need is to just submit because I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to make someone else uncomfortable or wrong or weird. I want everyone to get along and come away from whatever we’ve experienced at coffee or at the park or at an event and not feel like it was a waste. Do I need to repay you for my drink or my salad? I may not be able to afford it but I have learned some skills that people find enjoyable so let me just use those. I’ve fucking prostituted myself. What the actual fuck. Sure it’s been over a decade but that doesn’t mean that part of who I am has gone anywhere it just manifests itself differently. 

Let me say these things to you to keep you around and like me because I can’t bring anything else to the table except thing things I say. I know you like my cookies so let me perform for you that way. Let me complete tasks for you so your life will be easier so you’ll see having me in it is worth something. All I am is someone who can do something for someone else. I bear no intrinsic worth. I’m just Elizabeth, the chick who bakes things, works hard, and used to put out. And even none of that was worth staying for. All the skills I thought I’d accumulated weren’t even enough. I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t worth sleeping with or caring for or spending time with or loving or dating or seeing. And so I give a resounding “screw that” to all of the nonsense. 

So with empowerment comes less of an opportunity to treat people poorly or differently- rather it provides me an opportunity to demand people treat me better and kinder. It allows me to not allow myself to be in situations where what I offer has short term benefits. I’m worth being with and being around. You know what’s worth chasing? My fucking heart not my ass. Not my hands and mouth but my mind. And all day long I’ll assume that this guy or that guy or this friend or that sees me for me and we’ll continue this charade until the integrity piece comes in and we’ll see who’s still around when I don’t perform and measure up to the standard you’ve set for me without my even being made aware. There’s this standard of behavior and obedience that my entire world has impressed upon me without asking permission has gotten real old real quick. I know what I’m about and I’m refining that over time. If I know anything about myself it’s that these things will change over time and that’s appropriate and acceptable. If I can go to bed at the end of the day knowing that Christ is enough and would have died for me all over again even if I was the only one living then I’ll be just fine. Because empowerment is a confidence and boldness that doesn’t have to come from a need to overcompensate. It’s not rooted in anything but a desire for the way that people treat me to be pure. There’s obviously no guarantee that is happening even despite all signs pointing to yes. There’s always something to lose putting yourself out there in vulnerable situations. 

I don’t do intimacy and now I know why. I have a full comprehension of why. It’s because when someone has in some way shape or form made me feel like all I am is a means to an end they become immediately unsafe and not worth confiding in because if my consent didn’t matter then my heart doesn’t either. You don’t get both. You don’t get to abuse what I can do and make it one sided in a way that would make me in any way feel like any piece of who I am is worth sharing because there’s nothing more glaring than that. Why in the world would I even consider telling you business plans and personal aspirations when I can be laid out under, or not even under, a blanket and that’s not even sufficient. It’s sickening and it’s disgusting.

But you know what it’s not? It’s not my fucking fault. It never was. I never asked for it. I didn’t dress wrong in a bathing suit on a boat in the summer. I didn’t dress wrong in jeans and a shirt in the fall. I didn’t dress wrong in the comfort of my own fucking home with my own fucking husband. I didn’t ask for it and I couldn't have prevented it. I couldn’t have talked less to Ben on the boat because he was my literal friend. We had no moments of intimacy before that. Not one. There was no leading on because nothing ever happened. He just walked in drunk after I did. Or was he even drunk? No one freaking knows. But I know this much, I never said yes. So screw that guy.  And don’t even get me started on the others. I will be alone for the rest of my life. I’m so ok with that. I’ll be fine. I don’t need anyone else to be ok and I sure as hell don’t need anyone else to tell me I’m worth choosing because I choose me. And Christ died for that. He died for the girl who used her body as leverage and the one whose body was used. Whose heart was taken advantage of over and over again. Who has been so quick to forgive that all she really did was give people permission to keep up the disrespect and the manipulation. 

I’d love to be able to say that’s all gone and removed, but it’s not. But it’s massively better. There’s a confidence that comes with saying I’m about this and not about that and I’m just going to tell you tell you so there’s no surprises when you think its ok to be in touch with your ex and it’s really absofuckinglutly not. That it’s not ok for you to be at dinner with someone that’s not me or take them to our lunch spot or justify buying diapers for your child with this woman as an excuse to get her in my home and your car.

What even is it to date your friend? What is this concept of being friends first? Of having someone you want to do things with and share the scary and uncomfortable and not hide things from because all you so desperately want is for them to see you when you’re ugly and messy and broken and sad because when you’re elated and winning and succeeding they love you in that too. There’s no fair weather friends. Not here for that nonsense. Either we're gonna be down for each other in the scars and brokenness or we’re not and I’ve spent a third of my life in the in between and may I just say that it sucks. It sucks in all the worst ways. 

So here we freaking go. It’s taken me 16 years to wrap my head around the correlation between intimacy, sex, what I believe, and how I behave. It feels so natural and fitting for now to be the time this epiphany occurs. And I’ll take it. I’ll take the no shame that comes with sex being something God created. Because it is good and He is good and I am good and worth loving despite giving myself over to so many for literally nothing. It’s not something I’m proud of nor does it define me but the impact of it has absolutely defined many aspects of my life. Deeply ingrained beliefs about myself are slowly dissipating. I doubt they ever disappear but it’s fading over time. Slowly and surely. There may not ever be an “other side” to this but for now it’s where I am and I don’t believe you can make progress if you don't know where you came from. I can’t keep learning the same lessons over and over again. Either I acknowledge it’s an easy pattern for me to slip back into and I share that in transparency or I stay sick with my secrets. No one can live this life for me despite half a dozen people wanting to just take over. I say a hard pass to that and advocate for what I believe to be true for me because I’ll always base that off what the Lord says is true for me and that is that I am loved. And people who are loved don’t have to let anyone else make a new definition. Love isn’t what I can do for you. It was never meant to be. Because true love, real love, empowers you to believe all Christ says. I may not always feel it because feelings may be real but they’re not reliable. But at the core of who I am I believe that, and many other things to be true because they simply are. And pure, simple, adoring love is more than I can even comprehend sometimes. But it’s not scary and it’s not terrifying and it’s not foreign. I may have known it rarely but it’s not foreign. I have felt it  a few times and each time I’m given real, tangible examples of what it means to be a daughter of the King and not an object to be used and put back haphazardly. 

So as this began as a post about being gracefully broken but I wasn’t sure how that would play out it’s become abundantly clear that despite the cursing and the overwhelming anger and many, many tears from within that I didn’t even know I still held because I’ve shoved it so far down I’d forgotten about it my brokenness has been covered by grace. The choices I made and the ones made for me brought me here but I don’t have to stay here. And I choose not to. I’m a woman capable of being loved and loving someone else. Lots of someone’s . In healthy ways that don’t require me to do anything except show up and be exactly who I am. To wholly surrender every bit of what’s happened to me, what I’ve allowed to happen, and what I’ve wanted to happen, at the feet of Christ and declare with the boldness that comes from Him alone that repentance comes from a broken heart that wants to turn and run  the opposite direction from what I’ve been doing and run straight to Him. The arms of many men have hurt and caused harm. The arms of the Father are open wide for me in all I’ve done. The words of many have crushed my spirit but He’s in the business of affirming that we are chosen by Him-fully set apart. The brokenness has never come from Him-but the grace is from Him and Him alone. And for that I can think of no one to trust more  that it’ll be okay to let someone in one day. And if I’m being called to a life of singleness then that’s okay too. The end game here is not to fill a void with someone else but to be so wholly committed to and belief in who Christ says I am that if someone else loves Jesus more than they love me then let’s chase after the cross together in a way  that we’d been doing separately but even more effectively together. Because at the end of the day He is near to the brokenhearted-He is near to Elizabeth- He is near to me. Because He loves me. And I can think of nothing that’s more opposite of brokenness than the wholeness that comes from the sufficiency of Christ, the work He’s done, and the acceptance of the free grace only He provides. I’ve been defined by my brokenness for a long time and was wholly unaware until now. And so in the name of Jesus I confess and leave that here and now. Christ said it is finished. And it absolutely is.