Pt. 7: Share Your Story.
"Owning your story and loving yourself through that process is the bravest thing that you will ever do." -Brene Brown
After the first few weeks of living out of my backpack, seeing the radical provision of God (read that story here), I made it back to Colorado to get my car. A family I met at a revival event felt like God told them to buy me a ticket home to go get it. Then another family felt like God told them to pay for my gas to drive back across the country. I was shook. My family and friends were shook too when I showed back up in Colorado and started to tell them the stories of all that I had seen God do.
It was nice to be back in the familiarity of my hometown for a few days; I missed my comfort zone. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t somewhat homesick. The day before I left Colorado for the revival in North Carolina, I had an unexpected conversation with my mom.
“Hey Bec, the Lord has been convicting my heart recently. As a parent, I don’t think I handled everything right when you were younger…”
She humbly gave me something I was content never receiving; an apology for things that had happened over a decade ago…
As a teenager, hatred, jealousy and envy gripped me. I hated people who had “normal” families. My heart was severely infected by bitterness and strife, plagued by unforgiveness. A need for revenge drove me to leave. I thought that by cutting people out, they would acknowledge how they hurt me. I failed to realize at the time that the person I was hurting the most was myself. Another girl named Rebecca hung herself on a bridge near the middle school by my house. Sometimes I would walk past the bridge on my way home from school and imagine doing the same. The more I tried to hide it, the worst it got. Then one day, I couldn’t hide it anymore. The bruises on my face said all there was to say. Humiliated and ashamed, I moved in with some friends from school. Maybe this time my mom will listen to me. Eventually, I went back home, but the cycle continued. By the end of my sophomore year, I had had enough. I decided my family was better off without me and I left. My parents filed me as a runaway and I eventually got arrested. I numbed myself the best way I knew how. I was afraid of what I was capable of if I felt the pain of what was happening behind closed doors. I trained myself not to cry about it, telling myself that it wasn’t worth my tears. How could someone I loved so deeply turn into such a monster? Suppressing my emotions and disassociating was how I learned to numb. I often pondered the meaning of life and questioned if I wanted to keep living at all. Depression debilitated me. My schoolwork was evidence of that. By the end of my sophomore year, I had dropped out. I was haunted by shame and PTSD. Pretending to be happier than I was by getting high with my friends felt safe. On the outside, most of my friends couldn’t see my pain. Inside I felt weighed down and hopeless. I struggled to know where to place the blame. I hated myself just as much as I hated those who hurt me. Was this really all my fault like they said it was? What even happened? How did it get to this point?
I experienced life as a homeless teen without a drivers license or a cellphone for almost two months that summer.
Eventually, I found myself in a group home for at risk youth in a one-stoplight town in Kansas. It was an experience that ultimately brought me home to the arms of my Heavenly Father. It was in that place that I truly understood the power of the Gospel and the love of God. Jesus forgave me for my sins, and gave me the power to forgive the sins of those who have hurt me, and the wisdom to set healthy boundaries with them. Through the infilling of the Holy Spirit at the age of 17, I received deliverance from the dark pit that was gnawing at my soul and was given the supernatural ability to love and forgive those who hurt me.
My mom’s humility and yieldedness to the Holy Spirit that day allowed us to have a conversation my 17 year old self longed to have (and yes, that’s a picture of her). I assured my mom that I forgave her for tolerating the chaos in our home and that I love her, regardless if she apologized or not. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person, but has everything to do with you. It had been 13 years since I was placed in the girl’s home my junior year of high school and chose to forgive.
“Mom, this might sound crazy, but I’ve always kind of felt like someday God is going to have me tell my story. How do I tell the truth of what happened and still show you and dad honor? Those dark times were what brought me to the Lord.”
My heart pounded out of my chest waiting for her response. I had to know. I’d received a prophetic word about telling my story 10 years before in YWAM and had wrestled with the idea ever since. How do I tell my story and maintain connection with those involved?
“Becca, the Bible says that ‘the truth will set you free’. Tell the truth. There’s freedom there.”
A few days later, I drove across the country again to join the volunteer team at the next revival event in North Carolina. On the first day of the event, a man I’d never met before took one look at me from across the revival tent, pointed his finger at me and began to prophecy:
“Girl - you’ve been through some stuff. The Lord says that’s why you need to tell your story. Write the book. Sit down and write the book. People need to hear about what it is you’ve walked through! Write the book!”
A few hours later, I was at the prayer altar when someone else began to speak something similar:
“Scribe! Scribe! Scribe! Blog! Blog! The Lord is blessing the blog!”
I hadn’t started writing a blog yet and never considered myself to be much of a writer past periodic journaling. Later another woman who was also a stranger to me at the revival asked to pray with me and started prophesying the same thing without me sharing anything with her.
“Write your story! There’s a freedom writers movement in you!!”
My jaw hit the floor. I had prayed many times for God to lead me into His will for my life, but this was wild. That week I published my first blog about my faith journey. I left North Carolina after that and headed to Kentucky to spend time with some friends leading a smaller tent revival. When I got there, the main speaker said there was someone in the room that God was telling to write a book. The whole room was silent. Not a single person in the room responded. My heart began thumping and I knew it was me. I sheepishly lifted my hand. The man prayed for me and I recorded it on my phone. This is some of what he prayed:
“What God is doing with you right now concerning that book - there's a birthing of that book that's been stirring inside of you and you procrastinate it and then you'll write, procrastinate it and think about it - the Lord says, “Daughter I need you to sit down and write because that's going to set some people free when they read it...”
That was four of the same word within a week. You can imagine my shock after having just had that conversation with my mom about someday telling my story. In no way had I planned to tell my story now or do it in writing. Maybe in my 70’s I’d get invited to speak on mic at a church somewhere? But writing a book?! And now?! I barely made it through high school and English was one of my least favorite subjects. Aside from that, I was afraid. What would my family think? Was God really having me tell my personal testimony publicly? And including enough detail to make a book out of it?! The Lord is faithful and reminds me often that it’s not my story to tell, it’s His.
Even since, my journey has looked different. It’s looked like traveling the country and interviewing the real life characters in my story. It’s looked like sitting in prayer rooms writing, contemplating, processing. It’s looked like more counseling appointments and courageous conversations. The Lord has been kind enough to work on the fear of man in my heart as I’ve taken a deep dive into my personal story and began the process of writing it through His perspective. Declaring the word of the Lord over our fears is a powerful tool in defeating not just the fear of man, but many other things that try to pull us down. This blog today is that - declaring what it is that the Lord has said, and allowing myself to be held accountable to it. Blogging has played a role in the process of stepping into what it is that the Lord has invited me into for sure, as have each of you who read it and encourage me to keep writing. Thank you.
“And they were victorious by the blood of The Lamb and by the word of his testimony and they did not love their lives unto death.” -Revelation 12:11 ABPE
To find out what happens next on my journey, click here.
