Fragmentation

Everyone is talking about the virus.
I’m not going to do that.
(It’s not all about you, Corona. Geez.)

For the last six or so years, God has given me a theme for the year instead of new years resolutions. It was an idea I heard from a friend and it has been amazing to see how God develops the theme throughout each year. For me, it has been consistently a thing God wants to teach me or grow in during the year. Last year, for example was Hope. This year is Wholeness. It hardly ever turns out the way I expect and it is often only at the end of the year that I begin have any sort of understanding of what He was truly trying to get through my thick skull (and heart). Those first years especially, I went into the year thinking: oh yes, I will be an expert in _____ by December. Yah, nope. It has been a humbling experience.

So anyway, Wholeness. What does that mean? From what I understand of it so far, it flows very nicely from my Hope lessons last year. God was showing me how deeply rooted shame is in my life and the role hope plays in the healing of this. As in, “there is still hope for me.” (More about this later…) But, through this battle with facing shame, I have also been seeing a lot of other parts of myself I’ve kept hidden. (And this is where the fragmentation comes in.) And also my tendency to “chameleon” to different people and situations, defining myself differently based on expectations (or perceived expectations rather). I’ve cut myself to fragments based on what is “right” or “good” or “acceptable” or whatever, allowing only those to be shown. Then I basically locked all the “unacceptable” bits in the dungeon where even I forgot there were there. I especially did this with “negative” emotions like anger, pain, sadness. It became so natural I didn’t even realize I was dissociating (probably the technical term that applies best) from those parts of myself. This went on for most of my life until I was confronted by this dark mess of a creature inside me that I could not even identify, or accept as a part of myself. When I saw it, I wanted it dead. I was (am still) terrified of it. I’ve realized that I’ve never been my whole self, only various different arrangements of my fragments. (And even then, there were some always excluded.)

So now, God is wanting to put the pieces back together.

He wants to redeem ALL of me. Not only the pieces I think are presentable enough. But all of the pieces not even I want to acknowledge. The parts of myself I want dead. ESPECIALLY those. This has been one of the most difficult themes so far, and I am only 3 months in. But, I guess it is the best kind of surgery, the sort that will put me back together.