Fully known and fully loved.

To be fully loved we have to be willing to be fully known. I embraced this life lesson for the very first time six years ago today. Bittersweet emotions fill my heart as I take a walk down memory lane. At first glance it seems as though lose was the theme to my life and brokenness was the title of each passing chapter. As an individual I had to come to the end of myself it was there where I found a new start to life.



Face to face with my demons and my deepest darkest secrets, that is what got me a round trip ticket out of state. Was being fully known worth being fully broken? Was being fully loved worth feeling fully and completely done with myself? If I had been asked six years ago in the moment of my brokenness, I am not sure how I might have answered such a question. However, today, I would have to say without a doubt, yes!



Sitting in a pile of denial, weaving my way out of my darkness and reaching out to my creator is exactly what helped me step out of the dungeon that I had created for myself and into the light. Fearful of being fully known and fully rejected had kept my secrets locked up for over thirty years.



My husband had spent a decade himself in denial, covering up for me the messes I had left behind and the trail of dysfunction that resulted in most relationships I had touched. My young children had only known me under the influence and the abnormal was their normal.



As I spoke the truth that night six years ago, exposing my greatest weakness at the time, I could feel the weight of the secret coming off me. I was skin and bones weighing just under 90 lbs and hooked on 120 pills a day. I had tried to quit more times then I could remember but the addiction had a death grip on my life and it would not let go.



The power that finally broke the grip was exposing the truth of my addiction. I had nothing else to lose that night. I came to an understanding with myself and with my maker. I sat completely broken my heart shattered in a million pieces and my life in total chaos. I realized that I did not want to die, but I did not know how to live. I was tired of all the secrets, all the lies and deception just to feed my habits, the addictions and the hurts that were piled high from years of not dealing with them. If there was a substance that could be abused, from a pill, to a bottle from food to my body, I had done it. My mentality was if a little was good then more must be better.



I had hungered to be fully loved and completely wanted my whole life. But it wasn’t until I was willing to be fully known and completely real about who I was and what I had done, it was at that moment that I realized that I had believed a lie most of my life. “If they only new.” Four powerful words that kept me from fully exposing who I was, kept me from flying in the freedom we feel when we allow ourselves to be fully loved.



Today I am committed to being fully known and completely real about who I am, where I have been and where I am going. I have learned to embrace my past with open arms, to use my brokenness to reach out to others and never be sorry for who I am. Thank you all who have stood by my side, cheered me on, been there to catch me when I fall and loved me just the way I am.