A Decade Called Healing
I was having coffee with a friend on today, both the first day of the year and the first day of a new decade. I’d had plans for my Christmas break and, aside from our travels, none of them really happened. There was so much writing I wanted to do and so much alone time with Father that I deeply wanted that just didn’t happen for different unavoidable reasons. So as my friend was telling me about how great her Christmas break was, I was both thrilled for the ways Father showed up in her 3 weeks off and frustrated that mine didn’t go as according to my plan… I’d had a great time with family and with Mason on our vision casting trip, but I didn’t get to process the year on my own or plan out personal goals for 2020 and sitting down to do so felt like I needed to quickly get it done in the few spare minutes I had. And then in a split moment talking to my friend, Father reviewed my decade. I have a way of always needing or using more words than is always necessary, not good or bad, it just is. However, Father can use lots of words (like 66 books worth—the Bible) or just a few to catch your attention. And this is what that looked like…
—2009—
August 2009, I became an RA (Resident Assistant) as a student at Christ For the Nations Institute. It was truly submitting my will to Father’s will and desire for me. He told me to apply to be an RA and I didn’t like females. I had so many wounds on my heart from female relationships that it was just easier to avoid them, both the wounds and solid deep friendships with other females. But I did so and never regretted my decision. Fast-forward to August 2019, ten years later.
—2019—
August 2019, Resident Assistants returned to campus at Evangel University. Of the 35-40 RAs at Evangel, 6 of them were mine, I was their boss. The position I’d said yes to 10 years prior, I was now their leader, the Residence Director. It was now my job to encourage them to communicate and lead well. To work through wounds and not be the females who are fickle and catty and inflict wounds on other females. It was my job to be that example to my 6 RAs and the other 141 female students in my hall, to be an example of not the female we’ve all been hurt by at one point or another, but the female that encourages sisterhood. The female who encourages applauding wins of our fellow sisters and not comparison and competition. The female to lead by example and one to point them to Jesus. That’s my job.
By Father highlighting the yes I gave Him 10 years ago, He was also highlighting all He walked me through over the last 10 years. At 19 years old, He gave me the opportunity to become a Resident Assistant, but He was actually giving me an invitation into a journey of healing to prepare my heart for destiny. Our yeses are doorways to destiny and purpose and they so deeply matter. At 29 years old, I’m thankful 19-year-old-Charis said yes against her will. I’m thankful for the last 10 years of my life and walking with Jesus. If this decade had a name, it would be called…
—Healing—
2009 — Mason and I started dating in 2009, our first real relationships. Much to my surprise, our relationship was another step into healing what I didn’t know was broken.
2010 — We broke up after 7 months of dating. I was devastated and felt emotionally divorced. But I’d lost myself, my identity, in this relationship that Father gave me. In 2010, Jesus did some serious open heart surgery after moving to New Hampshire… my reason for moving there was wildly different from God’s reason for taking me there.
2011 — After an identity overhaul (one that I didn’t know what only just beginning) and 9 months of being apart and becoming totally different people, God brought us back together in a place called Hope Mansion. I’d learned new things about God that I didn’t know before and, in turn, I’d learned things about myself I didn’t know before… which led to a deeper level of realizations…
2012 — In the middle of a fight in a friend’s car, God pushed childhood abuse situations that had been deeply submerged in the recesses of my memory up to the surface. Mason nor I remember at all what the fight was about, but out came truths I didn’t remember were there, as no one unrelated to the situations knew of their happenings. So after a long summer of what do we do with this information, I along with the other female students at SAGU received an email from the Counseling Center about a new group counseling group they were starting for the exact situations I’d experienced… and 8 would be accepted to this group. Long story short, I was selected for this group and then began the nosedive into deep waters leg of this journey called Healing. The bandaid had been ripped off and so had the next few layers of skin. Such lies and wounds had been exposed and Father had every intention to bring the healing Jesus purchased for me to each layer one-by-one from the core of my being. After a few months of deep therapy, Mason and I got engaged.
2013 — May 25, 2013, we got married. So much unveiling had transpired and so much healing had taken place. Yet, so much more was to come.
2014 — After another attempt to lose weight—hiring a personal trainer, working out 5 days a week, counting every calorie of everything that went into my mouth, and only losing 6-9 pounds in 3 months—I was diagnosed with PCOS. I finally had a reason for the rapid weight gain and the difficulty losing weight. There was finally proof that it wasn’t my fault. I started taking metformin and positive change started happening the end of 2014, beginning of 2015.
2015 — January I went back to the gym and joined the BodyPump class and after 3 months I’d finally lost weight… like 35 pounds. Hard work was finally paying off. So August of that year, we decided to start trying to conceive. I got off birth control and so began that journey.
2016 — This was the first year God had given me a word of the year: Direction. Lo and behold, our direction moved us to Missouri and we ended up in Springfield, Missouri. The city we didn’t plan on moving to, the city I never wanted to live in, but the very city He needed us to be in. Oh, 2016. The year He started teaching me rest and healing the need to strive and work for Him, but to just live in rest and be His Love. I took a position at Great Circle and was just that… His Love and heart to children homeless and in foster care; that’s our job wherever we go. The reality of trauma was so real; there are so many children who have experienced deep, deep trauma at such young ages, at the hands of supposed trusted people. There’s just so much brokenness, and that’s the importance of being His Love and heart for humanity. There’s nothing more powerful than not just love, but His Love to a world that’s hurting and searching for truth.
2017 — Then 2017 happened. Again He gave me a word for the year: Deeper Healing. At this point, I thought for sure this meant my body would be healed and we’d get pregnant. And then our first son, Malachi, was born into Heaven… which for us, was such hope. After trying for 2 years, that was the closest we’d gotten. A few weeks later, we started seeing a fertility specialist and such deep frustration happened. Man, 2017 was such a tough year. In the midst of fertility treatments and intrusive procedures, we started attending our now home church, Hope Church, and my Dad had open heart surgery. Life-threatening procedures really make you reconsider grudges, offenses, and unforgiveness. My Dad’s surgery lead to the start of deeper healing in my relationships with both of my parents, starting with choosing forgiveness. Isn’t it funny how sometimes we are what’s holding up our own healing? Forgiveness is a key to such freedom, friends. Unforgiveness really isn’t worth it. This year also brought deeper healing to wounds from old friendships I didn’t know were lingering, wounds that negatively affected the way I allowed myself to trust in relationships with other females and in the way that I would leave some walls up to protect myself. Y’all. Clearly, it’s been a process. A process that surely set up 2018…
2018 — The year Father said, “I make all things new”. After a difficult 2017, I walked into 2018 wanting something “new” but also afraid to hope. So when we started seeing a new specialist, I was terrified. Nevertheless, I had to shake off the terror and hopelessness and choose Jesus. I’d been introduced to Moms in the Making in March, and in April we found out we were pregnant! “I make all things new” sure made sense! At least it did for the first 6 months. January-June felt like 1 year and July-December was an entirely different year. July 2, I went into pre-term labor with our son at 17 weeks. Carrying him changed me. Losing him changed me even more. 2018 shook me. Shook us. But Father was so good. I didn’t know there was such heart healing that needed to happen until the end of 2018 and into 2019, but the beauty of 2018 was this: With different seasons and situations in life, we get to learn a new facet of who God is and through that we also learn a new facet of who we are. Father used such pain and made something beautiful and new. It was 0% what we expected and not His plan, but He is so so very good to use 100% of what we endure and walk through. After the growth through grief that happened in 2018 and into 2019…
2019 — the word He spoke to my heart was “Get Ready”. To be honest, when I heard “Get Ready” I felt the need to brace myself for impact. And again He was so good to immediately speak to that, that it wouldn’t mean to brace yourself and get ready for the floor that was going to crumble beneath my feet. I mean, He didn’t give me much more, but after closing out 2019 last night, I’m not surprised. What a whirlwind?! Again January-June was like 1 year and July-December was a totally different year. With 2019 came a deeper understanding of Father’s heart, a deeper identity found in His heart, healing in places where I was angry at Him, healing and incredible opportunities with the hospital where we had Zadok, and selling our house and rehoming our puppy Winston (legitimately one of THE hardest things we’ve every had to do) in order to step into my new job as a Residence Director. After the 2018 Moms in the Making conference, I decided to start taking Father at His Word and start believing and proclaiming the healing that was purchased for me on the Cross. I removed PCOS from my proverbial name-tag of what I call myself to more accurately align with what Father calls me. So while it was a diagnosis I had received, I stopped calling it mine. So just before the 2019 Moms in the Making conference, 2019 also marked the ending of PCOS and getting off metformin after 5 solid years. What a doozy 2019 was!! And now…
2020 — “Take Off”. Whether that is to “take off”, as to remove things and mindsets that may hold us back and don’t align with the Word, or to prepare for “take off”, as to be launched into deeper ways of the Lord and destiny, we are ready for it. I’m so thankful for the last 10 years of healing to bring me to where I am today and where we are today in our life and marriage. I’m not sure what all will come; Father is full of surprises, but whatever it is we’re ready to adventure on into what God has for this year and this next decade of our lives.