The Black Hearted Girl

I can’t tell you how many hours I have spent in front of my computer trying to write this perfect blog. I’m exhausted. 

I’m new to this blogging thing.

Years ago, God revealed His call on my life; Ministry. 

Ugh. Me, God? Why Me? I’m about as sinful as they come. I only see a girl with a dark past and a sea of collateral damage in her wake. I’ve often told my husband that I feel like I’m “black-hearted.” That sounds odd, right? Basically, I’m ugly deep down. Suppose the outside world could see inside my heart where all my sins, bad choices, and past mistakes are; they’d see how dark the place with no sign of light lay within me.

I see myself through the lens of all the mistakes I’ve made and the “on purposes”; I have alot of those. You know, the ones where you knew you shouldn’t do it, but you did it anyway? I’m riddled with those, and sadly, many people from my past would be able to tell you those heartbreaking stories.

So, ministry. Really?

I see the faces of all the people I’ve hurt, the ones that witnessed the worst of me. Those who watched me living and loving my sin. The unremorseful me. The people who’ll scoff at this, roll their eyes, and think I’m nothing but a fraud, I get it. There is a list miles long of the terrible stuff I’ve done, and it’s kept me up many nights.

Thank God for those people who remember the ugly Jen. 

Thank God for the memories of the terrible things I’ve done. 

Because without them, the people, the memories, and the mistakes, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

I wish so badly that I could go back. 

I cringe just thinking about what I’ve done.

I would love to sit here and blame everything on my past: how my father and stepmother sexually, physically, and mentally abused me, selling me into child porn and sex trafficking; my mother abandoning me; the gang rape under a stairwell, unreported when I was twelve years old; the partner that repeatedly drugged me, had sex with my unconscious body and filmed it.

My list can go on and on. 

Do I think those things had an impact on my “ugly?” I do. 

But I now realize that even with all the tragic events that happened in my life, and as much as those things were not my fault, what I did to hurt others due to those events is my fault and mine alone. 

Me, myself, and I. 

Somewhere along the way, all that hurt and damage gave me an excuse to cause harm to others. I allowed myself to take on the title of “Victim” in the well of my pain.

Everything wrong I did had a good reason behind it and a person attached to the “wrong” that caused it. Full accountability was not my strong suit.

It took me a very long time to see the truth about myself. When I did, it changed my perspective in many ways but most importantly, in how I saw God.

You see, I spent a lot of time being angry with God. After all, it was His fault, right? He allowed me to be born, knowing who my father was, what he would do, and all the suffering I would endure. He knew. And yet He still put me here. Oh man, that’s been so tough for me to wrap my head around.

I’ve wrestled with God about that more than anything else. 

I can’t explain precisely how or when God changed my heart. I can only say that it’s been a process of alot of tears, pain, anger, blame, and some occasional moments where I’m screaming and even cussing up at God.

It started with a walk, down an aisle, to a stage in a church and a prayer. That 23-year-old me prayed and asked God into my heart, and I wanted so badly for it all to be different. I needed the pain to stop. I left that night convinced that it would all just magically disappear and I would struggle no more. I was wrong.

It was only the beginning of a long hard road full of foggy days and dark nights. The sun still shined, and the flowers bloomed in the middle of it all, but I had to get through the fog to see the flowers.

On the other side, looking back, I could see how God’s mercy never left me.

Through every painful moment, every hate-filled feeling, through all the terrible choices, the loss, and all the hurt, He brought me through it. He held me, lifted me to my feet, and taught me how to walk in victory, not in my history.

I still have my sea of collateral damage, and I’m sure many whose memories of me fill them with pain. 

I still have my past of abuse, abandonment, and those pain-filled memories. 

None of that I can change.

But what I have now is a life redeemed. A heart mended. A soul tethered to the God who saves and not to the past that tried to destroy me. 

I’m no longer the “black-hearted” girl. I’m the Jesus-hearted girl now. 

I’ll never understand in this life why God allowed me to be born into those circumstances. I wish it could have been so different for me. But through my journey of healing and walking it out with God, I can see now that it took my brokenness to bring me here, to Jesus. 

My wounds and mistakes are the stories He’ll use.

So again, ministry?

Me?

Ok God. 

Use me. 

Use my story for Your glory. 

Let them see You through a broken life and now a healed heart.

I’m ready.

Send me.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalms 34:18