“My Re-Story:” How Brandon Became Unafraid to Share His
I was always terrified of my story. Not just ashamed or scared, but terrified. This was because every single time that I opened up about a certain part of my story with the men in my life, it would always end with the friendship ending.
This happened over and over again for around ten years. So I just stopped sharing. I began believing that there was something seriously wrong with me and my story.
I believed that I never was the right kind of broken to be cared for or loved.
Trying To Earn Friendship
In order to counteract this inherent brokenness, I worked to become the perfect Christian. Because obviously God didn’t trust me enough in my brokenness to have the kind of friends that are like brothers. Obviously I had some serious work to do in order prove that I could handle those relationships.
So I did everything I could. I served in the worship team. I led a Sunday school small group. I went on every mission trip. I studied at a Bible institute. I went to Bible college. I worked at a missions camp. I even came to seminary!
While I was at seminary I began to meet some guys in my life that allowed me to share for the first time in years. And they didn’t leave. They didn’t run away.
I began to feel like I was experiencing some healing for the first time, and it had been about a year since I moved to come to seminary, and I thought that I could start to go a little deeper in my life. I thought I was in a good place, and that I could handle another “extra-curricular” ministry like Restore.
Until that friend that I had initially opened up to crossed a boundary that should have never been crossed the week before we were scheduled to tell our stories.
Then Restore, originally just this extracurricular activity, turned quickly into an intensive care unit for my soul.
Hope Even In the Middle of My Moving Story
These last few months have been without a doubt the darkest and hardest ones I have experienced thus far. And yet, I have seen God’s moving in the midst of it.
This has mostly been through the people he has brought to my side. He brought me a friend that has walked a similar path as I have and allows me to ask the deep, personal questions.
He brought me a friend that dealt with a nearly identical situation and knew how to fight for me when I didn’t have any energy to fight for myself.
And he brought me a friend whose arms were never closed and whose heart was never ran out of love and who protected me when I felt like the world was too much.
Yet even now, my friendships are changing, as just last week I had another unfortunate instance of loss of trust in a friendship.
But that’s the funny thing about our stories. They never stop. They are constantly unfolding and changing.
I don’t have all the answers. I’m honestly still very broken. I wish I could say that I always believe in the hope of a better ending to what I can currently see.
But there still some bad days.
And I know that, unfortunately, there will be more.
But what I do know is this: God is always present in my story. Though my story is one that is constantly changing and evolving, His story of love never does.
And I’ve begun to see that He is not rushing my healing. He has time to take what’s wrong, and make it right. And because I know this, I can then believe that my story, though at times feels fractured and broken beyond repair, is not something that I should be scared of.
It is something that can be used to bring Him glory and bring me closer to Him as I learn how He is constantly interacting with and loving me in the middle of my story. He is restoring my soul.
Do you want to experience God’s love walking alongside you, even in the middle of the hard parts of your story? Check out Restore: Changing How We Live and Love today!
