Enabler : The Private Pain & The Promise of Hope


I'm not sure I can pinpoint EXACTLY when in the past nine days I came to the realization I was an enabler, but I know exactly the moment in time when I used the word for the first time to describe my actions therefore having the realization CONSCIOUSLY for the first time...That was today.

*Deep Sigh*

I just googled the word enabler and read the definition, and then....because I am a glutton for punishment...I read an article on how you know when you are one. In the words of Jeff Foxworthy, "I are one."

I coach enablers. How can I be one? I am sitting here stunned.

I wish someone were here right now so that I could physically collapse in their arms and be held why I sob. My entire body from top to bottom needs a bone-deep cry.

If the first step if acknowledging you have a problem, then we can check that one off the list. Next.

I have known for awhile...especially since February...that there was a problem, but hand to God I really thought the problem was that I wasn't enough, wasn't managing someone or things enough, that I was too much or too little...hell, one of the handful of reasons I started counseling mid-March was because one particular person in my life had me convinced of all of these things. The joke is on them, I did need counseling, and it continues to be the best thing I have done for myself...maybe ever.

The thing about counseling...at least good counseling...is that you get better. Your eyes are opened. Fears are faced. Tough truths are met head-on....and you grow. I have two guests in the middle of mine too - God and the enemy - they are wrestling for my heart, mind, body, and soul. Sometimes....like last Friday, last Sunday, and every day this week...I am sitting at the edge of the arena watching them....blow. by. blow.

*Tears*

{cold washcloth time}

I have been suffering silently for many, many years about many things...but none more than this. I just didn't know what "this" was...and now that I do, I am struggling not to feel completely foolish. So tonight I am allowing myself the space and time to grieve that feeling of foolishness....and the shame that goes with it. In the words of my nephew, "Mistakes were made." Many.

Another week of counseling...Another epiphany.

I don't know what your private or silent pain is, but I know you have one. I know that in fact the struggle truly is real...for you, for someone you know, and for every single person populating this earth. For many of us we suffer out loud - In. Public. For many still, this private, silent pain is within a much smaller group...and for many within only their own heart and mind.

For me...counseling has been a God-given miracle. It is the most painful thing you can imagine wrapped up in a beautiful box with Christmas wrapping. On most days, I equally loathe and love it. I also know it is healing me from the inside out. God is meeting me in these spaces of my life and my past that I have hidden...and some that I never knew existed such as the deep, private lesson of enabling shown to me this week. A week of pain and lessons and learning I could not have imagined just six months ago.

If I ever get a tattoo...the word restoration will be a part of it somehow because as I look back on this journey of the past four and half years, I see that word like a flashing neon light in the night sky all along my path....again and again. I could (and have...and did again tonight) weep over the loss of time and people and things in my journey. The reasons vary, but my own responsibilities in there are many. BUT....but there is also hope. Great hope that God will use the restoration he is creating in my own life. Hope that I will rise up and try again....Hope.

Hope.

"Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy." - Psalms 126:5

Last Thursday, I was in a prayer room and given that verse...and tonight it spoke to me once again. There is no shame in the tears that I am shedding through these lessons and my own healing. A healing I am claiming once again tonight.

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