Lynse Leanne

Recently i have been asked by some people why my name is spelled different….i have 2 spellings Lindsay and Lynse.

legally it is Lindsay….but to me it looks so foreign. up until now only my closest friends who knew me at the time know why….and Chad of course. Some of them may not even know that Lynse is not legal. but i guess i am out now….legally i am Lindsay Leanne….not Lynse Leanne.

but here goes the story.

when i was a junior in high school i lived in Colorado Springs, i was holding on to a lot of things, a lot of hurt. I was in the process of just coming clean about my sexual abuse and self injury issues….But i was working through it….I was letting God work in me and change a lot of the ways that i chose to cope.

i wanted God to show up and change those things in me, to heal me and take those things away. i wanted him to make me more like him.

so i spent 2 days praying and fasting for God to take it away from me and closed my time with communion….it was at a church service and i heard the pastor say something that i had never heard….

he said that God wanted to heal all of me, every area, including my mind and emotions….and i bought into it.

i cant tell you my exact feelings, but there was just a peace and a knowing that God showed up and i was not depressed anymore….i knew that God was near me. Of course i had “down” moments, but i was no longer depressed…and yes, there is a big difference.

you are probably wondering where the name change comes in….well that night i went to starbucks to read some more. I ordered my normal Grande Vanilla Soy No Water Chai and the lady at starbucks wrote my name “Lynse” and i liked it….

i was reading the story in Genesis 32 when God changes Jacob’s name to Israel and at that moment i felt the LORD say that just as he has begun a good work in me he was also changing the spelling of my name so that each time i wrote it or saw it i would be reminded that he worked in my life. That He changed me….that He showed up, we wrestled and God changed my name.

so for all of you who have asked….there it is. and for all of you who had no clue….you now know.

Has God ever done something so huge in you that you had to do something huge to remember it?

Today we babysat for a small group. Chad and I and 11 kids. Lets just say that if there was ever a form of birth control that may be it.

As we were watching the kids we had a fun game going with one of the little boys. He was so sweet and innocent. I was holding the ball up and bouncing it on the ground. As i did he was trying to catch it and Chad was standing behind him snatching him up from catching the ball.

This game probably went on for 2 minutes and then we decided that we would let him catch the ball.

The funny thing was as i bounced the ball for him to catch he took 2 steps back and fell into Chad as if he was being snatched and kept from keeping the ball.

a few minutes went on and i looked at Chad and said “that was a spiritual principle if i’ve ever seen one.”

He had become so used to the fact that he was not going to get the ball even though it was right in front of him. He was used to being snatched up right before.

How many times do we do this? We cant get to the ball that God has in front of us because of the different ways the enemy keeps us. But once we break free from the enemy and can just reach out and grab the ball we back away and into the enemies arms.

I know that i am so guilty of this. Time and time again i go back into the grips of the enemy and his lies…

“i cant do that”
“my story disqualifies me”
“you are not good enough”

all of the lies that i believe.

But i just have to reach out and grab it.

The truth is the enemy has been defeated and we can overcome him. We have already overcome him. we just have to choose to reach out and grab it.

put your hands out.

Opening up and letting someone in started the long long road of recovery, the road that I am still traveling. Not only from self injury, but also from the abuse.

I can’t say that I am totally “over” the abuse, I think something like sexual abuse is something you carry with you your whole life. You may just grow detached as time goes on. I still daily deal with it. I still daily choose to forgive my abusers. I still daily face the lies I bought into. I still daily combat those lies with the truth of God.

Self injury is something that through God’s grace is behind me. After counseling and years of “sobriety” from it I can say that I no longer run to it for my first solution.

But to be honesty, I have hard times when I struggle with it and relapse. But I go to God and ask for His forgiveness, I confess it to a safe person and I move on, I no longer let guilt play in my mind, God has moved on… and so should I.

It has taken years to get to a place that I can even begin to think about sharing my story. I was 6 when all of this started and I am now 23….and it is only now that I feel strong enough to share.

Though it has been a rough fight I know that God has walked alongside me the whole time….and the times I couldn’t walk I know that He carried me.

As I continue to work through some of the lies I believed from other people or the lies that I told myself I have began to experience such freedom.

Chad and I work through the residue of this daily. I am still in counseling and it is a daily struggle I have to fight through.

Lies left un-touched for years become very hard to fight. They become ingrained in your life…everything. And it is totally unnoticed the more time goes on.

Through most of my life I have played the role of the victim. Because I kind of was, so I felt entitled to it.

But instead of carrying that through my entire life I chose to be a victor. I knew that God had something big for my life. And I woke up to the fact that I was choosing to hold onto it and stop God from doing big things in and through me.

So instead of sitting back and letting all of these things define who I am and change who God made me to be I chose to deal with them. Look the straight in the face and combat the lies.

I had a choice. I could continue to let it own me, define me and run my life….OR I could take a hold of God and fight through all of my junk. It was not and is not easy. But the freedom I have right now makes it worth it. And I know the longer I fight the more freedom I will know.

So today, October 29th, 2009 I would say that I am in a healthy place. I am still walking this all out. I am still learning what it means to live in freedom, in forgiveness, and without letting something totally define me.

I am learning to be me. The me that God made…not the me that I became because of circumstance.

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if you missed my story you can catch up here.
Part 1 – my first secret
Part 2 – it was who i was
Part 3 – the first cut is the deepest
Part 4 – I just wanted a friend
Part 5 – The Only Thing I Had

I never spoke a word about it. I was back to hiding my darkest secrets. The ones that were killing me the longer they stayed secrets.

I dove further into self injury. It became my obsession. It was the only way to get past that time.

I wanted to die because I didn’t even feel like I was alive. I was an empty body walking around.

So I would cut to see the blood. To know I was still alive.

Cutting became the only thing I had to look forward to.

The only thing that was positive in my life.
The only thing that stood by me.
The only thing that didn’t judge me.
The only thing I didn’t have to worry about leaving me.

It was safe.

I kept cutting secretly from 13 until 17. 4 years of silence. 4 years of playing the game.

I was in church by this point and if you were to ask anyone around me I was happy. Life was good. But deep down I was dead. Cutting was the only way I could fake my way through life.

But one Sunday my life’s course completely changed because a lady was bold enough to share her story….

I was in a small group meeting called Become. It was for girls and each week they had a different speaker come and share with the group. On this particular week a lady came and shared her story of sexual abuse. In high school she was raped. She shared her journey of healing through that. She seemed to have a normal life…a husband, 3 perfect children. But her story was a lot like mine.

For the first time in a long time I felt a little twinge in my heart. I like to think it was a spark of hope.

That day I opened the door to someone. I let someone in.

I was not sure what to expect. I just dumped that I was sexually abused and was heavily involved in self injury. I didn’t know if she was safe. But I did know that she had a story a lot like mine. I hoped should would have a soft heart.

After I got everything out she asked if I would like to get coffee that coming week. She wanted to talk more about everything and find out if I was ready to heal.

She was willing to just sit with me, to cry with me…she was content to just be with me. Whatever I needed from her she was willing to give.

Over time I grew to love her. We are still in contact to this day.

Trust took a while. I was still scared there would be some form of betrayal. Because what else could I expect?

Over the years I would spend time at her house, with her family and children. She was like a second mother to me. She was incredible.

But no matter how difficult I made it on her in the beginning she walked along side me as long as we lived in the same city. She was someone I could trust completely.

If I needed her at 2am, she was there. She was safe. She was just what I needed.

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if you missed my story you can catch up here.
Part 1 – my first secret
Part 2 – it was who i was
Part 3 – the first cut is the deepest
Part 4 – I just wanted a friend

I was 13 and was new to my school.  8^th grade…the year I am convinced is the worst to change schools in….and I changed countries.

My first day was filled with such fear.
Was I going to look like all of them?
Would I act differently?
We moved to the South so I wondered if I would be able to understand any of them.

The first day of classes for me came around and I remember sitting in Reading class and getting a note from a girl one row over. (we will call her Melanie for this story).

The note simply asked my name, how old I was, where I lived and if I drank, smoked or did drugs.

I thought about the determination I had and debated playing dumb to avoid all of the things I wanted away from….but I was so desperate for friends, for love….for something.  So I checked yes to all.

Turns out she lives in the apartments near my house. So it made sense that we would hang out. It just worked.

Melanie and I hung out all the time.  We would get off the bus at her apartment and spend hours there.  The first time I was over there she gave me the family scoop.  She lived with her Uncle and Aunt, but her aunt was back home because her uncle had been drinking and became violent and beat her.

In my mind I saw all of the “red flags” but wanted to be accepted so bad, I just wanted a friend, so I brushed over it. I ignored the red flags and warning signs.

We would hang out, smoke pot, drink and whatever else we wanted and whenever we wanted.  Her uncle would buy us anything we desired….alcohol, pot, cocaine…anything that would make us stay more time with them.

I posted a few weeks ago about one night at their house and how physically abusive he was…but that was a pretty regular thing.  He would physically abuse his wife on a regular basis and us as well from time to time.

Not only did he physically abuse me, he began to sexually abuse me….

It started small and the more I was silent the more he did. The one time I tried to fight him he grabbed his trusty gun and made it very clear that if I were to fight it anymore he knew how to use the gun and wasn’t afraid to use it.

I cant explain to you why I kept going back, I have spent hours obsessing over it the only reason I can come up with is that I was scared for my life. I didn’t feel safe enough to tell anyone. I could have lost my only friend, or my life.

So I endured the abuse.

Over a period of 6 months the abuse escalated until he raped me.

I was 13, he was 46….

I felt so used.
So objectified.
So broken.

I knew these feelings from the abuse before. But this time it was more. I must have been the one to blame….because it kept happening. Did I have a target on my back that said “hey, come abuse me?”

A week after the rape Melanie moved to live with her grandmother and that was the end.

I knew that I no longer had to endure the abuse.

But the fear plagued me….

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If you missed part 1 – 3 here they are….
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3