Hey everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve written. It’s partly my fault and also partly nursing school’s fault. As soon as the semester ended, I pretty much immediately started my online summer pharmacology class. I have had plenty of time to write, but just have not felt the inspiration that I needed in order to write something meaningful. Until now…

As some of you may have seen on my social media, I recently started a relationship with a wonderful man who has treated me like I am more precious than gold. With this new relationship, and with trial coming up within the next month, I have been revisiting some of the old lies that I used to let Satan tell me. “You are not worthy of this.” “You don’t deserve to be treated this well.” “He’s lying when he tells you you’re beautiful.” “You don’t really want to put your baggage on someone else. You are damaged goods now.” As I have nearly always struggled with my self esteem, after being assaulted, it got much much worse. I believed these lies along with many more. It took me to a very low place emotionally and physically. I lost an excessive amount of weight in a very short period of time and began to regularly spiral out of control with my thoughts of self hatred. After losing weight, I realized that yes, I did feel a little better about myself, but it was not fulfilling enough to make me be okay. It was miserable way to live.

In past relationships, I was not treated as well as I should have been. I was constantly made to feel like I was inferior because I was a woman. I was told that I was stupid. I was made into a last priority when I should have been one of their first priorities. So it’s no wonder that after being assaulted, I felt as though that was the way I was supposed to be treated by men. It is what I deserved.

So starting this new relationship, Satan has begun to slowly let those thoughts trickle into my mind once again. But there is one major difference… I don’t believe them anymore. Of course I still battle with my self esteem on an almost daily basis, but with Christ being the center of my happiness and comfort, I am able to tell myself that the lies I once believed were never true in the first place.

If you yourself have been assaulted, you have probably experienced a lot of these same feelings of not being enough. Here is my word of advice to you:

You deserve to have that car door opened for you. You deserve to be told you’re beautiful, because you are. You deserve everything because you are worthy. You deserve nothing less than to be treated with the love and grace that Christ treats us with. I’ll end with a verse… Christ tells us this in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” You are God’s masterpiece. Don’t ever let anyone treat you as if you are not.

Happy summer. You may feel broken, but you are so so beautiful.