My battle wounds.

These seven scars (some have faded) represent His healing.

I always hated shorts or showing my legs. This was why.

In Summer of 2010, I faced the biggest battle with my worst enemy. That enemy was myself.

There were other people involved, but my flesh was my biggest rival. These scars represent the war that I had to face that summer. The war that I had lost, because I had surrendered to Jesus. These scars came on July 25.

I don't need to go into full detail of the circumstances I went through, because I realize that everyone can have different circumstances, but it is the big picture that truly matters. We've all experienced hopelessness, guilt, shame, etc. This is my story.

At this point in my life, there were several factors occurring in my life that led up to everything that happened. I was in a very weak and vulnerable position in life and I never knew what to do or who to listen to. I knew right from wrong, but due to my stubbornness, I took some dangerous paths. I will admit, I put myself through the situations that I did, and because of that guilt, I took my anger out on myself by cutting, because I was so angry with myself to the point where I became masochistic. It was an internal battle. I was mentally, physically, and spiritually deteriorating. On September 1, 2010, after several months of fighting what you can say was my "civil war," I truly felt God speak to me. He told me that every breath I took was another opportunity to know HIM and to live out the gift that He has given me FOR HIM, and that gift was LIFE.

I'm only human, and as much as I may change throughout the seasons of life, memories always stay the same. And because that battle was so physically and emotionally brutal, because of all of the manipulation and the lies that were being fed into my head by the enemy, I think that there's a part of me that's always going to ache. But, I believe it's part of God's purification and sanctification process. These scars remind me every day of the battle I went through. We will never obtain that whole freedom until we reach heaven. I can only pray for His strength to be my strength whenever I face those internal battles. It's been almost 2 years and it still tends to cross my mind like it happened just yesterday.

But I won't let it define me. It can't defeat me because I've already conquered that trial and because my identity is not in what I have done in my past but what Christ has done for me. I'm still learning to take my eyes off myself and my faults and to fixate my eyes on my beautiful Savior on the Cross - knowing that it is finished. I'm now in the recovery stage, and will always be in it until He calls me home. God knows the pain and suffering I've been through and as much as I wish I could forget sometimes, He calls us to REJOICE, for the battle has already been won. I don't have to feel insecure anymore. And it is all thanks to Him and His healing that I have become the woman of God I am today.

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." - 2 Corinthians 12:9