Battles of the heart.

I used to think that when you began to deal with things that were "baggage" it was a healthy process. That you could enter a tunnel, struggle through it, see the light at the end, and exit.
Apparently it's more accurate that you walk through the tunnel again and again and again.
I'm currently reading the book "redeeming love". This book was recommended to me 3 years ago and I never picked it up because I've always been REALLY against girly christian novels. (cheeeeeeeezy.) Then I had a stirring in my heart. Suddenly it was a book I just had to read. I pick it up every day and cry at least once, if not many times, at the words on each page.
Quick synopsis: The main character of the book is struggling with some serious hurt. She was an illegitimate child unwanted by her wealthy father. Her mother passed and she was sold into a brothel at 8, had part of her ripped out - literally - so she could never bear children, fled to safety only to be picked up and cast into another brothel (because of her amazing beauty). She lived for years as the highest priced prostitute before Michael Hosea (making a connection?) was instructed by God to go after her and marry her. Sounds crazy... but he did and the rest of the book describes her aches of accepting, recieving, and giving love. This character is a woman that never let anyone in emotionally. She is hard. She has walls around her 4 feet thick and hundreds of miles tall that no one can climb- much less tear down.
At one point in the story she interacts with a family that interacts and exists as a healthy family should and as she sits and observes she is completely blown away at how the family functions. These people reach out to her, to know her, and she has no idea what to do with it because she was an outcast for 10 of her 18 years of life.
Sometimes I cry because it makes me ache to read the thoughts of this fictional character's mind. Sometimes I cry because I know exactly how she feels.
My scars are not as deep nor as many as this character. But they are there and they affect me, on a smaller scale, the same as her. But to see it from the outside.. I wonder if people saw through me the way they see through her. See her hurt written all over her. It makes me wonder what I was like.. what I'm still like. How am I perceived? Do I look cold and dead at the times I feel that? Do I look like I'm fighting myself in my head at the moments that I am? Or can I play it off like I've always thought I could...
I've processed my past of abuse many times. Every time it's a little different. Sometimes it's with a counselor, a friend, a mentor. Most of the time its alone. I always feel like I come to the end, a resting point in the journey. But eventually something tells me I have to get up and keep walking. Every time I walk I'm dragging myself through thorns and mud and nastiness.
I'm wondering what will end up coming of my life. What will it look like as these aches and pains are used for Him? How will I help people? What are these "big" things I'm destined to do? I'm excited and full of anticipation. I finally feel like I have something to give, rather than feeling like everything has been sucked out of me. Thats gotta be a good step right?
This is part of what I read today.

Psalm 37 v 3-6
³ Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

⁴ Take delight in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

⁵ Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

⁶ He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.

Verse 3 was especially encouraging. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture... PLEASE!
Safety... I still struggle to feel safe. Not that I think I'm going to get attacked when I walk down the street, but I never feel safe to be completely myself. That is what a lot of safety is in my mind. Me being free to be me. The me I am without the abuse, the hurt, the anger, the walls. There are two places I have felt that I was that person. Grand Haven and Virginia Beach. Both beach towns... ironic. In grand haven, I felt that for a couple of months. In Virginia only for a week. It was enough that I think about certain moments from those two places a lot. People noticed something different about me. Sometime softer maybe? Something free, relaxed, joyful.

I am now trusting the Lord... hoping for provision and a chance to dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture, to receive the desires of my heart.