Its not what I remembered.

You ever look at something from your childhood as an adult and think its not what you remembered?

It wasn’t what I remembered.

This is the house I did a majority of my growing up in before we moved to Alabama. What’s amazing about this house is that I can remember more good memories than bad. It was after we lost this house that things did get worse and my memory took hold, defining “Alabama” by all the bad that had happened.

I was so young when we moved in that anything before this house was a bit of a blur where I can remember both bad and the good. Isn’t it interesting that our minds tend to hold on to the good, that they can give us a feeling of comfort? Even when, in reality, comfort was something we longed for back then.

When I think about this house, I think of a little girl who thought life was good and didn’t know what was coming. It was before my mother became unfamiliar to me before she became a stranger. It was before my father became so angry. It was before we were all so broken.

I don’t remember it being so small. It wasn’t terribly small, but I picture it so much bigger in my memories. I also don’t remember it being so plain; back then, it was so alive to me. I remember flowers in the garden, grass greener than anything.

Now I see what most of you see - a dull, brick house with no character. Maybe it’s grandeur and bright gardens and green grass were all in my imagination? Maybe I needed to hold on to something good through the abuse that was to come, to slowly losing my mother to the battles of addiction and a series of mental illnesses that would change her before my eyes.

Perhaps I needed something secure to hold onto before security and hope slipped away? Maybe.

I shared a little about my past with you in a recent post and, please - I encourage you to go find it. In fact, I think it’s important enough that I will tell you where to go when I’m done here.

This is about more than a house, though. I don’t want to talk about this house right now, I want to share a deeper message God shared with me as I saw this house in a photograph again, so many years later and not long ago.

He told me to let go.

See, I am bold in my mission. Here I am following the call God Himself gave to me, writing a book about my story and the glory that were to come, and the Lord tells me to let go.

What am I possibly holding on to?

Then I saw and felt it clearly - it’s time to let go of an image of building something from the past. God is a God of moving forward. As it is, I am at the point in my book where moving forward is something I have to slow down to actually do.

And in slowing down, I am faced with many more memories that I need to reflect on, and mostly, that I need to let go of. In letting go of these memories, images, and thoughts that remain from some of my darkest moments, I am coming into true healing.

You can’t move forward when you’re trying to build something from an image of your past. Moving forward means walking into something new and unfamiliar, facing the truth of what was and letting it go to become something new; to become someone you were always meant to be.

This is a house I held onto for years to create false hope when it actually needed to be left alone.

Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of? Are you holding onto a false hope that God is trying to reveal as not being His? I encourage you to look hard at it again.

Look and then release it. It wasn’t that good anyway.

We can’t always trust our minds, but we can trust God. We can trust the new. We can trust the light that exposes the darkness and becomes His best.

Move forward, friends, don’t look back. There’s nothing there.

Genesis 19:26A: But Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. God had them move forward and she got caught in trying to hold on to something that wasn’t really good in the first place.

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This is my story.

We all have a story, sometimes we feel too ashamed to share. Some of our stories feel too dark or we are so wrapped up in them that we feel unreachable at times. I know how that can feel. But God! He reaches those very people - us! - and brings us out with our stories. He transforms us and makes us new. My story for you begins here, but it’s not the end...

I was born in Springfield, Michigan the second child in a family of 7. As childhoods go my younger years were relatively normal; we had a good home, a loving family and many great times. It was around my 11th birthday when everything started to drastically change in our family. It was at this time that drug addiction started changing my mother and losing her job had us moving south to Alabama where my grandmother lived. The next 7 years of my life were some of the darkest times in my life. It was during these next 7 years that I would learn of my family’s history of addiction and all of the dysfunction that accompanied it. My grandfather’s suicide and mental illness fueled my mother’s addiction in Alabama like I had never seen before. Job loss after job loss had us constantly on the move; at times, homeless, or staying in apartments that my stepfather was employed by as “maintenance man”. As my mother’s addiction deepened she began to spend long periods of time in bed, leaving my stepfather to care for all five kids. This was the time in my life when molestation and abuse began, slowly but surely increasing and leading me to wonder where I belonged or where to turn for love. So when I was 16 I found myself entering toxic, unhealthy and manipulative relationships - I was literally looking for love in all the wrong places. I longed for connection, love and protection, but was naive and desperate to find it anywhere. I even tried to find it in a long term relationship with another woman. Being identified gay was where I felt more accepted. But my identity was unknown to me at the time. At this low point of my life I met my ex, who at the time took me in and protected me from my stepfather. Thinking I was in love, it being a toxic dependency. I followed him and moved to North Carolina where my life began to change. After that relationship deteriorated my 2 kids and I moved out on our own and I began wholeheartedly seeking God and what he had in store for my life. For the first time in my life I started to breakdown the walls around myself that I had built. When I was finally ok with being alone, God brought my husband, Doug, into my life. Doug accepts me for who I am and loves my kids like his own, but accepting his love was the real battle. He has loved me unconditionally from the start, but with my past I didn’t know how to receive that love. Nor did I know how to give that same unconditional love. The first 2 years in our relationship were a struggle for me. If our marriage was going to work I was going to have to work through so much. With God’s help that is exactly what I did; I got real, I got vulnerable and I challenged myself to break down my walls so I could receive genuine love and be able to give it. Four years later we are happily married and still growing closer everyday. This is just an outline of the first 30 years of my life, there is so much more that I will share in time. I wanted to share my story though, to show you some of what I have lived through and because stories like mine are my passion. In working through all of the hurt in my past, God created a fire in me to help others do the same. My prayer is that God will raise up a generation of people who can be vulnerable with each other and share in each other’s successes and overcoming’s. I know our pasts have helped shape and mold who we become, but more than anything I know that with God’s help, we can break down the walls that are holding us back from truly loving others...and receiving love. Breaking down walls brick by brick is a process, but remember - God holds the hammer. . . . . #AgentQuery #writersofinstagram #christian #vulnerability #bethelight #People #intentionalliving #Love �#vulnerability #bestrong #transparent #purpose #Jesus #motivationalquotes #authentic #writersofinstagram #writing #AshleyHenriott #MSWL #ASKAGENT #QUERYTIP #PUBTIP #TENQUERIS #CHRISTIANWRITERS