Locking the Door Behind Me

by Tanya Elise, posted in Depression, God, Light, Self

““No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.” -Luke‬ ‭8:16-17‬ ‭ESV

Luke 8:17 has been heavy on my heart. God laid on my heart to share something. But I have been putting it off for a few weeks now. This thing I’m sharing has a lot of feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment. It’s something that I’ve hid for quite some time. So it’s time to share.

To you this might not be an issue but to me this thing that I do (or lack of things I don’t do) is a form of self harm. It’s one of my coping mechanisms that has been part of me for a long time.

Some people see it as laziness, others might see it as untreated ADHD or depression, and I just see it as something I do not have to care about and I can hid it away in my own little world and no one has to know. But I know God doesn’t want me to stay there. I literally have never taken this to God or really talked about it because it was just “who I am”.

What I struggle with is cleanliness. Before you judge me, I love the feeling of just walking into a place and feeling at peace. I want that for me. I know some of it has to do with respecting the place in which live and making it your own and this place I don’t feel like is my own, it doesn’t feel like home. (That’s a whole other conversation to be had) So it doesn’t help my coping mechanism, it just fuels it.

I rarely clean. I rob myself from feeling at peace or at home. I rob myself from feeling calm. I often times will convince myself, “I just don’t have time”. But the reality is I don’t do it because as long as I’m the only one who has to deal with it, I’ll just suffer and it’ll be fine. That’s literally what I tell myself. So the only thing being robbed is my sense of peace and I live life like that’s ok and it’s not.

My lack of self love is evident where I live. The feeling of unworthy is piled on the sofa and on the love seat well there’s a whole lot of negative thoughts just sitting there.

I know I might get judgement on this and that’s ok. I’m not looking for validation. I’m not looking to stay where I’m at, I’m looking to move forward.

I don’t know why sharing about my other coping mechanisms was so much easier. This one was hard and something I have been putting off. This is a dark space in my life, so I know I needed to share it and bring it to the light.

An Old Wound

by Tanya Elise, posted in Cancer, Death, Depression, Faith, God, hope, Jesus, Light, Love, Redeemed, Self, Sin

I can’t put into words how I feel. I’m confused, heartbroken and so free all at the same time.

The other day in counseling we had a major breakthrough. My pivoting moment of what caused the major changes and mechanisms in my life was somehow brought to the surface.

I was 8. My grandfather was just diagnosed with leukemia, my mom was just in a terrible car accident and was in the hospital, and I had to go to the emergency room for being a ridiculous child and running into a chicken wire fence. I was scared. Life and death became real. I felt like I was going to be an orphan. I felt like I had no one.

But remembering back, all I wanted and needed was to feel love and be comforted. I didn’t need someone to write in the sky or shout it at me or even say it, I just wanted to feel and to have some sort of physical comfort. I never received it. After that, I remember looking at my siblings receiving that care but I stayed apart and went to bed after school and separated myself from the reality of my life. I was so deeply hurting and my parents had no clue, I never once told them. I swallowed the pain and went on with my life.

After that my life changed. My joy was stolen for darkness. My fear engulfed me and I became numb. I refused to feel unloved by not allowing those around to even have a chance to love me. So I became callused, soft spoken, separated and never allowed my walls to be let down.

When I was in a non-resourceful state before I met Christ I was sleeping around trying to fill the void of love and companionship. But those temporary moments just dug me further into my darkness.

Meeting Jesus saved my life. My actions prior would ended me down a path of regret, shame and disappointment. I would have never allowed myself to feel love again.

A new love was found, an everlasting love. A love I can’t destroy. This love saved my life both physically and spiritually. God’s love abounds.

This wound is old and deep but now that it’s been found it can finally be truly healed.

I don’t know if I’ll ever feel love again or if I even know how to feel it but I know God’s love and it’s all I need in the end.

Walking in Obedience

by Tanya Elise, posted in Depression, God, hope, Jesus, Light, Love, Prayer, Redeemed, Sin

Too often times we make excuses as to why we can’t or won’t do something but prayer is something that shouldn’t be our last resort and it doesn’t belong in our “to-dos” or “if I get to it” pile. It’s simple obedience to our Father. Pastor put it perfectly this morning, “All you have at the end of the day to give to Jesus is your obedience.” That’s it.

We literally only have to be obedient…our flesh wants us to turn our back to God so we find every excuse in the book why we don’t daily commune with God. We’re too busy, is our main excuse but prayer is powerful. Prayer is putting our hope and trust back into our God.

When I get down and depressed and I look back at my habits, I always see I let God become second and let my wants and needs become first, I see my prayer life seizing to exist, I see earthly things becoming more important than heavenly things. I see my purpose go out the window… but when I am communing with God regularly I see VICTORY more so I PRAISE Him more. I see more and more opportunities to be a light in a fallen and dark world.

We will never know our true calling and purpose in this life if we don’t allow ourselves to humble ourselves before the our Father. We will constantly yearn for and long for the very thing we put aside years ago as “not important”.

God is there in middle of the joy, in the mundane, and in our deepest sorrows. He will never leave you nor forsake you, but you will never live up to your calling or your purpose if you are not communing with Him. Every day is a battle between flesh and spirit, ever day we have to make the decision to walk in obedience.

Closure

by Tanya Elise, posted in Uncategorized

I never thought the only thing holding me back was simply closure.

Two weeks ago my Mommom was laying on her hospital bed knocking on heavens door. She took her last breathe and her heart took that last beat. I wasn’t upset at the fact she went home to be with the Lord. I was upset selfishly because my last memory of my Poppop just passed away.

My Poppop was my rock till 1997. I’ve talked about him before on here. But I was so hurt when he died, I felt like my whole world was flipped upside down. I never truly healed from his passing. I blamed God a lot in my childhood, for not answering prayers and healing the literal love of my life at 11 years old. He was my world.

But a little over a week ago as we laid to rest my Mommom something unexpected happened. God allowed me to be healed from and broken free from my Poppops death. I thanked God for the first time for taking him home and I repented the anger I felt towards God. I convinced myself it was ok for him to die because he was sick but never actually forgave God for being so mad at him and blaming him for taken him away.

One of the first indications were the pictures. I didn’t remember the man in them. He looked different to me and from a child’s innocent eyes he was. But I left the idea of my Poppop there in that box of innocent perfection. I was chained to an idea rather than the full truth.

I’ve learned in a few short weeks that I had been stuck in certain areas of myself that manifested in laziness and procrastination of an 11 year old little girl. I didn’t mature past that point in certain areas because I never faced the root of the chains and the problems. God gave me a key to my own chains years ago when I accept Jesus into my heart and I was called His. I just never opened my hands to realize it was there this whole time.

Over 6 months I’ve had some amazing prayer warriors get behind me. I’ve had a counselor and a pastor walk with me through so difficulty and darkness in my life. Never realizing the only thing holding me back was literally my 11 year old self refusing to let go.

After finally allowing myself to be free from those chains I have slowly started walking towards who God designed me to be, giving him every aspect o my life and allowing those shackle burns to turn to scars that I will gladly wear as a part of my amazing testimony that God continues to write.

Die to Self

by Tanya Elise, posted in Death, Depression, Faith, God, hope, Jesus, Light, Love, Prayer, Redeemed, Self, Sin

I had a really weird dream last night about death being a person “after me” or rather I thought he was so I ran from him, but he wasn’t after me. He literally said I have come so you can now have life. There was more complexity in it but it brought me to prayer.

I realized how self centered I had been. I had been focusing on me and not the mission of Christ. I was focusing on my development and my advancement but not the advancement of the Gospel.

I don’t know if you’re like me or not. But there’s a lot of us who let their flesh dictate more than we want to give it credit. We allow out flesh to run our lives without even realizing it. It’s found in our daily decisions, our moment to moment reactions and ultimately our life altering decisions.

How do we not realize it? It’s called the enemy is cunning, he’s disguises himself as what we want to see not what God wants us to see. The enemy’s best friend is bitterness, jealousy, pride, and self righteousness. We filter our next move through whatever we let rule, either our flesh or spirit.

Lately, I’ve had some tough discussions with people. I was angry at some and frustrated at others for no work of their own. I did let my reflection of self dictate their reactions and decisions and ultimately misjudged everything because I let filtered it through the flesh and not the spirit without even taken a note that it was even possible.

I had been hoping for a miracle for so long to cure me of my depression and my anxiety that I didn’t realize I was the one holding the shovel digging myself further and further into it. I allowed myself to dictate that my value comes from man, that my worth is identified in wealth and that I must do this or that to better this or that job. I didn’t see how much I wasn’t dying to self and how much I was so self focused.

I was blinded, blind sided by the enemy when I thought I was doing what was right for me, I didn’t think of what I was doing as what was right for Christ. It stems from people reaching over me saying, “you need to take care of yourself”, “your not valued enough”, and my own voices of unworthiness. I let others dictate my reactions causing my flesh to take over. Now do I need take care of myself mentally and physically, absolutely, but I internalized it as watching out for Tanya and not allowing other take advantage of of which they never actually were.

What I’ve learned is so elementary but so raw and true. That my job isn’t to make my life as best as it can be my job is to die to self everyday. It’s putting God back in control of my life. It’s giving up my reigns that I’ve held onto that I thought I let go of. It’s allowing him to use me again. I will never be free from any of it but through Jesus I am set free.

I can bash myself for everything and point fingers at myself for not seeing it. I can bury myself further and further down but it’s by God’s grace I have be set free and I am forever being sanctified.

Today, I die to self. Tomorrow I pray I will to. I want to be used to advance the Gospel and I want to be able serve God’s people and church. I must have Jesus to be at center of who I am. I just have to stop trying and letting him rule again in my life.

My life is not mine to live it’s His and His alone to use me for his glory. I can’t do anything by my accord. My decisions, reactions, must be filtered through the Spirit that dwells within me not the flesh that is so easy to let rule.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” -Galatians 2:20

Fear to Fight

by Tanya Elise, posted in Depression, Faith, family, God, hope, Jesus, Light, Love, Prayer, Redeemed, Self, Sin

Tonight, I read my first blog post on here. It was actually reflective of my anonymous blog I wrote called “Crooked Self”. Now this was a short lived blog for about 6 months during my weight loss journey back in 2011. I kept it anonymous because I feared judgement and ridicule from my family and friends. So it allowed me to freely write without worry.

What’s great about it though is that I titled one my posts “Reality Check”. This post was about living in a “fantasy world”. Back then I was so untouched with reality and those around me, I lost touch with who I was and who God made me to be. I was secluded in this world because I was afraid of this world.

Fear ate me alive. I was afraid of failing, afraid of trying out for things, afraid of not making that part, afraid of judgement, afraid of dying, afraid someone or something was going to happen if I failed. I was even afraid to sleep when I was little because I was afraid of what might happen.

Being that fearful handicaps you. It drives you away from things and drives you away from reality. In 2001, I became majorly depressed and suicidal for the first time. I wanted to end my life because of some “boy” on the internet, mind you I had been a depressed state for a few years due to other reasons, but this “boy” set me over the edge. My life according to my definition was not worthy of living.

However, I wrote about it before I did it. I used to write poetry back in the day, so I wrote a poem called “My last Poem” or “My last Song”, I don’t remember exactly. Anyway, it was a poem about suicide and a poem about how life was not worth living. I was too fearful to talk to others so I let my words do the talking.

Fear strikes you down and holds you back. Fear is the reason, most of us don’t accomplish much. I let fear dictate who I was and my dreams. I ultimately let the enemy steal me away from God’s hope. He put blinders on me and pulled me away from where I could’ve been.

But my could’ve been wasn’t where God wanted me. My could’ve been was where God had me. You see I can sit back and wonder what might have been, but that’s not my story. My story is broken, full of fear, and darkness but my story also has forgiveness, grace, hope, and redemption. I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I wouldn’t be still peeling back the layers of my insecurities and knocking down the walls of my fears and doubts.

God created a beautiful story in me. A story I get to share to everyone around me. A story I get use to help some of the teenagers around me and help those who are fighting what I faced. And there are people out there who have stories that will help me get through the next challenge I’m up against.

We all face a past but your past can either dictate your future by constantly reliving it or you can move on from it and let God use it to help those around you.

Fear doesn’t define my everyday life anymore. The only fear I really have in my life is a healthy fear of God. I am still learning life little by little and I’m still learning a lot about myself even at my age. I might be different. I might be a little weird, but what’s most important is that I am me. I am striving to become the woman God called me to be. I have a calling on my life to live for God and to serve Jesus.

No matter where you are in life, I pray that you let down the fears that holds you back. I pray you walk the walk God has for you. I pray that you overcome whatever past you might have. I pray that life brings you joy, peace, and happiness. I pray blessings over you. God has amazing things in store for everyone of us if we just surrender to his will, we just have to give up trying to fight our past to give ourselves a future.

Digging Out the Hurt

by Tanya Elise, posted in Depression, Faith, God, Jesus, Light, Prayer, Redeemed, Self, Sin

So often times we go through life and we beat ourselves down putting “standards”, burdens, our past, our failure all on top of us and we bury the very person God designed us to be.

All of these things we are not suppose to even carry let alone have it bury us so down that we we lose all sight of hope. We begin to believe our shortfalls our what defines us, our failures are the only thing people see, and that life is pointless because no one sees you, hears you, understands you, or even loves you. So we turn to outside sources to fill the void, to make us feel something or even make us feel nothing. It can be anything, that gives us that feeling. We find it somewhere. It allows us not to feel invincible or hurt for a small window of time.

These are only temporary solutions that will not last. They will only bury us further and further down and it starts a cycle of needing that “high” because it feels that void. Some will lose their life fighting a battle against things they never were meant to battle let alone battle alone. This void we feel is found in God. , people often refer to it as “The God size hole in your heart” and how we fill it determine how we go through our life, day by day, step by step.

Hope, grace, and freedom can be found regardless how bad the situation or past may be.

Hope is found in God. Hope is the last thing we hold on to and the first twinkle we see in our road to healing. Hope is found everywhere. Hope can be found in a smile of a little kids face, or a cry of a baby. It can be a friend reaching out to you, or a mentor to tell you to hold on, it can be just someone finally getting you to see that hope isn’t lost, hope is just buried inside.

Grace is found when we surrender it ALL. It’s confessing every sin and every time you hear and feel the voice of God in conviction and you turn the other cheek. It allowing God into the areas of our life that we keep private in a dark closet in the basement, it’s allowing God in to everything he already knows but confessing it with our lips and on our knees in repentance.

Freedom is found after laying everything down at the foot of the cross. After putting EVERYTHING and surrendering EVERYTHING to God. It’s letting go of the control we think we have in our lives and giving the keys to God. It’s putting Gods hand back on your shoulder and allowing God to lead you. It’s the feeling of a heavy weight coming off your chest. It’s the first breathe of air after feeling trapped for so long.

Life isn’t about the temporary. It’s about the eternal. We either live a life trying to figure out which way to go or we live a life surrendered to God, prayerfully connected, confessing when we need to confess and staying in tuned to the frequency of God.

We all are buried to some extent. It just depends on how we try to unbury ourselves that determines the future God has in store.

Swallowing the Pill

by Tanya Elise, posted in Death, Depression, Faith, God, Jesus, Light, Love, Redeemed, Self, Sin, Uncategorized

Over the past few years, I’ve written about and have talked about the struggle with depression. This one is no different.

Some of you are aware that since about August I went into a really dark place with major depression. What some of you don’t know is I was diagnosed by my psychiatrist with not only major depression but also PTSD and panic disorder. The reason why I believe people should know is that this world is not okay.

Many of us disguise our depression, our anxious thoughts with a vice. Because we are taught in early age that we are not allowed to feel down, depressed, worried, to have a mind full of fear, that it’s okay to not know how to show and receive love and that’s it’s okay to not want to be a part of the world. We are shown by examples in media that suicide has to be a result of something major we are hiding, that depression is looked down on, that PTSD is something only war vets get, that mental hospitals are for the crazy people and that being “normal” is hiding who we really are.

Vices can be anything that makes us feel numb even just for a moment. It might be alcohol, drugs, food, porn, anger, literally anything can be formed as a vice. I can say I’ve never felt the high of the drugs but I’ve felt the alcohol pour through my veins. I’ve felt the food layer in pounds and the porn become mindless. Vices make us numb and quiet our voices and stresses but never confronts the problems.

The issue many of us face is we don’t see that our problems are not ours to bare. We get up trying to fight them and become worn out and beaten. We become exhausted, never wining, always giving up. What we need to do is to surrender and stop trying to fight them. We will NEVER win, we are not suppose to. God won already. God took your burdens to the cross through Jesus.

Jesus is our hope we should be fighting for. He is the only way for us to get the strength to fight the enemy because it is only through him we have won against him. Depression, anxiety, anything that makes us turn to vices and addiction needs to be given up to surrender. We cannot control those dark places in our minds, but He can. He has numbered every one of our days, every hair on our head. He is our redeemer, our hope , our fighter, our rescuer, our Father, our love, our everything. He knows every down fall, every breathe we take he has known and will know.

We cannot hide from him any thoughts he does not already know. I wanted to end my life earlier this year because I saw no hope. Hope was no where to be found. I lost meaning. I lost me. I saw no future, no friends, no love. As hard as it may be to say, I was scared of myself and this world. I just wanted it all to be over. Today, I still struggle, I’m not perfect nor healed. I’m on medication and in counseling. But if I never got to that places where I saw no hope, I wouldn’t of surrendered inside my car outside of a Starbucks with tears running down my face. I had to reach that point of brokenness so that he kind mend those pieces.

I’ve been through this path before. I’ve been through this struggle. But this time I know God is here to mend the broken pieces that he’s never been able to touch before because I never fully surrendered everything to him.

If you believe you might need help in any sort of manner. If you’re down, sad, suicidal, addicted to drugs and alcohol, anything there is hope. Hope is alive. You are not meant to walk this path by yourself. Seek help from others. There are more people out there who care for you and love you than you will ever know.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1 (800) 273-8255

Crisis Text Line: Text “Home” to 741741



Fighting Demons

by Tanya Elise, posted in Uncategorized

They say we all have demons we fight. Someone said that, I don’t believe it was biblical scholar though I’m sure they’ve said something similar.

We all battle flesh. We all battle this world. We have hand to hand combat with the enemy somedays. Yet most of it goes unnoticed, untouched, hidden in secret.

My inner demon right now is depression and anxiety. I hit rock bottom two weeks ago. I literally was walking through a mall and had a mental break down. The thoughts of suicide began to ring between my ears. The thought of never harming myself went out the window and I broke down. I began to question every step I took and pondered why am I alive. I was scared to even get behind the wheel. I almost took myself to the ER because I was so afraid of me.

I didn’t see hope. I didn’t see any of my faith in that moment. I was walking in complete darkness. I felt consumed by the enemy engulfed by the darkness and unable to get out.

The day went on but the darkness never left me. The darkness hasn’t left me. The darkness may never leave me.

But as each day goes on, I see a little more light peaking through the cracks of the walls I have built around me.

Depression isn’t a joke, it’s not a feeling that just goes away. It’s a battle. It suffocates you and will not let go. It’s like it’s a demon trying to rob you from life and it won’t let go.

I am no where near being on the other side of this battle. I am constantly fighting, trying to find willpower and strength to get through day. I am constantly fighting myself. I’m writing this because in order to have a support system, people have to know what’s going on, people don’t know how to love you or care for you if you don’t let them in.

I love my God and it’s by his grace and mercy I’m still here. It’s his nudges and reminder of grace and his power that I hold on to. There is hope. God’s not done with me. But the still darkness tends to speak louder regardless of what I do.

A Letter to my Poppop

by Tanya Elise, posted in Cancer, Death, Depression, Faith, God, Jesus, Love, Self, Sin

Dear Poppop,

You are missed. As the 21st anniversary of your death is approaching it still feels like yesterday I lost you. I walked beside you as you fought a good fight to stay alive. I remember being beside you as you lay in your hospital bed. I remember the pain in your eyes yet your love and humor never ceased to make me smile.

I still remember the smell of cigarettes and leather with a hint of double mint gum on the rides to church. I remember sitting in the garage watching you doing what you love and never backing down from a challenge. I remember you falling asleep watching wrestling or NASCAR and we would try to change it and you would wake up and yell at us.

I’ve held onto 11 years of memories but I’ve held onto 21 years of hurt. The last words from you I remember are, “Tanya, give me one more hug because I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again”. In the moment I was quiet, I took it like a champ just like you’ve would’ve wanted, I was dying inside. A week later we got a phone call, you went home.

But I lost the man who loved me unconditionally, the man who couldn’t get mad at me regardless of how many times I messed up and acted up. I lost my best friend, my grandfather, I lost a piece of me.

God gave us a time together that will go down in history but I’m still struggling with my 11 year old self trying to get passed this hurt today. I’m not who I was 21 years ago. The root of my pain and is driven by the hurt I felt the day you took that last breath. I ran away from God. I pretended he didn’t exist for many years. I filled my void with alcohol, pornography, and men beginning at the age of 13. I lost all self worth and identity. I stopped believing in who you told me I was. I blamed myself for your death, “If I only prayed more, if I was there more, if I was a better granddaughter, if I loved more”

I didn’t know who I was anymore. I never found myself until I got a glimpse of the God you believed in, I met Jesus. I got to finally feel the love you had for me. I got to witness the man you tried to be for me. I want to say that from that moment I was a completely different person. But I wasn’t. My life changed drastically, roads I was going down rerouted to where God wanted me but it took years to dig through the sin and it’s still taking time fighting the enemy and my flesh to get back to who I was before you died. There’s still shame, guilt, and more I’m still digging up I have to work through. But with Jesus I can do all things, you taught me that, I was just too blind to see.

Thank you for loving me like your own daughter. Thank you for teaching me even though I was too blind to see. Love you Poppop. Until we meet again.

Your Granddaughter,

Tanya