I started self-harming when I was 14, and I would continue to struggle with it for many years. I had no idea that I was starting down such a dangerous, addictive road that first night it happened. But Satan knew what buttons to push. He knew what lies to feed me, and he knew which ones could cut me to the core. I had let myself believe that I was absolutely worthless. I believed that I was too broken for God to ever use me, too broken for anyone to ever love me, and too broken to ever amount to anything.

I have the feeling that I’m not the only one who has ever let themselves believe these lies. They’re lies we tend to believe a lot.

I used self-harm as an escape. I didn’t want to use it to end my life- I just wanted to escape it for a little while. If anything, it became an addictive survival strategy. I was feeling so much internally and emotionally that I wanted to feel something externally and physically. This is something I have struggled with for years. It started by trying to cope with stress, anxiety, and depression in an unhealthy way.

If you have ever struggled with this, I want you to know that you are absolutely not alone. You are not unworthy. You are not unlovable. You are not too broken. The only way I was ever able to believe these truths was through surrendering my struggle to the Lord- over and over again.

I am still not an expert at it. Lately, I have had to wake up every day and hand it over to Him, because I don’t have to do it alone. And neither do you.

We have a God who loves us beyond belief, even at our worst. He chases after us when we run away. He welcomes us with open arms. He takes us as we are: broken, imperfect, and unclean. He loves us enough to take us as we are, but too much to keep as we are. He is able to heal us, yes, even from what we are walking through now.

Isaiah 54:17 says “no weapon formed against you shall succeed.” Healing is possible. Recovery is possible.

Here are just a few things my struggle with self-harm has taught me.

1. God is bigger than my problems.

Yes, this is something I’ve heard a million times before, but it is so true. During a deep conversation, I once had a close friend say to me, “Ang, I’m not scared of your junk- I’m not scared of the parts of you or your story that aren’t pretty or wrapped up in a bow.” And it got me thinking- that’s how God sees us. He is not afraid. And that’s because He’s big enough to handle anything we give Him. He already knows what we’re going to walk through. He is well-prepared and well-equipped to handle it. Psalm 147:5 says, “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.” He is so much bigger than you or I will ever be. A.W. Tozer once said, “Because God knows all things perfectly, He knows no thing better than any other thing, but all things equally well. He never discovers anything, He is never surprised, never amazed.” Y’all…. WOW. This never ceases to blow my mind. I know that surrendering this struggle to the Lord seems impossible, but He is BIGGER and MORE POWERFUL than Satan’s hold on you. He has the power to bring you through this. Giving this to the Lord does not mean that it will magically all just go away. It means that He will be working on your heart, helping you through, and walking alongside you. Exodus 14:14 says, “The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.” Stop trying to fight this alone when you don’t have to.

2. The so-called “remedies” that the world has to offer do not work.

Y’all know what I mean. The world will tell you that you can fix your problems or numb your pain by drinking, doing drugs, having sex, or, in my case, cutting yourself. That is not true. Satan will use this lie over and over again to try to pull you further away from God. Cutting will provide a temporary release of pain that will later result in you having to wear long sleeves to cover up what you did. Drinking and drugs will numb you for a while, but once that wears off, you’re back to where you were before. Giving yourself away for the night will make you feel valued and desired in the moment, but the next day you’ll feel as empty as the spot is next to you in bed. We can’t satisfy the need for God with things of the world that we’ve made our gods. When we try to fix things with the so-called “remedies” that the world has to offer, we’ll leave feeling emptier than we were before. In John 6:35, it says, “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.'” When we place our trust in Christ, when we say “no” to what the world has to offer, only then can we be truly satisfied. We find everything we’ll ever need in Him. We can’t fill God-sized holes with world-sized things. Psalm 107:9 says, “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” Rest in that truth.

3. I need to learn to combat Satan’s lies with God’s truth.

Satan will use whatever he can to get to you. Genesis 3:1 describes him as “crafty” and that’s exactly right- Satan is crafty, not creative. He’ll work with whatever he has right in front of him. He’ll take a single thought and twist it, manipulate it, and pervert it into something it’s not. He’ll make it sound so familiar to you that you take it as truth. And so often, we fall victim to thinking that it’s true. And then we start to identify with that lie, so much so that we carry it with it us until it absolutely destroys the truth we once knew. It’s then when we start believing that we’re worthless, insignificant, and beyond repair. When we believe those things, it creates a toxic mindset, and for me, that resulting in self-harming. The reality of it is that we’re chosen by Christ and carried by the Creator every single day- not because He has to, but because He wants to. Our identity must not be found in the lies of Satan or the lies of the world, but in Christ Himself. I think Lysa TerKeurst said it best: “Old patterns of thought must be torn out, and a new way of looking at the core of who I am using God’s truth has the be put into place. My identity must be anchored to the truth of who God is and who He is to me. Only then can I find a stability beyond what my feelings will ever allow. The closer I align my truth with His truth, the more closely I identify with God- and the more my identity really is in Him.” When we do align our truth with His truth, we begin to see the lies of Satan vanish. Knowing the characters of both God and Satan will help to differentiate between what is a lie and what is truth, and the way to do that is to spend time in the Word and time in prayer, getting to know the Creator who carries you.

4. I am not irreparably broken.

This may be the biggest lie I let myself believe. For what feels like forever, I allowed myself to believe that because of my struggles, God can never use me because I am too broken. I know that in the Bible He used people you would never think of- I mean, look at Paul. Although I knew God was capable of that, I thought that it could never apply to me. This lie seeped into every aspect of my life. I started doubting God’s plan for my life- I thought that there was no way for someone this broken to be called to do full-time ministry. I started doubting my ability to interact with people- I thought that no one would want to be friends with or date someone with the kind of emotional baggage I have. I began to see myself as so irreparably broken that I felt like my life had lost purpose. Romans 5:3-5 says, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” I know that it is hard to rejoice in suffering, but rejoice in the fact that despite your suffering, God’s love still pours down on you and me. Jesus Himself said blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn. He knows. He cares. He is with you. To Christ, we are never too far gone. We are never beyond repair. We are never irreparably broken, no matter what the world says.

5. I deserve to see tomorrow.

God has a plan for my life. He can use my pain and my suffering as a testimony of His goodness to me during the most challenging time of my life. He can use me. He can show me His truth. The depth of the love He has for us is often impossible for us to understand and comprehend, but He loves and cares for us SO much, so much so that He sent His son to die for us, so that we no longer have to live in sin. The hymn “Because He Lives” has been such an encouragement to me. The chorus goes like this:

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow

Because He lives, all fear is gone

Because I know He holds the future

And life is worth the living just because He lives

God has an amazing plan for your life that is far better than one you could’ve thought up for yourself. You deserve to be here to see it.

I want to leave you with this: you are not alone. You are never alone. You have a God who cares for you, cries with you, and walks beside you. You also have people around you who would love to rally around you, pray for you, and support you through your recovery. If you haven’t reached out to anyone, I encourage you to do so.

You are significant. You are loved. You are valued. You are chosen. You are redeemed. You are forgiven. You matter. You deserve to see tomorrow.