This is the raw cries of my spirit as I was going through the most emotional battle, trying to reconcile who I was after going through the worst time of my life physically.

I warn you, I only wrote when I was at my darkest point emotionally as I struggled to recover from Chron's disease.

I share this to help you who struggle emotionally and mentally. I hope you find an ally in this war we battle not by flesh but by powers much stronger than any force we could face.

My thoughts written over the course of my countless emotional breakdowns:

The hardest thing after any trauma, once the wounds fade to scars, is learning to live with them.

There is a deep sorrow within me when I look into the mirror because I see the same person from before who didn't know what pain was, who didn't experience the needles, the terror, the shrinking of myself into near nothingness. I have built a grave in my heart for that person and when I'm reminded of her I feel pain of a new sort.

This pain is of my warring emotions. I should feel happy, but nevertheless I am sorrowful. I am not guilty yet somehow I feel that I am. God took what I deserve yet I feel that I should still bare this pain as I have deserved every bit. It is what got me through the physical pain, but now I have emotional wounds that are somehow worsened by this mentality.

I am battling space and time in my mind so much that I can't seem to live carefree.

My past redefines me, my present reminds me, and my future reveals nothing which terrifies the heck out of me.

What if I go through this again? What if this will keep me from my dreams? What if...

What if God actually has a plan?

The problem is I know what I should feel. I know what I should think. But I can't get my heart and head to be in the same place. One lags behind while the other rushes ahead. I have even resorted to begging myself to think rationally.

I don't want sorrow cause that's the last thing God deserves. I feel I deserve every bit of pain given to me so maybe that's why I find myself craving it.

I have such trouble deciding my mind and what I'm feeling that I would rather rest in the treacherous arms of pain than sit and sort through my emotions.

I feel like I wear my scars and my pain and my exhaustion on the outside. People see them through my clothes and the way I carry myself and are repulsed by me.

I feel like I'm hiding when I dress up and try to look like I care about what I look like. But I don't care. I feel that people see past it. I feel like a fraud.

I feel like a stranger to myself. I feel I have kept all my bad characteristics and lost all my confidence. I feel trapped inside a person I can't stand. I don't feel respected and I want to be but I cry too much to be a respectable person.

I'm guilty and I feel it and I can't escape it. I'm bundled up in self doubt, self hate, and a bunch of confusion over what Chron's did to me to make me feel this way. I want my confidence in who I am back, but I don't know who I am.

So I'm tired, confused, and scared that I'll never learn to live with myself, whoever my self is anymore. I have had so many amazing things happen that God gave to me but I couldn't enjoy them like I should have.

I feel that I welcome pain far more than good things. I'm scared I have developed an identity in my pain. When I don't hurt I feel lost but when I do, I feel distressed.

I want to feel joy without feeling guilty. But I feel so guilty all the time. I feel like such a bad person. And it makes me feel incredibly tired to feel like that all the time.

I don't know what I want. I just want to be at peace with something, maybe with myself or my state of being or just the fact that I won't ever be able to be sentenced the punishment I deserve for how terrible I feel I've been.

One night I begged God in tears as I usually did when I felt bad to help me see what he saw in me. I wanted my crappy mentality to be gone. I read these verses I was very familiar with like I had read them for the first time. I had never connected more emotionally with something in the Bible than this night:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame....

Strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no "root of bitterness" springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; See that you do not refuse him who is speaking...

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12:1-3, 12-13, 15, 25, 28‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Then God spoke these words into my spirit which I quickly wrote down, while bawling the whole time of course:

I am not the comparing,

I am not the jealousy,

I am not the anger,

I am not the hatred,

I am not the insecurity,

I am not my worst enemy,

I am not my sin,

I am not my slave.

I am the treasure held in the palm of my savior, stored in heaven and will one day be revealed for whom I truly am. This day I will not pretend nor listen to the pretender. I am Angela Williams, trapped by my humanity and set free by my God.

Please re-read this prayer and speak these words of God over you. I am still battling the same things, but this time I am acknowledging and using the resources God has made available for me. I am wishing yet claiming, crying yet praising, hurting yet reviving. I have learned I can be human. I have learned that just because I'm going to be an angel one day doesn't mean I'm expected to be one today. You are not anything but what God has told you you are so don't say any different.