That Little Girl Inside of Me - Part 1

While I was completing my recent inpatient rehab, I began uncovering many issues that had contributed to my choice to use alcohol and prescription drugs. Some were new ideas to me and some were old but needed more in-depth work.

One of the most enlightening moments I had was when we were asked to write on the subject “When I Love Myself Enough, I Will . . . .“ and we were to fill in the blanks.

I love to write and easily jotted down several things in the space of a few minutes. After re-reading them, I was struck by one particular paragraph I had written. It was something like “When I love myself enough, I will notice the sad and lonely little girl inside of me. I will nurture her and hold her hand. I will walk with her and I will swing on the swing set with her.”

Thus began a journey to understand the wounded little girl who still seemed to exist inside of me; a little girl who had been abandoned frequently as a child. Or at least she perceived she had often been forsaken. 

That night, a particularly harrowing incident occurred, one which ripped the protective covering right off this newly exposed wound. Two of my granddaughters had been living with us before I went into treatment. For a time, they were required to move out and they lived with a family friend.  One night, the youngest, Shyanne, age 9, called me, sobbing almost incoherently. She wanted to be able to go home. And she wanted me there with her.  She did not feel safe and secure, or loved and wanted where she was. She begged me to just come and get her.

Without a doubt, the hardest thing I did in recovery was to choose to stay there that night instead of leaving as I wanted to, and going to her to try an soothe her terrifying pain; pain that I knew full well I had at least partially caused with my choices.  As I struggled to make sense of this devastating event over the next few days, I gained some valuable insight into my own lost “little girl” who seemed determined to continue to live on in me. 

You see, my granddaughter recovered fairly quickly, but my pain blossomed and grew as I relived the words she said to me the night she called. And as I in turn called out to the One who is our mighty healer, he revealed to me that the pain I was feeling for little Shyanne, was actually an all consuming grief at the losses my inner child had experienced.  Once this had been identified to me, I was able to continue on my path to recovery.

I am so grateful today that Jesus meets us exactly where our need is. He is so wise and loving that he uses whatever life happens to throw at us in the moment to get our attention. When Shyanne called out to me, causing my pain to intensify, he took that sorrow, and he lavished it with tenderness, love and his sweet, sweet understanding until it could finally begin to heal it.

The next day I wrote a poem called “That Little Girl Inside of Me.” Tomorrow I’ll share it.

May God Bless all those little girls who are still out there, yearning to be healed and set free.