A few days ago, I went back to a place that I associate with a painful season in my life.
It was a place I had enjoyed going actually – a specialty supermarket on my old commute home from work. During the painful season, this had been a bright spot, a fun errand in a confusing and heart-rending season of life.
When I realized I was passing near there a few days ago, I decided to stop in.
Walking in, I felt memories from the painful season flood in. These memories still come often –- daily actually –- to the front of my heart and mind.
But something was different.
I felt different.
“The place felt different, a heaviness was missing, the season had changed.”
I remembered how heavy my heart had felt during that season. What I had felt in the pit of my stomach pretty much nonstop for months during that season. How I had felt almost in a fog as I tried to do everyday tasks.
This past week, in that market, my first realization was that it felt like years since I had been there. Actually, it has now been years. The painful memories are now years in the past.
I recognized that I felt different, the place felt different, a heaviness was missing, the season has changed.
This week, I sensed that we need words of encouragement. This season is hard, for so many different reasons.
So I write this to encourage those who are in the middle of abusive situations, whether leadership abuse or any other kind of abuse. I want to be careful not to overstate this or understate it. It is my personal conviction that often it is necessary to leave, and that God provides help in leaving.
The leaving is hard too. Sometimes it is excruciatingly hard.
But, when the abuse is in your past, when you notice that you can think clearly again, when you begin to heal, I believe there will come a time when you will recognize – perhaps in many small ways over many days, perhaps often unexpectedly as I did – that the season has changed. You will recognize that you are free – or, more likely, that a burden has been lifted and you have traveled far on your journey to freedom.
About: Jenny Switkes is a professor of mathematics at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she has the joy of mentoring many first-generation college students from diverse backgrounds. She also serves as a volunteer pastor at Rise OC Church in Costa Mesa, California.
Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash