I tried to do something today that really scared me. I was really upset, and I had all these OCD thoughts about self-harm. I have been considering that instead of running away or resisting these thoughts, I should try to embrace them and accept them as just part of my disorder. I was scared to do it because I didn’t know where it would lead.
I have been writing and am trying to do it as a second career. An author friend of mine suggested that I try to write some of the horrible thoughts in my mind down when I have them. Today when all these OCD thoughts came, I sat down with my laptop, and I just wrote every single thought that I was having in detail. As I wrote, I thought to myself that I either have the mind of a horror writer or a serial killer because no one would normally think these thoughts and see these images in their mind’s eye. The strangest thing happened as I continued to write. I realized that of all the horrors in the world and the monsters real or imagined, the ones that scare me the most are inside of me.
I have the light of God inside of my heart and that’s a miraculous thing, but I also have the capacity for evil within me as well. The evil that men can do to each other and unto me is truly scary, but it can’t compare to the horror of the capacity for evil that lies inside of my own heart. I tell people that I like writing horror because when I can compare the light with the dark, I can show how beautiful the light is. I guess today I am learning a very important and difficult lesson from God: there’s good and evil inside of me and acceptance means embracing both. I just have to decide how to live with who I am.
I just realized something else really important. God asks me to love others as I would love myself. I often have been torn with how do I love murderers, rapist, and other evil people who would rather kill me than look at me twice? Tonight, I have an answer. I love them the same way I would love myself because the capacity to do what they do lies within me. If I can find a way to accept myself, forgive myself, and still love myself, then I can do it for anyone of my brothers or sisters in Christ no matter what evil deeds they do.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
