The Powerful Inner Child

Meeting the Little Girl In My Childhood Photos

She has tender green eyes and a sweet, cheeky smile.  She is unsure of herself;  She enjoys her friends, but she also likes to play by herself.  She loves her dolls, she loves to sing,  she loves her mom and dad.  She wishes she could have her very own horse.  And she wonders what she will look like when she grows up.

She is my heart.  She is me.

Looking for Answers

Over the years I have sought counsel in an attempt to gain some semblance of understanding, some answer to the general sense of dissatisfaction I felt with myself and with my life.  My counselors suggested that I to go back to the beginning and remember things about my childhood.

I was told to write down stories that I remembered.  I was encouraged to give myself a break, to get in touch with my desires and needs, to nurture my own heart.  I was shown that I was living by a set of beliefs that included many lies, and needed to change my thinking.

All of this is good.

Meeting My Inner Child

All has even been helpful on my healing journey, and all is incorporated even now into what I am learning about myself.  But none of it has brought the truth home to me—the truth about what really went on inside of me as a child, the truth about what really broke my heart—like meeting her for the first time. Now, seeing a picture of a girl you’ve never met, and meeting a little girl and spending time with her, are two very different experiences.

Shuffling through my childhood pictures, I was looking at pictures of a girl I didn’t know.  Unemotional about her, I found it interesting to think back about things that happened and to talk about how they might have influenced the way that I operate now as an adult– how I think, how I see myself, how I interact with people, etc.

But now it was time to meet her.

Just Because She Existed

Timing was perfect because just the year before, I had welcomed my niece into the world, and had immediately fallen madly in love—unconditionally, she was a delight just because she existed and boy was I ever the doting aunt!

When I set out to meet my inner child– the little girl that was me–all I had to do was to picture my precious niece and my eyes would fill up with tears—this was the little girl in the pictures—an innocent, vulnerable little girl, big eyes, full of questions.  This was me!

How did I feel about her?  How did it make me feel to see her smile?  To see her laughing?  To see tears streaming down her face?

 She Was Beautiful

When I finally truly met this sweet girl, I wanted more than anything else to find out who she was.  I wanted to really know her.  I was on a mission.  And you know what? The more I got to know her, the more I began to discover how great she was—how beautiful she really was.

Psalm 139:16

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed (Psalm 139:16).

Somewhere in the beginning, I lost sight of her.  Yet God has always had her in His sight.

He Has Loved Her

All the years I have rejected my own heart, He has not.  Where I have judged her and called her unacceptable, He has called her acceptable.  Where I have hated and shamed her for being needy and messy, He has loved her just for being.

She is Needy, and That’s Ok

And what else are children if not needy and messy? How much freedom came just from getting this one thing:  she (my heart) is needy, and that’s ok. She is messy, and that’s ok. After a lifetime of being not ok, this revelation was such a gift to me!

Giving My Heart a Voice

From the moment I began to give my heart a voice, I knew that something was happening… Out of my darkest hour had come a desperate cry to God—Lord, help!! Something has to change!  And when I truly connected with her for the first time (this little girl in the pictures), I knew that somehow she was a key to this change—whatever it would be.  She is who God originally made me to be—who I was Before…

She was delightful.  She was vulnerable.  She was uninhibited.  She trusted.  She was easy to love.  She still is.  She is lovely.  She is sweet.  She is honest.  She loves people.  She is ok just being herself.  She is fearless.  She is wise, and strong, and good.

And she changes everything.