Take Back What the Enemy Stole

The enemy has a funny way of trying to steal, kill, destroy, and ruin us.

Sometimes he doesn’t have to take anything from us. Sometimes he just has to convince us to hate what we have.

To hate our bodies. To hate our scars. To hate our circumstances. To become angry at our lives and resentful of the journey we never asked for.

And if I’m being completely honest, lately I’ve had plenty of reasons to be frustrated.

This season has been hard. My body is tired. I’m tired. There has been pain, setbacks, uncertainty, and moments where I’ve looked at everything happening and thought, *Seriously? Haven’t I been through enough?*

But that’s the thing.

I may not get to choose what happens to me, but I do get to choose how I respond to what is happening to me.

I can live in frustration, or I can face it.

I can let this season ruin me, or I can fight to become something stronger because of it.

I can allow pain to overwhelm me and convince me that my world has to get smaller, or I can choose to live right in the middle of it.

And I don’t mean that in some cheesy, “everything happens for a reason” kind of way.

Sometimes things just hurt.

Sometimes healing sucks.

Sometimes I am angry. Sometimes I am exhausted. Sometimes I don’t understand what God is doing. Sometimes I don’t want to be strong anymore.

But even then, I still have a choice.

I keep thinking about last year.

May 13.

My burn anniversary.

For years, that day came with rules. Things I wouldn’t do. Things I couldn’t wear. Things my PTSD had taught me were too closely connected to that day.

A dress on May 13?

Absolutely not.

Lighting a candle?

Definitely not.

And then last year, I did the unthinkable.

I wore the dress.

I lit the candle.

I showed up.

To someone else, it might have looked like a normal woman wearing a dress at a ministry event.

But for me?

It was war.

It was me standing in front of years of trauma, fear, scars, memories, and rules and saying, **“You don’t get to control me anymore.”**

That dress represented something much bigger than clothing.

That candle represented something much bigger than a flame.

They were pieces of my life that I was taking back.

And man…

**I can only imagine the enemy was shaking.**

Because he wanted me afraid of my own body.

He wanted me ashamed of it.

He wanted me trapped inside the story of what happened to me.

And instead, I stood there.

Scarred.

Still healing.

Still carrying trauma.

Still figuring things out.

But standing there anyway.

And maybe that is what I need to remember right now.

Because I am still that woman.

Even when I don’t feel strong.

Even when I am exhausted.

Even when my body hurts.

Even when recovery feels like one step forward and two steps backward.

Even when I’m frustrated with God.

Even when I’m frustrated with myself.

Even when I look at my life and wonder how many more battles I’m going to have to fight.

**I am still here.**

And that matters.

I don’t have to make this pain beautiful every day.

I don’t have to pretend I’m okay.

I don’t have to slap a smile on my face and call everything a blessing.

I can say, “This hurts.”

I can say, “I’m angry.”

I can say, “I’m tired.”

And I can still choose to keep living.

Because I refuse to let the hardest chapters of my story become the entire story.

I refuse to let pain become my identity.

I refuse to let my scars be the only thing I see when I look at myself.

And I refuse to believe that I survived all of these years just to spend the rest of my life surviving.

**I want to live.**

I want to live even when it’s messy.

I want to live when my body doesn’t cooperate.

I want to laugh when there are tears sitting right underneath it.

I want to create.

I want to love.

I want to serve.

I want to dance.

I want to wear the damn dress.

I want to light the candle.

I want to keep taking back the pieces of myself that trauma told me I had lost forever.

Maybe that’s what fighting looks like for me right now.

Not having all the answers.

Not being healed.

Not being fearless.

Just refusing to surrender.

Because the enemy may have tried to steal a lot from me.

But he does **not** get the rest.

Not my joy.

Not my purpose.

Not my voice.

Not my future.

And certainly not my life.

If you want to understand a little more of this journey, I’ve written about these pieces of it before:

🔥 **22 Years:** https://www.healingburnedsoul.com/post/22-years

🔥 **Taking Back What the Enemy Stole:** https://www.healingburnedsoul.com/post/taking-back-what-the-enemy-stole

Maybe I’m not standing at the finish line right now.

Maybe I’m standing smack in the middle of the battlefield.

But I’m still standing.

And for today…

**that is enough.**

Taking Back What the Enemy StoleThe enemy has a funny way of trying to steal, kill, destroy, and ruin us.