Break the Mold

As a child, Halloween was always one of my favorite times of year. I got to dress up, play pretend, get free candy, and then make bar graphs of the candy I received (shoutout to my fellow math people - y’all understand). I remember one year in elementary school being so excited to go show my teachers and classmates my costume. Walking into school, right away I felt out of place. Of the 12 girls in my class, 7 were dressed as Hannah Montana. I guess I didn’t get the memo, because I walked in as the Statue of Liberty.

I didn’t fit the mold.

Throughout my life, I struggled with fitting in. In high school, I was the athlete, theater kid, band geek, and AP student. But I didn’t wear enough sporty clothes, know enough musicals, skip class to write music, and spend my free periods in the science lab. No wonder that time of my life was a time of identity crisis. 

Who was I if I didn't have a label? Who am I if I don’t fit a mold?

A similar crisis followed me in my recovery from pornography and masturbation. I saw the same type of girls in my youth groups: sweet and gentle, no rough around the edges. They attended every Steubenville conference, had simple cross bracelets, and only ever shared about their problems with gossip (though I never actually heard any of them gossip). I, on the other hand, was loud-mouthed with crude humor, often taking everything one step too far. I was late to things, often journaling about my own questions instead of the given prompt, and likely lying to make myself more likable. 

I was struggling with sexual sin in relationships and an addiction to pornography, and I felt like a fraud.

I always felt like if I could just fit this mold, I wouldn’t struggle with these deep areas of shame in my life. If I was more gentle or spoke softer, maybe I could be saved. 

But Jesus came not only to free me from my addiction, but also to free me from fitting in. He came to “proclaim liberty to the captive” (Luke 4:18): held captive by addiction and by the  boxes they force themselves in.

There’s no model for who I’m supposed to be. There’s no “good Catholic woman” mold that I have to fit. There’s no perfect recovery process that I have to follow. 

Jesus didn’t come to trap you in another box, but to rescue you. He didn’t come to give you the step-by-step outline of who you should be, or how you should feel, or what recovery should look like. Even Jesus Himself didn’t fit the mold of who the people thought the Messiah should be. He broke the mold, and if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

There’s not one magic program, one good speaker or one perfect Bible verse that will bring you the freedom you’re made for. And while I was too busy trying to look like the other women around me -  thinking it would bring me healing - Jesus was trying to help me see the beauty in my own journey. And it was in that journey that I found what Our Lord was trying to show me all along; me. 

I am not the molds I’ve tried to define myself by - I am a work in progress.

I am inherently good, yet incredibly broken. 

I am equally victorious as I am faulty. 

But most importantly, I am a daughter - His daughter - loved unconditionally.

There’s no one-size-fits-all to recovery, and that, my friends, is a good thing. If we all had the same recovery, we wouldn't find freedom, we’d find contempt.

God loves you more than to turn you into a copy of someone else. He wants to transform you into the fullest version of who He created you to be. His intricate, unrepeatable love for you is not limited in your recovery, it’s amplified. And His love cannot be confined within a mold, so why should your recovery be? 

In this season, the Lord desires to love you in a way that breaks every mold. There is a life of freedom in Christ outside everything that tries to define you. Don’t be afraid of life outside of the mold - You were never meant for it anyway.