Borrowed Security

🫠 Nerd alert! 🤓

I’m back with the clinical terms, but this time it hits a little closer to the teenage years.

In my pervious posts, I introduced you to 4-year-old "Mary" in Albuquerque—the little girl found changing her sister's diaper while drinking from a discarded bottle in a house filled with garbage. As a nurse, I can look at that file and see a child in survival mode. But as I grew up, that survival mode didn't just switch off; it moved with me to Tennessee.

I was a gifted student, an A/B student, and a proud member of the High School band playing the flute. To the world, I was adjusting. But my Tennessee records show a recurring struggle: "taking things that didn't belong to me". Looking back through my medical records, the catalyst was clear: I was being bullied. It started as a desperate act —taking the phone of a girl who targeted me—but it quickly snowballed! When I was eventually caught, I found myself 14 years old and forced to explain away my "petty thefts." The adults in my life were understandably frustrated, urging me to "rebuild trust" and "make better choices." I still remember sitting before a judge, paralyzed by a silence born of nerves, promising to "fully participate" simply because I couldn't bear the weight of being labeled a thief.

But here is the "Loud Truth" I see now through the eyes of Grace and Science: The brain of a child who once had to find her own food doesn't understand "private property." It only understands "scarcity."

When a 4-year-old’s survival depends on finding a discarded bottle to keep from starving, the "software" of her brain is programmed to secure resources whenever they appear. Years later, even in a home with parents who wanted the “best for me”, that 4-year-old was still "scanning" for security. What the world called "stealing," my body called "surviving."

As a nurse, I now know that chronic stress causes the amygdala (our fear center) to stay enlarged, while the prefrontal cortex (our logical center) can struggle to stay online. My body was biologically unable to hear the signal to "calm down" because it was still listening for the click of a locked bathroom door.

In all honesty, I felt like a "cracked vessel" during those court dates—broken and disappointing to everyone I loved.

But Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted."

God didn't see a "thief" in that courtroom; He saw a girl whose "internal army" was tired from fighting a war that was supposed to be over.

I’m sharing this because I know some of you ( can’t just be me surely) are still living out the "echoes" of your own past. You might have habits or reactions that make you feel like a "bad" person. I want you to know: your body learned those patterns to keep you alive.

The good news? We serve a loving God. He doesn't just want us to "do better"; He wants to renew our minds and heal our cells. My life is proof that you can go from the "Dark Bathroom" to the "High School Band," and eventually, to a place of total peace.

The vessel is still cracked, but the light coming through those cracks is getting brighter every day. ✨