Don't judge them, love them.

This is a topic which is extremely close to my heart. I cannot express how much pain it causes me when I see yet another young girl fall into it's deathly grip. It can control you, it is selfish, it is horrible and yet so many people suffer from this addiction.

Self harm, self mutilation, cutting. What ever you want to call it, no one can judge another person about it until they themselves have struggled with it. You cannot say "they only want attention" until you personally know the reasons why someone chooses to hurt themselves. You cannot not look at someone and say "they can stop if they want, its just a phase" until you yourself have felt its power. You cannot judge someone for wanting to cause harm to themselves until you know what has caused them to get to such a low place.

I have a friend, for privacy's sake I'll name her Naomi, who struggled with self harm for almost five years. She started as a 13 year old, not knowing how to express her emotions properly as she was always taught that displaying 'negative emotions' such as anger, sadness, and frustration was wrong. Because of Naomi's family situation she was not allowed to talk about her problem she was having. Even when she told her Mum, 6 months after starting this addiction, she was told that she could tell no one in the church, only her Mum left it at that. She never spoke to Naomi again about the subject. I'm sure you can imagine the pain this caused Naomi, not only emotionally but also physically with the cutting.

She found herself spiraling downwards. The cutting got worse and soon she would have anxiety attacks which could only be controlled by the self harm. She would hear voices, be unable to move, have a total irrational fear of what would happen if she did not cut herself. So, when these anxiety attacks hit the only thing to calm herself down would be the self harm.

She began using her own blood to write on her wall. She would write how much she hated God, how she was useless and should die. Don't get me wrong, Naomi loved God with all her heart, its just that when under this violent addiction she could not think straight or be herself.

When she was at church she would be that perfect church girl every christian parent wanted their child to be. I know so many people who would come up to her and talk about how they saw her as such a role model. When people said things like this, all she wanted to do was scream and tell them what she was really doing. How Satan had his grip on her and would not let Naomi go. How desperate and alone she felt. How no matter what she did, nothing would take away her scars, physical and emotional, of what was happening.


She tried many times to stop, only to find herself back in the same position a few weeks later. It got so bad that one of her cuts got infected and had to see a doctor about it. The cutting carried on for a few more weeks but eventually stopped. Its been 5 months since Naomi last cut herself. The journey since then has not been easy. I'd like to write what happened, only I know that I shouldn't for her sake as it involves many people.

Naomi does not know whats kept her from cutting these past few months. All she knows is that the urge is not there any more. The anxiety attacks have gone, although the anxiety is still there. The scars are also still there. Not only physically, but emotionally she has so much hurt. From the comments of people, from the abandonment she felt, from the lying of others to protect her family and from God for not stopping this sooner.

One of the things which kept her strong were the vision's God often gave her. One was when she was writing with her own blood. Jesus came along, took her razor and cut Himself, covering her blood with His. I think this is such a powerful vision. Jesus died for our sins. He bleed so we did not have to. His blood covered our sins and because of that we are forgiven.

Naomi is only one of the millions of girls suffering from self harm. I've noticed that so many christian girls fall into this trap of cutting. Please, if you're the praying type, pray for these girls. They are so alone in this battle. It does not matter what reason they give for their actions, it is still a problem! They are still harming themselves which goes against all human instincts of survival. It is unnatural and a complete demonic thing to do. Don't judge them, love them.

How do we stay strong in faith when everything is screaming at us to walk away?

How do we stay strong in faith when everything is screaming at us to walk away?

I think this is a question everyone has asked themselves at least once in their life. I know that lately this question has become more and more frequent for me. Its a question which could have so many different answers. So many times I have asked this question. And when Satan chucks us excuse after excruciating excuse to walk away, how do we stay strong?

When the world is pulling you away, when your prayers stay unanswered, when everything you thought you knew about God is put to the test and everything inside of you is telling you to give up; how do you stay firm in your faith?

I wish I could say that I stood my ground when the going got tough. That I sought refuge from the Father and stood firm in faith when I needed to most. But like a lot of people I can't say that. I took a look at this world and thought "how can such a loving God let all this happen?"

I don't think God ever intended to let the world get this way. It comes with the whole free choice deal. We need faith to make it work. If we have faith then we will do what God intended for us to do, meaning it'll turn out just fine and dandy in the end even though the hard slog is, well, extremely hard! If we don't have faith we won't do what God intended for us to do. The free will God gave us isn't used wisely and all of a sudden the whole world is falling down around us. Sin enters our lives and it effects those who stick by us. So we find ourselves asking the question "How do we stay strong in faith when everything is screaming at us to walk away".

Well, if you had sufficient enough faith in the first place I don't think we would be asking this question. But of course, we are only human and we struggle to completely surrender everything to something we cannot physically see. But I think this quote sums it all up: Faith isn't faith until its all your holding onto.