Overcoming Giants and Finding Freedom Through Faith and Recovery

The giants in my life keep getting smaller as my perspective changes. What are these giants? They are anything that comes to threaten your hopes and dreams, steal your peace, or destroy your life and the lives of those you care about. It's that voice that taunts you, searching for weaknesses in your armor. It is the very thing that is only as powerful as you allow it to be.

These are bold statements, I know. 

As long as I saw myself as weak and small, my choices reflected that mindset. I was a victim in my own mind long before I ever turned to substances to change the way I felt. There were plenty of painful experiences that distorted my view of myself, the world, and even God. 

Now, I realize that was the enemy's goal all along.

I had parents who loved God. We were faithful members of our church, where my parents drove the Sunday school bus and helped in various ministries. I don’t ever remember not loving God, but I do remember the questions that filled my young mind about why people did the things they did. What I didn’t realize then was that, little by little, the things that happened in my life became the very places where lies would sneak in and take root in my heart. It took years, and many wrong decisions, before I recognized how lost my trust in God had become and how everything in my life had started to fall apart.

The Roots of Fear and Survival Mode

The drugs, the alcohol, the toxic relationships, and all the unhealthy choices I made were never enough to satisfy my need to escape myself. I couldn’t see that the root of my struggles was fear. Fear of not being loved. Fear of being alone. Fear of people and their rejection. Even fears I couldn’t name or fully understand.

One of our natural responses to trauma is to go into survival mode. As a child, I felt unsafe in certain situations without even realizing it, and my eight-year-old mind immediately began to do things to protect and preserve myself. Lying was one example. I didn’t lie because I wanted to…it was because I was afraid. But once I was caught in a lie, I felt shame, followed by even more fear, knowing I had disappointed people.

There was a time when showing disapproval seemed like a healthy way to communicate, but I’ve learned it’s not healthy at all. These fears and broken communication patterns spilled over into my relationship with God as well.