Bricks: A Personal Journey to Freedom

By C.M. Benet

Why Bricks? Throughout my life, I've built walls of protection to keep people out, an encompassing tower of protection from the pain and hurt I have experienced. As I grew closer and closer to the Lord, He showed me a new way, a way that required walls to come down, a full demolition of thought patterns about my own life. He showed me the tower of protection I built was a prison.

Bricks is a vulnerable account of my personal journey to freedom and restoration. It goes to the depths exposing trauma, yet God reveals Himself over and over; He was there all along.

Each one of us has a story; many times we discredit its value, yet to someone else it just might be a lifeline. I pray my story will be an encouragement and insight into your own struggles. Breaking free from past hurt and making peace with our journey is true freedom.

From childhood to marriage to parenting and everything in between, I pray Bricks touches your heart and brings you restoration and a deeper love for our amazing Savior. He is the answer, always.

May God bless you as you take a walk with me and Jesus through my story.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

--Psalm 51:10

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685702458

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Plans

Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.

—Psalm 62:8

I’ve come to a place in my life where it is time to share. I do not want to waste pages on sad stories and depressing times, yet my heart says, Maybe sharing where I was compared to where I am could help someone searching for a glimpse of hope. Many see me today for who I am. Please have no assumption that I have it all together—yet I’ve come along way. My hope is for this to be what you need to hear in your life at this time.

Today I stand at a new place, a place that is the freest I’ve been in mind, body, and spirit. I love my husband. I mean it from the deepest part of who I am. Honestly, I haven’t always felt that way. This journey has been a mess, a beautiful mess nonetheless. I’m still here, and that in and of itself is a miracle tenfold. It’s been an ugly cry, and a screaming nightmare at times. Yet for me to simply say the statement above is profound.

Hardships happen in life, and many times they create barriers. They build brick walls…tall, tall walls with thick, thick mortar made from giant heavy bricks. These walls have seemed impossible to tear down at times. Traumatic experiences can be the tallest and thickest walls. They kept my husband out and about every other person who tried to get close to me.

What I’ve discovered over the last seven years of emotional, spiritual, and mental healing through journaling, counseling, prayer, and meditation is the walls we build are not protecting us, the walls we build are imprisoning us.

If I told you your protection wall was imprisoning you, would it change your thinking about the choices you’re making today, or would you disagree and close this book? I’ve closed a lot of books over my life. I’ve opened, started, couldn’t finish, because it was too hard, too difficult, too emotional, too personal, and I was not willing to face it. You see, I worked hard at becoming this strong. The only problem is I really wasn’t strong. Being strong is about working through your hardships, being strong is facing fears, facing hurt.

I’m not here to tell you it is an easy process working through emotional and mental things, but I am here to tell you it can happen. You can walk and not be afraid, you can know that you’re loved, and you can love yourself again or maybe for the first time. I used to hear the statement Love yourself, and I just laughed. I thought, How selfish is that? What even is loving myself? I hardly like myself. The negative assaults would begin: Do you know what I’ve done? Do you know how horrible I’ve been, and the shame scars I wear? Do you know the things that I’ve done to hurt other people? No, I just couldn’t love myself.

Today I like myself, and I’m still learning to love myself. As you begin clearing your tower out, your walls of trauma and bricks of pain and emotional turmoil, you can see clearer. It’s a scary place in the beginning. I liked my walls, I liked my bricks, I liked my glorious castle. It looked strong and stunning. It became my identity, and disconnect became a way of life.

Then God whispered, "But you’re wrong, that’s not who I created you to be. I didn’t create you to hide, and I didn’t create you to be hard-hearted. I didn’t create you to be fearful, disconnected, angry, and I didn’t create you to be reserved in love.

Chapter 2

Before Bricks

Whoever humbles himself like this child is a greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

—Matthew 18:4

I began to think on who I was created to be, and God began to reveal lies and truths to me about my past and my present. To discover who God truly designed me to be, I had to go back—way back within my memories, before trauma, before hardship.

*     *     *     *     *

As a six-year-old, I can recall the joy in my heart, the love I had for nature, the love I had for Mom, Dad, and my family. I remember a carefree spirit, and joy bubbling out of me. I trusted people and life. I explored. There were no weights. I was free, and I liked who I was. I was a leader, an encourager, and a bottle of energy that talked to anyone and everyone. I loved smelling the red tulips in the spring. I was captivated by their beauty. I recall the lightning bugs and digging my bare feet in the cool, wet mud. I recall baking cookies and eating the dough with my mom and sister. We played dressing up and Barbies, danced to Crystal Gayle records, and had many adventures on our ten-acre pasture. In the spring, I smelled the irises in bloom and rode the tractor with my dad, and going to church on Sunday mornings.

While attending Sunday school, I remember singing one particular song, Into My Heart. It made me feel very uncomfortable. Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart Lord Jesus, come in today, come in to stay, come into my heart Lord Jesus. Maybe it was the thought of someone being in my heart, literally, that seemed impossible and a bit scary. How could God fit in my heart? My heart was too small. Or maybe my sweet little spirit sensed the seriousness of this statement at age five.

We would sing every Sunday morning in the sanctuary, and us kids were blessed to pick the songs. All the excitement of hands raised high, Pick me, pick me! I remember my grandmother’s joyful laughter as she watched us. I always picked He Lives or How Great Thou Art.

My relationship with Christ, as a young child, was like most children—hard to understand—yet I knew He was real; I just couldn’t see Him. My prayers usually consisted of Please let me get a horse or Keep me safe in the dark.

These memories are precious and are my reset when memories of hardship arise. This was me, this was me before.

Chapter 3

Brick One

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

—Psalm 147:3

On a hot July summer evening, the family gathered together to celebrate dad’s birthday. We all sat on the porch awaiting the arrival of a family friend who was running late. At nine years old, I recall the energy in the room was different; there was a sense of worry.

He was one of my dad’s closest friends and was like an uncle to us kids. Struggle had been evident for some time in his life. He was emotionally all over the place, which was very uncharacteristic for him. My parents worried he was different. They began to argue a lot around this time. Phone call after phone call and tear after tear, I didn’t understand what all was going on, but I knew enough to know it wasn’t good. As I watched from the window of my bedroom in our two-story home, I listened to the yelling and the hurt that transpired outside. They were trying to keep the chaos away from us kids. It was the first sign of a bigger issue I couldn’t fathom in my nine-year-old brain. My dad’s friend was a jokester just like my father. They had the same smile and laugh that could light up the room.

The night we awaited his arrival to my dad’s birthday party, I recall the energy being unsettling. This was my first experience with uneasiness, and I sensed something horrible was coming. We waited and waited; as the clock ticked on, he did not show. He did not answer the phone. My parents asked Grandpa to go check on him at his house. Back then, there were no cell phones—we waited and waited.

I remember the lights, red and blue in the dark night, and the noise of the sirens as I looked out the window of our house. When the police and pastors showed up to the door, they flooded into our house with downcast faces. It was overwhelming. They talked, but I couldn’t hear because of all the commotion. I saw the police holding up my mother as she fell into their arms in disbelief. I stood in a blurred bubble of confusion at what was happening. What happened, what happened? I said as they rushed past me and around me, as if no one could see me.

Finally, one of the pastors looked me deep in my eyes, holding on to my arms and bravely told my nine-year-old self, with all the sympathy and love he could muster that my friend had died. He held me and hugged me. After the house cleared from the chaos of police uniforms and family, we settled into our living room to watch the news. We were trying to find a moment of normalcy in this blender of a mess. As I gazed at the television, hoping for some form of comfort, the news reporter announced the tragic death of a man in our hometown. They announced our friend’s name and stated the police had ruled it a suicide. The news reporter told me how he died. My memories beyond that moment get fuzzy.

For the next few years, I watched my family crumble apart. Stability was gone. Grieving this type of a loss was ugly, of course it was. It would be for anyone. It surprises me to this day that we made it through that time and somehow my parents managed to stick together when all seemed to be falling apart from my nine-year-old perspective.

Suicide is devastating to every family who endures it. The emotional turmoil that a traumatic event like this can leave with a person is crippling. For some people, they will develop illnesses, some turn to substances, others they will become withdrawn and bitter. All I know is Jesus is the only reason we made it out of that experience without falling apart completely. Of course there was falling apart, but God healed hearts, comforted loss, and walked out that ugly hard time with all of us. Only Jesus can do that.

Chapter 4

A Firm Foundation

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

—Matthew 7:8

In elementary school, not long after our friend’s death, the kids at school were talking about being saved at the lunch table. They explained their pastor said I needed to be saved to go to heaven. I mean, Jesus doesn’t just let anyone in there you know! was announced. I went to church off and on over the years with mom or my grandparents. I knew about Jesus but really didn’t know Jesus.

I went home that day after school pleading with my mom that I would burn in hell if I wasn’t saved and what should I do, and what about our friend? Did he know Jesus? My classmates said suicide was an unforgivable sin! The battle in my ten-year-old brain was intense. My mom looked deep into my eyes and said, You pray for him, you pray that God has mercy on his soul, for he didn’t know what he was doing, he was sick.

That was the day I began to know God, not know about God. I poured out my child’s heart to God. I asked God to forgive our friend and let him into heaven. I can’t tell you how many years I prayed that prayer. I don’t know what God’s answer is