It's not my shame to hold

Hey y'all:
  You already know that I have been going through this tough time. The news of what I've had revealed to me has just rocked the sense of who I am. It's unfortunate because on the outside life is GREAT! I am 27, I have a Master's Degree, a wonderful job, some amazing friends and family and I am able bodied, healthy and active. But what eats at me is the challenges that I have lived through- NOT the triumphs, but the challenges-- when I look back at them I am shamed by them. I don't like sharing those details of my life, because those details hold so much pain for me. I don't like sharing those details of my life, because of the look on other people's faces- when they know and witness the life I am living and hear the life I have lived-- a look of shock comes over them.
  I don't like people being shocked by my life, or holding on to those images and moments as something that is me. I am much more than those moments, and I have lived through them, passed them, beyond them, that they are not my life anymore.
   But allow a moment like the one I was faced with a couple of weeks ago and I feel lost. I feel rocked back into living through those challenges. My parents didn't really give me a chance to be a kid. I don't know any child who  lives through a divorce, who does not grow up a little bit. But add the damage that my parents put me through and you end up growing up A LOT.
   But here is the thing- the shame is not mine to hold. I don't need to be ashamed of where I have come from--- I wasn't the one who brought that into my life, but I have a great opportunity to take it out of my life. I have been holding shame for the last 15 years of my life because I was too scared of the look that others would give me, I was too scared of the feeling that talking about my life would bring.
   I would rather live in the now and be proud of how far I have come and how much He has restored than sit in the misery that was my past. But it's okay to embrace it. It IS my life, and it made me who I am today. I don't have to be ashamed of it because all I did was live through it, passed it and into this moment.
   The details and circumstances that got me here, the pain that was inflicted, that's my parents' burden to bare, not mine.

    I'm starting to make my way back... It's not going to be easy, but I am making my way back.

That's all she wrote...