Dealing With Heartbreak After Herpes

2010 was the year I went away to college. I was a transfer student and it was the first time I ever lived away from home. I lost my virginity the year before to my first boyfriend. I can honestly say I wasn't in love with him, but he was my first and therefore there was an attachment and a hurt I'd carry from the way things ended. My heart was so hardened after that relationship. It changed me in a lot of ways. Bitterness was my daily drink and anger was my main response toward men. Although, I despised them because of the hurt I had, I still felt incomplete without them and desperately desired to be desired. I was a month and half into my first semester when I met my next guy. Let's call him Tom.

Tom and his friends were students and visiting our campus from out of state, I met him the morning after a party. No, not as in we all went out to coffee the next day and I met him in Starbucks. The morning after as in, the party started at 11 pm Saturday night and then I went to the after party at someone's house, and after the after party at like 6 am, I met him. That was a regular night for me back then lol. Being hardened from my past relationship and coming to a new campus with tons of guys, I was honestly in a place of not caring about guys' feelings and doing me. Meaning, I wasn't trying to be in one relationship, I wanted to be free. I wanted boos and F-buddies and that was it. Learning that Tom was from out of state, I definitely wasn't trying to take him seriously (on top of the mindset I had), but he was cute and funny and I figured he'll just be my boo in that city. I figured I'm in college and road trips are a thing, so I can have campus boos and out of state boos. Whenever I go to that city, I'll have someone to connect with. That's ALL I thought of it as. However, I've since learned that communication is the way to the heart. Whoever you're communicating with consistently will most likely take space in your heart whether you intended for that to happen or not. And that's exactly what happened. My out of state boo that I planned to merely have on-call when I visit that city soon became my best friend and situationship/basically relationship boo lol. My heart was growing for him and I could really see myself marrying him one day.

It was to the point where Tom and I had gotten into disagreements and I was ACTUALLY apologizing to him, that WAS UNHEARD OF!! I never apologized to anyone, I was so prideful and felt like apologizing was "weak". However, I was learning to communicate because he was leading by example and apologized to me when he messed up. He paid for me to come see him and bought me a webcam so we could Skype. His attention to me made me feel like I was in a dream world. I didn't know this until 6 years later, long after the relationship lol, but I was falling in love with him. This meant I was starting to heal from my ex and actually trusting again. So you can imagine how distraught I was when I returned home from my last trip visiting him and the doctor told me I had contracted herpes. I saw the trust I placed him that just shattered before my eyes. I remember calling him up screaming and balling. I was hurt in so many ways that couldn't be identify in the moment. As I yelled and cried and cried and yelled, he sat there in silence. After getting off the phone with him, I wrote him an email with some harsh wording and told him I never wanted to speak to him again. I blocked him from all social platforms and deleted his number. He was the only one that knew this truth about me, but I cut him out my life, so now it was just me, by myself, in my brokenness.

My body was in a great deal of pain, but my heart hurt so much worse. Proverbs 18:14 says the spirit of man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear? Meaning, when the body is sick, our strong, upbeat spirits help us to hope and help our bodies to recover. However, if your spirit/heart, the place you draw hope from is sick, then who's able to bear or get through that? What medicine is there for broken hearts or spirits? How can any human being endure that? That's literally how I felt, like I couldn't endure. When a person gets to that place, the enemy will either continue to weigh the person down with thoughts of hopelessness until they surrender and take their life because they can't endure. Or satan will influence them to self-medicate in order to  numb the hopelessness. Which may enable temporary endurance, but ultimately destroys the person from the inside out. I took the second route. As I mentioned earlier, I was a wild partier, drinking was a regular part of my life. But partying and drinking took on a new meaning for me. Now, when I drank, I didn't want to feel. I wanted to escape my life and be anyone, BUT me. Not feeling the hurt, for even a few hours, was some sort of "relief" I was willing to receive.

Maybe you're feeling the heartbreak after herpes. I went through it and wouldn't wish that pain on my worst enemy. I wish I could take it away from you, but I can't. We live in a broken world, filled with hurt and pain. No one ever plans to get hurt. As much as we try to guard and protect ourselves, it can still happen. Beloved, I don't have any magic words or button to press to make it go away, but I do know that God is a healer. God may have healed my body in 2013, but He's STILL healing me from the trauma of my experience with Tom 9 years ago. It will take time, but know that if you bring your heart to Jesus he is able to nurse it back to health. It's okay to cry. Cry at his feet. Let him know it hurts, tell him it's hard, be real with YOUR God. Your honesty and transparency with God is what's going to aid in your own internal healing. When you tell him what hurts, that exhibits the faith he needs to now move to start the repair in that area. Again, it will take time, but IT IS POSSIBLE. Jesus loves you so much.

May your hope be in Jesus Christ,

Anreka


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Hope Through Herpes Outbreaks

You ever feel like the devil just won't leave you alone? As soon you come out of one battle, here goes another one. Especially, when it comes to your hope and trusting and believing God. Perhaps, you've been reading Hope Letters, praying to God for healing, trusting that He's able to do it, and your mind is in a good place of hope. Then boom, you get a herpes outbreak and it seems like you're thrusted into another battle of discouragement and hopelessness. I know that's how I felt when I was praying and believing God for healing.

God's hope is one of the most powerful things a human being can ever experience in this life. The bible says in Romans 8:24 that we are literally SAVED by hope. That's what God gave me when I got saved in 2012. As I listened to this stranger's herpes healing testimony on Youtube and heard how much Jesus loved me in the midst of my mess, I believed and I experienced God's hope for the first time. I believed and hoped in His promise that my soul would indeed live after death and I would spend eternity with Him. I also believed and hoped that while I lived on earth He had the ability to heal me from the demonic spirit of herpes. God's hope brought my mind a level of mental freedom that nothing else could. I would pray everyday believing God could heal me, wondering if I was healed, wondering how it would happen. Only to have my hope stomped on when I would get an outbreak and realized I wasn't healed. With every outbreak, it felt like the enemy came to steal the little hope and mental freedom I had.

I imagine this is how the children of Israel felt throughout the whole Old Testament of the Bible. They we were one of the smallest nations among their neighbors and they were CONSTANTLY in battle, especially with the nation of Philistine. Over the course of generations, this one enemy never let up. They were way stronger than Israel, had larger armies and more weapons, yet every time they went to war with Israel, God would show up and give Israel the victory! However, it was like a never ending cycle. Philistine would come to fight, Israel would go to battle, God gave them the victory, then shortly after Philistine was back again to fight.

We see this in 2 Samuel 23 where King David reflects on a few of the mighty warriors in past battles with Philistine and then in verse 13, present day, it says the Philistines were camped out close by (mostly likely preparing to attack Israel again). As I read this, I saw that the ONLY way the children of Israel could face the huge nation of Philistine in war again is if they REMEMBERED what God did for them before. They had to draw on the hope that God could do it again. Rather than looking at the enemy's relentless return, they had to place their eyes on God's consistent track record!

When I prayed for healing and would experience outbreaks, I was then faced with a choice. I would either look at the enemy coming to fight me again and dwell on it and allow that hopelessness to kill my faith OR look at and remember God's track record. That meant remembering the herpes healing testimonies I heard, the healing testimonies I was learning in the Bible, and that with God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).

If I didn't look at God's track record (as hard as it was) and rebuild myself in God's hope through the outbreaks, I would've never seen my healing in 2013 because I would've given up. If the children of Israel gave into the fear of Philistines, they would've never seen the victory of God time and time again. I encourage you to look at and remember God's track record when the enemy comes to attack. Whether it's through an outbreak, or a mental attack or some other part of your life. Don't look at the attacker and his return. Look at your Savior and the victory he's already won for you!


May your hope be in Jesus Christ,

Anreka


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Feeling Like You're About To Drown?

You've been feeling like you're in the midst of one storm with herpes and now the world is hit another evil illness, covid-19. You may be in prayer now against two ailments or maybe you're dealing with losing your job because of the pandemic. Then on top of losing your job, you're wondering how you're going to pay the bills, feed the kids, SURVIVE? It's like one storm after another. How much can one person take?

I remember when I was diagnosed with herpes in 2011, within one second my entire life changed and I faced what felt like the greatest storm of my life. I lost a portion of my health, my love at the time, my connection with others (because I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone), and my sight of the future. It was actually multiple storms in one. Then, a month and half later, my sin caught up with me again and I got into major legal trouble and had a court date on my hands. One tsunami after another, how was this happening TO ME?? I literally felt like I was drowning. Maybe that's how you're feeling right now. Your life is taking one hit after another and you're at the point of giving up.

I want to encourage you with a scripture I came across in Psalm 93:2-4:

Your (God's) throne is established from old, you are everlasting. The floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The LORD ON HIGH IS MIGHTIER than the noise of many waves, yea than the mighty waves of the sea.

In this scripture we have David reflecting on when he felt like he was drowning. The floods of life lifted up their voice (the voice sounds like worry, fear, anxiety, discouragement, disappointment, depression, hopelessness) and the floods lifted up their waves (circumstance after circumstance, bad news after bad news, wave after wave). He was surrounded by water, the waves were much stronger than him and the current was too much for him to swim through. The voices of the floods made it difficult to hear the voice of God, but he remembered THE LORD ON HIGH IS MIGHTIER than the noise of many waves! In the midst of his flood, he may not have been able to feel God or even hear God, but he KNEW God and recalled on what He KNEW to be His truth over the floods. His KNOWLEDGE of God being MIGHTIER became his life jacket! 

God IS NOT A FEELING. John 4:24 says, God is a SPIRIT: and they that worship him must worship him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH. We don't worship or believe God through feeling, not even through hearing, but by yielding our spirits to HIS TRUTH. If we know His truth that alone is enough to keep us a float above the waves. That is enough to save us. That is enough to stop us from drowning. Right now God's truth is that HE IS MIGHTIER than herpes, corona, job loss, financial strain, and whatever other storm is trying to take you over. Repeat this scripture everyday if you have to, and soon this truth will be louder than the noises of the waves and your faith will be mightier than the height of the waves. 

God's word is your life jacket, in Jesus you will not drown!

May your hope be in Jesus Christ,


Anreka

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Hope During World Crisis

As many of you are aware the world is facing a major health crisis, the coronavirus. Some of you may not have been impacted and some of you may whether you're battling the ailment or know someone who is. Wherever you fall in this, I come writing this letter hearing and feeling the world's cry for HOPE.

The greatest way I know to access hope is through PRAYER! Let's storm heaven together! Access the prayer BELOW! Whether you believe or not, reciting the words have POWER and the more of us that pray it, the more power it will have in releasing hope into the world. After you pray it, type AMEN in the comments of this Hope Letter!

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May your hope be in Jesus Christ,

Anreka

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