Called by name.
by, Hyacinthe Talhea Noelle
I don’t think it’s ironic that I’m named after a flower. The story of my life is one of God ripping thorns out of my sides, making beautiful pressed art out of my fallen petals, and plucking my roots out from the broken floorboards they grew from.
God is an intentional designer, putting thought behind everything He creates. God picked out my name — the perfect metaphor for a blossoming soul — to complement the story He’s written for me. However, just as much as God intended for me to live up to my name, the enemy did, too. He planted seeds in my vulnerable soil, with hopes to outline the metaphor of a flower falling apart prematurely. His plot was to be the metaphor of beauty withering over time, an emphasis on God’s “failed” design. He sent people to crush my soul in hopes of burying me back underground. To prevent me from blossoming into the woman God created me to be,
He planted lies in my surrounding environment from a young age. For most of my life, those seeds were the ones being watered.
The earliest I can recall a seed of shame was five years old. I was in kindergarten when my mom looked at me, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and told me, “You’re useless. I wish I had aborted you.” Twenty years later, I try to find the humor in it so it doesn’t haunt me so much — I thought she meant she wanted to put me up for adoption. Nonetheless, I was terrified at the thought of being separated from her despite how she treated me. I didn’t even know it was narcissistic abuse until I was eighteen and began to have a conscience of my own. I still remember the confusion I felt watching my friends’ jaws drop at stories I’d tell them. They’d offer to pick me up and get me out of the house to protect me from what was a standard argument. This whole time, I thought it was motherly discipline, not brutal disregard. By the age of five, she taught me that no one could ever love me except her. I learned how useless I was at the same time I was learning my ABCs. I was so invaluable that only she could tolerate me just enough to keep me around. I was at the mercy of this ultimatum that either she takes care of me and picks my petals apart, or she abandons me, and no one will ever love me. I couldn’t leave her. The chaos was comforting, the shame was safe. All I had to do was be perfect and win her over.
That was the pursuit of my entire childhood and teenage years — to be perfect. Her perfect little flower.
Her perspective preceded me into every room I walked into. I introduced myself as the shy girl with anxiety. I’d casually call myself stupid and ugly in front of people. I only recently had the epiphany as an adult of how abnormal that behavior was. I was self-critical, emotional, closed off, anxious, and melancholy. I was the poster child of child abuse. It often went unnoticed. Emotional abuse to the point of extreme distress wasn’t concerning to my teachers. They didn’t comfort me when I walked into class crying because my mom threatened to drive off a bridge on the way there. I was just a dramatic kid who couldn’t handle a little parental discipline. I was just a ten-year-old already taking antidepressants. I was just a twelve-year-old having panic attacks, doing speeches in class, and having to get a 504 form to never do them again due to social anxiety. I was just a preteen contemplating suicide a week before my fourteenth birthday because my bullies echoed my mother’s lies, which meant they were facts — I am unlovable. I was ugly, I was stupid, I was lame, I was a loser. I sincerely thought with every fiber of my being that their insults were purely observational. It was apparently a conclusion anyone with ears and eyes could come to.
Despite being Christian and raised in a home decorated with crosses, my identity wasn’t in God — it was in shame. And the enemy was handing out watering cans for everyone to water it.
My school experience felt paradoxical — I was well-received by many people, known as this sweet, personable girl you could talk to. However, I was the target of bullying by this one group of girls. The same five to seven girls made school hell for me from sixth to tenth grade, causing me to skip school and eventually do online learning. It was bad enough that I had to withdraw. There was always some shameful lie about me circulating that I didn’t want to confront in person. They’d tell my best friend I talked badly about her behind her back, straining her trust in me. They’d tell my basketball coaches I said something disrespectful about them because they knew basketball was my refuge and my coaches loved me. The worst rumor they ever spread was freshman year of high school. They said I had done something inappropriate with a boy I had a crush on, despite my wearing a purity ring and knowing I’m waiting until marriage. It made me sick to my stomach, and it felt like a week-long nightmare. Not that anyone believed it, because again, I was the godly girl who’d pray for you in the hall if you asked me. It was humiliating nonetheless, and teenagers spread rumors for fun—even unconvincing ones—so my reputation wasn’t enough to spare me from their temporary entertainment.
Sophomore year they called me and said, “Don’t come to school tomorrow, everyone knows what you did.” It was a cryptic message that had me crying before I hung up. Then, a few minutes later, they added me into a group chat over text and blew up my phone telling me to kill myself. I showed the principal their messages, and as a just punishment, the girls had to sit out for a single football game. I’d be crushed under the soles of their cheer shoes tomorrow. The enemy was after my innocence. He was watering the seeds of shame.
My mother lived vicariously through me by making me do pageants, forcing me to straighten my naturally curly hair, guilt-tripping me into wearing makeup, and giving me diet shakes to drink every morning in preparation. Not for the beauty pageant, but to be loved by a boy someday. I was underwhelming, unprepossessing, and not skinny enough (despite being 5’7 and 120 lbs). That may be why ten years later I’m almost always bare-faced, dress modestly, wear as much black as I want to (yes, that was an issue for her), have as many cookies as I want, and leave my natural hair in all its curly, frizzy glory. Don’t get me wrong – I still rip into my own petals, picking myself apart sometimes – but God’s been uprooting, and I’ve been blooming.
Returning to the irony of my name again, I am what society would call a late bloomer, and for a few reasons. Sometimes I blame it on the seeds of shame, sometimes it’s just God’s timing for the plot. At twenty-five, I’ve never been in a relationship, never been in love.
I’ll admit that fear of abandonment and not being good or pretty or exciting enough still lingers, but I know I’m not as unlovable as I was taught. When someone says they love me now, I don’t call them a liar. I never thought I’d see the day I believe someone saying that. I’m blooming.
At twenty-five I’m only just now unearthing my gifts to others. I’ve kept my words six feet under the ground for the last ten years because they felt stupid and embarrassing. It’s funny how many people have called them inspiring and beautiful instead. I’ve simply been lying in a field of lies. I’m blooming. It’s taken a very long time for God to prune this garden infested with deception, but He’s slowly uprooting the shame. He’s planting seeds of truth. Seeds of faith that can move mountains. Seeds of a calling He’s watering for a future harvest. Seeds of healthy self-image because I was made in His image. He planted me because He has a plan for me. He didn’t sow me into the soil to never see the light of day. He created me for a purpose. So I am blooming — maybe late according to society, maybe slowly according to myself, but I am blooming.
