Confusion...

I am so lost right now.  Each day I seem to be I am finding the challenge of understanding.  I am lost in the confusion of what my faith has been, and what it will become.  Yet, I am not sure at all what my faith will become. 

Rules... and more rules.  That is how my faith has made sense to me.  I was to listen and obey my elders.  I was to trust that each action was the path that God had placed before me.  And I was never to question God.  God could destroy me if He wanted, and a lack of obedience was an opening for God to destroy me.  

When I was younger I never questioned each action that was given to me.  Each role that I needed to take on.  I welcomed the choices that I found placed in front of me.  Even when those choices created a great level of fear in me for night after night.  I knew I was chosen and that God had played a great role in my being chosen... so I submitted without question.  I didn't understand the role I was chosen for, and yet I willingly learned how to accomplish that role.  I am still trying to understand the emotions that the were created within each act of sacrifice.  

I was brought to the role of his second.  I always knew that he had a first.  The first was his wife.  And she would always hold a place in his heart.  She was the one chosen and the whole world was witness to the day they became one.  I was given that chance to become one, in the dark of night.  After listening to him come home, hearing each step as he navigated the stairs.  And yet, it wasn't me that he was seeking first.  It was her.  He found his way to the room between their room and the one I was asleep in.  The bathroom, a refuge for all at one point or another.  The sounds from the bathroom startled me.  And then he was banging and yelling.  His first had made the choice.  She locked him out of the room that they belonged in together.  And in that simple action, she chose me to become his second on that night.  

In the darkness of our joining... I can remember just a few details.  The smell was overwhelming.  It was a smell that it would take me years to be able to connect to what it was.  It was a smell of alcohol... that and the smell of pee.  Basically at this point I understand that it was the smell of a bar bathroom.  And the smell is something I avoid.  Yet, the smell gave way to touch.  Hands with rough fingers were moving me around like a rag doll.  And then all I can remember is feeling like I was choking in the dark.  Yet, his hands were not on my neck.  How could I feel like I was struggling for each breathe?  And what was it that cemented our relationship?  

What I am left with in many ways is some snapshots that I know traverse time in my life.  And with those snapshots... I hear different things.  Quiet, a baby crying, his panting breathe...  All along with this feeling of drowning.  And yet, at some point in this time line of our relationship...  I was awoken because I was soaking wet.  And there he was... helping me out of the wet clothes...  

Yet, another time...  I woke up sticky.  But I knew whatever it was that I was submitting to was helping.  I found the strength to keep breathing.  And somehow I knew that God would help me sleep.  And sleep became something that only happened,  when I could place a bible under my pillow.  Yet, it was years after that my inability to sleep became an issue.  

I don't recall the exact date that this all started.  I often wish I could have remembered the date that I was chosen.  I remember other important days, but that one is still just a memory without an exact time.  And I often wonder if remembering more would help to prove to others that it was real.  That my mind didn't create these memories, emotions, and feelings...  Even years later when his first informed me that I had created the conditions to be chosen as his second... and that I had enjoyed it.  And that thought in enjoying it and his first being so happy about it...  has made me wonder.  Yet, I also wonder why his first walked away from him.

Even all these years later...  I don't know what I was enjoying.  How anyone could know I enjoyed it.  But I also don't know how to find a path from repentance and penance to this love that is talked about around me.  How can I understand?  What is next?  This is the perfect storm of confusion that I am trying to understand right now...  Where does my relationship with him come into the world of the relationship I have with my faith?

Sometimes it is the simple things...

I have been dealing with a lot lately.  And one of those things, as always, is pain.  Yet the pain I have faced is not back pain.  Pain can come thru many places we tend not to think about.  And often some of these places are clouded with silence.  We are taught not to speak about the place.  Yet the place is vital to our living, and in most people provides a function that we just take for granted.  And in many ways I have taken this function for granted.

Despite having faced major back surgery... it was not something that I thought about as special.  And at that point I felt like I couldn't be more than a few feet from a bathroom.  And trips out were planned on routes with the closest bathrooms by mileage.  And I adjusted, but I still took for granted that everything worked.  I was alive... I was walking... and okay I had to race to the bathroom from time to time... Okay a lot!!!  And yet, each day I just never thought about it.  

I struggled with times when I didn't make it.  And yet, it was nothing because I could walk.  And then one day things changed.  I just wished that day for hours...  I would keep on my schedule and take huge chunks of time in my bathroom.  Each time I would pray for the expected outcome.  Yet when one night 19 hours later... doubled over in pain.. I was praying, just praying to God that He would let me pee.  It was even to the point that I honestly did not care if I wet myself.  I just wanted the pain to go away.  And as the end of a prayer... I finally could in the shower of hot water.  Water so hot it felt like it could have burned me, but it was enough to finally let my body pee.

At that point I was put on a path with one choice of medication... and yet it did help.  Sadly while it made it possible to pee a few times each day, it was creating a new and different level of pain.  Each day would be this struggle... hours upon hours would pass with more pain and no relief.  And yet I would finally reach a point where I would have to the bathroom, and it would feel like it would never stop...  yet once it did the pain just would increase.

Now this lasted as months ticked away... and yet, today I went to a new type of doctor and a gift was given to me.  Honestly while I was surprised how a cath, which is no longer than a pencil could be the solution that has changed my day.  First time, was at the doctor office while she taught me how to do the process myself.  I honestly felt like I was getting a taste of heaven.  Something that had become painful... all of a sudden had a sense of ease.  Months of pain, just turned into a blessing of relief.  Something so simple, that everyone just thinks is normal, and I am now so thankful that despite the path I have been on... I just might have it be something simple.

It makes me so thankful that something so simple, is also changing my ability to see things in the world.  The vibrant colors of leaves.  The cold rain on my face.  And to begin to understand that the simple things are sometimes the most important thing to see.

Lost in Love

I have been trying to understand such a little word lately.  LOVE.  And yet it feels like it is the hardest word in the world to define.  

love

noun \ˈləv\

: a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person
: attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship

: a person you love in a romantic way

And yet, when you look up the word and read the definition the dictionary provides...  It tends to just focus on romantic relationship.  And now in the aftermath of abuse, romantic love is something I wish to avoid.  It is hard enough to understand the love that God gives to me.  And when I take the time to attempt to think about that love, I find that I am overwhelmed by feelings.  And yet, if you ask me to identify the feelings with a word...  I am speechless...

You see love is something in my life that was something you proved you were worthy of.  That was what filled all my waking hours.  Something that I am still trying to accomplish.  Even with my mother dead and buried, I desire to prove to her that I am worthy of her love.  And yet that love is conditional and always caused me a great deal of pain while she was alive.  Each breathe that I took always felt like it was being measured against a stick.  And I could be just one mm off and I knew I would hear about it.  Perfection was the goal...  and in my attempts I never saw perfection.

It could have been a simply as not wiping the piano the way my mother desired... but the amount of her complaints was always so great.  Just like the afternoon that my mother got upset with my father... And she threw dinner at him.  And while they continued to argue... I cleaned up the mess.  And yet when they were able to stop fighting...  I was dragged into the kitchen over each spot that I had missed.  Add to it the fact that I couldn't figure out where my mother was in the process of making dinner, and was punished for the ruined dinner and the fact that it was late.  I didn't really care about my family since I couldn't manage to fix dinner. 

That is something that still races in my mind.  And each one of these points in my life seems to be etched forever on my soul...  and I find that it helps to cloud my mind about the real definition of love...  

So... maybe this is where I start right now...  learning to understand the full definition of love.  And maybe in understanding the definition, it will help with the waves of emotions that just the thought of unconditional love from God seems to bring.

Decisions in LOVE!

I have been reading "The Best Yes" by Lysa Terkeurst, and I just feel like I am playing catch up all the time.  And yet today I was struck with what I heard thru the words from God.  You see, in this cycle of abuse that I have spent so many years in... Yes became the safest thing to say.  My husband wanted sex and I just allowed it, no matter how I felt.  My mother wanted us to come down and visit... we packed up and came, even if it was 2 AM.  I just always gave into each and every demand.

Not once did I ever stop to consider if I had the required resources to say yes.  Or could even label what those resources should be.  And yet, to have a list now seems like a huge blessing.  And it gives me a chance for once to actually be able to start to evaluate the decisions that I make, not out of a fear of abuse, but out of a desire to serve God.  These resources that I need to consider fall into the following four areas, Physically, Financially, Spiritually, and Emotionally.  And it is not just considering these area, but also considering what can happen if what I am saying Yes to will bankrupt myself.  But even in considering these areas, it shocked me to learn that I'M BANKRUPT WITHOUT LOVE!!!

When I started to ponder these ideas, I realized that the definition that I had of serving others was warped.  And found that my definition should be an exercise of asking God to help me realistically assess how to love a person without bankrupting myself or my family.  The definition makes it possible to have an attitude of love trump the activity that we are being asked to consider reaching out to do.  And it made me see just how bankrupt that I am still from my own marriage.  Years of my submitting to my husband out of a love for God, were in so many ways bankrupting what resources that I had within me.  I physically reached a point where I was exhausted all the time.  And in that exhaustion, I became physically sick much more often and sicker than I had ever been.  Financially, I was completely dependent on my husband.  His spending habits determined what we had left to provide food, clothes, even gas to the car to be able to leave the house.  With so little funds in my name, I was bankrupt no matter how much I watched each dime we spent, because any amount of saving on my part tended to lead to his desire to spend more funds.  Living with a constant drain on each and every dime we had made me stop wanting to fill the needs that I had, let alone others.  Then with regards to Spiritually, the control of my ability to leave the house and go to places was controlled so much by the moods of my husband.  I even found it difficult to find moments to even read God's word, let alone spend time in a community of believers.  So that tank in my marriage was constantly seeking ways to feel connected with God.  And finally Emotionally, I became numb.  I just faced what was placed in front of me, without expressing any real thoughts from my soul.  Yet, inside my soul was so drained that I found it all too easy to use methods of physical harm to help me control the emotional reality I lived in.  I never had time to even to consider making a choice that would allow me to not be bankrupt.  I with the great need for everyone to be happy with me... Yes, became my only answer.  

And while it is now... years since I have lived with my husband that I can understand that the fear I lived with never gave me the chance to say no.  And now, I also know that saying no, almost cost me my physical life.  Yet, now I need to learn how to compute this new definition of serving others.  I need to learn how to have a balance that allows me to be physically, financially, spiritually, and emotionally healthy.  And to be in a place where I can make choices that fit much better with God's desires, and not just my need to survive.

Is it really Monday?

I honestly feel like between church yesterday and right now that a week has passed.  I have found myself on the front lines of more complaints than I actually can figure out how to address.  And to add to this is the fact of how many people in my life think that I am caught in a cycle of woe...  Or even better, that what I am feeling stressed over is about them.  Seriously, I as a single mother have more going on in my life than most people would care to have.  And sadly a great deal of them revolve around the person I married.  The person I thought was my best friend for ever... 

And I still three years later wonder, where did my best friend go?  Was there one thing that I could have done to change the path that we wound up walking?  Or did this struggle really have to do with God working all things for His glory?  Of course, I will never be able to answer these questions in this life, but it never seems to give me a sense of peace that I can stop wondering.  And in the wondering I come to realize that I am actually jealous of him in some small ways.  Okay, I wouldn't want to be in prison, but he doesn't have to worry about bills, clothes, food, or even medications.  He gets up each day and they are provided... while we are in a constant battle over each thing we need.  It has changed the way I think of God.  And in many ways in seeing God thru the eyes of my life, which at times feels like I have no self-esteem left, also is changing how I view the church.  

I know that we as a church are suppose to reach out into our community... to help provide a bridge to those in need.  And yet, in my life I have found time and time again that we as a church are failing with regards to families who are in the middle of domestic violence...  I am not talking about a family that you are watching the violence happen...  I am talking about the family that is left to pick up the pieces of life and faith.  And how even the words that a pastor chooses to use can effect the way a survivor looks at the world and at the church.  The statistics say the one in three women have seen or been subject to domestic violence, and yet asking for information on where to find the local food shelter once you have picked up and relocated for safety is cause for a pastor to think he is enabling you.  Either I have a strange idea of what that really would involve, or helping a struggling family no longer fits within the mission of the church.  

And this idea saddens me... because when I look at the standards of my faith, they speak out against abuse.  They show me that the larger church I am involved in is looking for ways to reach out and help those within the church deal with the fall out.  And yet, in my small corner of the world...  I am seen as stuck...  seeking a level of support that is having my pastor enable me.  And I don't know where to turn.  I would be even more lost in the walk of understanding my faith since the day I walked out, if I hadn't been blessed to have be guided to a shelter that I was surprised to be surrounded by women of strong faith.  Women to this day that are just a phone call away.  And in many ways these sisters in Christ have become my family.  A family that knows where I was and the challenges that are yet to come.  

And yet, in order to remain safe... I have had to move away from that family.  And I am in a new community.  I won't hide the fact of what I fear, because as my husband has said before it would only take a phone call for me to be gone.  And I am in a church that I am currently called by God to be at.  And yet, I have no clue why.  I have been getting mixed messages from the pastor.  I have had it made clear that in many ways I don't belong.  I can still remember the day I called to speak to the pastor, per the pastor... and the secretary told me that the church didn't need to waste its time on people like me.  People like me... a mother who is protecting her child?  or maybe a wife who spent years in a marriage that was falling apart?  or maybe even the fact that I faced down death at the hands of my husband?  I still am not sure how I fit into a statement of people like me.  And yet, it is easy to guess.  When you are fearful of your life and safety you are not going to just hand out an address.  And when it is not just your safety, then you are not allowed to give the address of where you are.  And that lack of address...  a phone number from a place your husband wouldn't think to look... all of these things make me undesirable.  And yet our whole church family, in all of the world is about having open doors to reach out to all the followers of Christ.  But the stigma of pending divorce and domestic violence... means that the church is going to slam the door in your face, but only if you let that part of you slip out for others to know.  And yet a part of me prays that it is only the members I have come across, but I still am not sure, and yet I won't give up.  My community of faith has to have a place that I belong.  A place where I can feel safe.  A place where I can grow in my love of Christ.

A single parent must...

I am learning day by day all the things that a single parent must do.  And it is even more of a challenge when you became a single parent not by choice, but by the abuse of your husband.  And yet as the challenges increase it begins to feel like you are living your life under a microscope.  Each step, breathe, thought is analyzed by those around you.  They see that you are raising a child without a father, and they desire to figure out how you are failing as a mother.  And yet they never realize that what they see as paranoid is reality for you.  That looking over your shoulder for the bringer of your death, has grounds in a simple sentence that your husband said one day.  All it takes is a phone call and you will disappear...  and then anything that happens to your daughter is possible.  

I am finding that in this battle to find the solid ground that God wants you to stand on, you are faced with people who love to tell you what you are doing wrong.  And in trying to move beyond I am trying to find the line between seeking help and guidance... and people thinking I am self-centered and caught in a woe is me mindset.  And the places you think you should be safe.  Becomes the places that you are facing the biggest battles.  And it breaks my heart to feel that in church, where I should feel safe and held close by God is one of the places that being a survivor of domestic violence is not understood.  And the stigma of facing a divorce seems to be something that everyone sees, much like Hester Prim...  A scarlet mark, not on my clothes, but on my soul.  And even though God has sacrificed His own son...  I don't fit in or belong. 

I may be a mother, but other mothers are married and able to share the job of raising their children.  And with the fact that I am never given those breaks creates a gulf between me and those mother's.  And that gulf is even bigger when I am trying to figure out a place that I fit in.  Honestly, I am a mother... I was a daughter, but that world went away when my parents died.  I am a sister, but it only works when the rest of your family desires to see you or even talk to you.  And being a friend seems to have become a one way street with those people who a physically close in distance to you.  The people that you wish would reach out to help you on this path.  And it is these people who in trying to help you... push you away.  Push you to do things that you never should be doing.  And always wrapped up in the message of moving on and becoming free.

And yet the fact remains that you are never truly free from your abuser.  Once you share children...  That connection will exist for your whole life.  Or at least for your abuser's life... provided he actually dies before you do.  And you juggle the actions he shows, with the fears of keeping your children safe.  And you cry in the world because in your moving forward process, people do not understand.  And can't fathom this world of where a marriage is defined by the attempt on a life.  And you begin to realize that sadly... abuse is not something people inside the church want to see as real.  They are happy in the bubble of everything working according to God's plan, and abuse doesn't happen within their walls.  And yet it does... 

Each time you face these challenges you learn that you now live in a world separate from the rest.  You are connected to those women who willingly stepped forward to show you a way to safety.  And when the world feels again and again like it is falling apart...  They are the phone call away.  They are the very people who will remind you of how much you have changed and moved forward.  They are the ones who listen and help you learn the basics of life that you have lost in the years of abuse.  They remind you that God does heal...  and it might be you that is asked to reach out to the church you want to belong to... and expose to them all why you are different.  And that they can't just stick their head in the sky and focus on God... because sitting right next to them could be a very terrified woman who will walk out of the church and right back into the hands of her abuser.  And the terrified woman... can't bring herself to speak out because she knows just how serious the fact is that if she does...  Death might only be one small action or reaction away.

A week...

Honestly, I am amazed at how a week this year, still manages to bring to the front of my mind the feelings of the same week thirteen years ago.  You see, one of the times that I can clearly remember talking to my aunt was then.  It came in a phone call, because being in New York they had said that the plane had crashed in Pittsburgh.  And that would have meant that my family was affected.  And yet, we were affected.  It changed my brother's year at college... It reminded us to be grateful for the fact of all our friends who no longer worked in the towers.  And yet it also brought us a level of pain and loss.  Too many friends felt the sting of loss... and even then other friends became the "walking dead".

In this desire to push ahead and turn a day of death and destruction into Patriots Day... I wonder if the "walking dead" have been able to get unstuck and move forward.  It is a question that I may never know the answer to, because we left New York behind a long time ago... and being sued for divorce, many of the friends we have had are pushed because they were friends with my husband long before me.  And I have just come to accept that.  Accept that in this moving forward... my husband is getting almost everything.

And yet, I wonder if I am not be entrusted with the one person who is the blessing from God, and if that trust is worth more than all the money we could ever have.  And to still be able to love God...  Does that not make me richer than most people in this world?  I often wonder, and yet know that I may never know the answer to the question.  Still as I sit here beside my munchkin who is yet again sick enough to be back in the hospital...  I am thankful for the trust God has shown me with raising her, and allowing me to teach her to love God.  And in that teaching...  She is learning about those who came before her, so she can teach those yet to come...

Not really good-bye...

Today was a sad day for me.  It marked the end of a life for a very dear member of my extended family.  It was sad to sit inside the church and listen to the priest bless and ask God to forgive my aunt of any sins she may have forgotten to address when she was alive.  And yet, as I sat there...  I realized that the loss of my own mother had allowed me to be in the church to say good-bye to my aunt.  And yet, while I was losing my aunt here on earth...  I realized that I was gaining something that had been stolen from me for so many years.

You see, for whatever reason my mother had in her head, we were kept apart from her family and especially my father's family.  And this became so much clearer to me as I went thru the pictures that my parents had taken during my life.  When I was born, we were surrounding by their families.  They were there to take me to church the first Sunday I was allowed after I was born.  I could see them at my baptism and christening...  Easters, Thanksgivings, Christmases...  They were always there for me, and my parents. 

And then we began the series of moves...  Each move brought a new level of distance.  The photos of our whole family grew apart.  It started with months, but about 30 years ago... It turned into years.  And while I was still surrounded by my mother, father, and brother...  The other connections with family seemed to be trimmed away from my life.  The family became names and stories that my mother would tell me from time to time.  And I began to feel lost.

I already knew that I had ruined my mother's ideal of what her marriage to my father should have been.  I divided my father's attention, and added a burden of providing for me.  Yet, it was one he took on willingly.  It was my mother who wished I had never been born, because I began to take away the people she needed to know loved her.  And the biggest issue was that I took away her desire to constantly seek God.  Even now as an adult I can't understand how something as simple as my birth accomplished all of this.  It is like trying to explain our salvation with only talking about Christmas.

And with my mother passed on from this world...  I have been able to work on fixing the connections that were taken from me.  I in taking the step to acknowledge the loss of my aunt...  The person who was always smiling even when she was in pain and sick from chemo...  I found again... my aunt and my uncles...  cousins and their children... and even my great uncle and his family...  I found family that I held in my heart wondering what they were doing and why we shouldn't call them... shouldn't go see what might be up...  And over time with my mother's distance to all of our extended family...  I found that we were prisoners of her in her house.  The hardest part of this all was the fact that I became a child who didn't value her own life, and felt like I didn't belong in this world.

So today, in the pain of yet another loss in my world...  

I found connections... 

I found my family... 

And I found that I belong and have value to my family.

The sad part is that it took my becoming an orphan, to learn my value to my extended family.  It took the pain of years of living with my mother to be able to now begin to see where as much as she was trying to protect me, in that process she hurt me.  She took me away from the very family who loved me and wanted to spend time with me.  In that process, she also took away my sense of belonging to something bigger in our world... and in many ways tried to kill the part of me that needed to know I belonged and had a purpose...

Even if that purpose at times was to just be able to share smiles, hugs and kisses with my aunt and uncles to brighten the day... To be able to know that my desire to learn and understand this physical world allowed my family to watch me learn and grown.

So now, I wonder where these connections will now allow my daughter and I to be showered in love...  And to know that we both belong to something that is much bigger than the walls we live withing...

We belong to a family, and it is that family that encourages us to keep trusting God when we stumble.  And I now understand...  I have always needed to belong!!!

Death and Memories...

I grew up across church lines.  It is an interesting conversation, but that is for another day.  Yet, in this crossing of lines... I was born into a merge.  My mother was raised Catholic and my father was raised Orthodox.  In my life this line became the one that would matter the most to my father's family.  I didn't understand how much this line would matter, until I got married.

You see... my father's baby sister was a joy to be around.  It was fun hearing about all her travels and adventures.  Hear about her job and all the things a kid looks forward to as a part of being grown up.  And it was an exciting time with her.  It was on a visit to see her that I got to see and swim in Lake Erie for the first time in my life.  It was her doorstep that I showed up on at 1 in the morning when my mom's mom threw us out of her house, all because we were going to see both sets of family.  And going to see my father's family was like the worst thing my mom's mom could hear, because the attention of us was not focused all on her.

And arriving on my aunt's doorstep... we were welcome like the lost showing up.  We belonged and she didn't care that we were sleeping on her floor...  She gave us shelter when we didn't know where else to go.  I can remember that night, because my brother got so sick he was throwing up.  And my aunt picked up a roll of paper towels and said... I have cleaned up enough vomit thru chemo...  You made the mess, you get to clean it up.  And in the morning we were cheerfully awaken and able to spend the day with her and my yia yia...  Those memories are there...

And while we lived most of my life far away from her...  There were times when we would get to see each other.  Like the Thanksgiving of my freshman year in college... And then at my wedding...  And even at my daughter's first birthday party.  And yet at this moment my memories of her also have stopped to remember the reason that we drifted apart.  The reason that after my wedding and thru my father dying...  My last memories of her are scattered with the last time I remember us being together was for my daughter's first birthday party.

You see... The day I got married, which I still have good memories of... I made the choice to be married in the Catholic Church.  It was something that pleased my mother, and because it pleased my mother... my father was happy for me.  Because my father saw beyond the message/doctrine of any one Christian Church.    And my father knew that no matter which church I was married in...  I loved God.  Yet, the one person I thought would be thrilled that day for me... wasn't exactly.

The joy of sharing that day with my aunt, was shadowed by the fact that she was disappointed that I didn't get married in the Orthodox Church.  And at the point I learned of that disappointment, it was far too late to change a thing.  And I am not sure I would have changed anything.  And yet that disappointment turned into a wall.  One that we never seemed to overcome.  And yet that wall stayed in place for other reasons...  

After my father died... blame was thrown around.  We didn't do enough.  If only...  and that list was long...  This added fuel to the fire of the disappointment of where I was married.  And my mother built that wall bigger... and bigger.  And now years later and having traveled thru more loss and abuse that I like to think about...  I know that I let the abuse keep the wall between me and my aunt.  And now she is gone.  

And with death I can't pick up the phone and try to locate her.  I can't make the choice to finally friend her on Facebook.  I am left with the memories of days long past.  And also left with regrets in my heart.  But I am left with one hope...

My hope is in the fact that my aunt shared my faith.  She loved God.  And maybe in heaven I will get the chance to regain what was lost in our broken world... Lost thru abuse and control on my life, and anger in my mother's...  And then we can dance, laugh, and talk till we feel like we couldn't keep our eyes open another minute.  And maybe then I will get to know what God did in her life all those years that the wall existed.  

And right now... I pray my father is hugging his sister.  Telling her how much we loved her.  And that the wall that my mother built higher has been crumbled so that she can be in fellowship with my aunt in heaven also...  And while all I know about heaven is that we are in God's presence...  I hope that what I pray is true.  Because I miss my aunt, and I no longer will be able to talk to her in my life.  

Yet, in eternal life...  

All I can do is hope and pray...

Choices...

Each of us has a lot of choices we face each day.  And yet, many of us never stop to think about what the other side would look like.  We get up and get dressed in our brand new clothes.  Breakfast is the next thing on our mind...  And that is where the choices become hard.  At least in my world.

You see, I don't get the luxury of my husband... He is sitting in jail being served three meals a day.  So, he has no clue what it is like to wake up and make the choice to not think about food.  To avoid the thought so much that you seek any way to make your body think it has been feed, even when there is nothing left to eat.  And actually there is, but who wants their child to know the pain of hunger.  So you make a choice... and make sure the one person who needs the food to grow and learn is fed.

Yet in this world, hunger is seen as a problem for other places, not for the backyard of the States.  We see pictures of children in other remote areas, with pleas for funds for the ability to feed those children.  And yet, here we are left with the fact that if you are hungry... you have done something wrong.  Of course we have programs to help, but it is not a great amount of help.  And the comments that come with it... are enough to break your heart.  Yet, for the sake of your child you are expected to swallow any self worth that you have and submit to the constant verbiage of the community stating that you must be lazy... you like living off of the work of others.  And yet, without knowing a thing about you...  The world is telling you that nothing you can do now... except get off of the government doll... will ever show that you belong.

And sometimes, it gets to be to much.  You are given so many rules once you are stuck in this system that you begin to wonder where you even stand a chance to live.  And yet, with the planning you do... sometimes the month is easy and other times you are faced with the days until you are able to have fund for food... wondering how you will feed your child... Let alone even thinking about the fact that you need to eat also.  Sadly in order to make the funds last... you can not make the best choices of food.  And are stuck watching sales and eating a lot of pre-packaged junk in order to make it thru the month.  Then you face the comments about how you are misusing the funds for food...  But when you have just about $3.00 a day to feed your whole family...  You learn how to stretch the funds.  You learn to ignore the looks and comments, even when you feel the last of your ability to know you can provide slip out of your fingertips.  And you fall into that mold of being poor.  Knowing that the label poor leads to people thinking you are stupid, lazy, and a whole list of other things...  And wanting to cry because you are not.  This is not the place you wanted to be, yet it is where you have landed due to the events of your life.

Fear? Faith? and...

These past few weeks have been a challenge for me.  And yet why they were is because of fear.  Fear is apparently an innate emotion.  And it is not alone, it comes along with joy, sadness, fright, dread, horrors, panic, anxiety, acute stress reaction, and anger.  And you would think that I might be able to understand something of each of these emotions... but I don't.  And yet, I am struggling with the fear verses anxiety battle.  And somehow I am suppose to be able to tell them apart.  

And yet fear tends to be associated with the wicked.  And yet fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.  And what is that wisdom that we are seeking.  Is it a greater understanding of God, or an ability to make sense of this world around us.  And yet how do you want to understand a world that is constantly changing.  Changing so often that I wonder what I should cling to for support.  And while I know we should put our faith in God... There are times that if that is all we have.  We find ourselves alone.  

And yet going forward... If we can control our fear does that mean we are in a place of God?  Or is it more along the lines that fear is equated to the pain we suffer when we give birth to our child.  Which makes me wonder if fear relates to the pain we feel in our body each and every day.  And yet...  I know what it is to fear God.  I know what it is to fear not meeting God's standards.  And I even know what it is to fear my parent's standards...  

Where this all leaves me... is trying to figure out if the fear I live with day after day is rational or irrational...  Is years of torture in knowing that I was a failure that has left the fear?  Or is it just the fact that I am broken?  I might not know right now, but I want a better understanding of fear... And to know how faith can replace fear......

Connections

I am not normally the person who requires acknowledgement for something good.  I tend to listen much more to all the things that I have done wrong.  Where I have failed.  And to how simply contact with me, seemed to be a poison that took so much away from those around me.

Living knowing that your simply having come into being tends to make you wonder why you are still here... and the hardest part is knowing that the desire for your life to be erased was so strong in your mother that she often wished she could end your life.  I am not sure why my father was so blessed to have me as his daughter, and my mother set out on a path to make sure that I knew that I had ruined her life and plans for the future.  And yet, how did I do that?

In having one day tracked down a notebook, because of course you couldn't start anything new, until the old ones were all used up...  I came across my mother's journal from when I was 4.  And at the time... I had read the whole page before what it said became so clear to me.  My creation by God had driven my mother away from her desire to pursue God all the time and bask in learning more and more about Him.  I trapped her in a world of feedings and diapers to start and created the worries on how to provide for my needs.  And in that process of just being a mother and being concerned with providing...  I changed everything.

She lost the hours of time that she could spend with my father seeking God.  Learning from him about this God who is difficult to describe in words.  Instead, she was nailed to the house and told to mold into this role of mother.  And this role was not something she ever really wanted.  I often think she would have preferred to be the one working and have left my father at home with us.  And that idea was reinforced each and every time  she threatened to walk out the door and leave us all behind.  And it is honestly not a blame that I have carried with me easily.

Perfection was the demand on me, her first born... I was pushed to read, write, draw, and just about everything that I did... I saw the bar of perfection.  And I could also see each and everything that I did wrong to keep that bar just out of my reach.  I didn't know how to fix the mistakes.  I just knew that enough of them and it was like living in a war zone.  Dinner would be thrown...  words would be screamed...  and then it would be the we would all be better off without her.  And to this day, I don't know why.

Okay I could have liked not constantly living in fear of the next look of disapproval in my mother's eyes.  The why did you let the world into our world look.  The you know if they keep poking in our family you will never see us all again...  She made it sound like I would be relocated to the other side of the world.  And maybe it wouldn't have been bad for me, but then who would be the buffer for my brother?  And so, I would bite my tongue... make everything all better... and plant this smile on my face that made me feel like I was going to vomit.  And joined all the clubs and activities that my mother desired.  And somehow, despite her great desire for me to be smart, funny, popular, and just the all around perfect daughter, sister, student...  I never could reach the bar.  It became this dream that each time I got one step closer...  I could feel the weight of even more demands on what perfect was creating even further for me to go.

Friends were okay, but you didn't share about your life.  We would pick up and move... and it was like life just disappeared.  No connections to the old life... just pick up and start over.  You see friends didn't matter, only family did.  And each time the bubble around our family grew tighter.  And by the time I was in high school, I probably didn't help this fact because I began to seek control...  Causing enough pain with cutting to prove that I was alive.  Stuff feelings and memories into box after box in a way to avoid remembering.  And even controlling each and every thing that I ate...  I wanted control and stability.  And what I got was isolation and disappointment.  And the lecture of hurry up and get fixed so we don't have to send you to talk to someone.  And don't tell that someone what is really going on... just make yourself better!  

You see, needing help was the biggest mistake I could have ever made... because it brought strangers into the walls of our world.  And strangers always wanted to destroy families, because well behaved children are worth something to them... worth enough that they will take them away never to see their parents again.  And while I learned how to make myself appear better...  some things didn't change.  I stopped eating much at all... and I bought clothes that defied my mother's idea of modesty...  and in the end I can still hear her telling me that I was a tramp... she could see the top of my chest.  And if I was going to dress like I was asking for something and look like a street walker...  Don't come crying to her when someone calls me on that and things happen...

And in my spring semester of my freshman year of college...  That line was taken from me.  Not by choice, but by force.  And true to her word...  Not a word was spoken about what happened my whole life.  The wall went up and even as she was dying... the demands for perfection kept that wall erect.  And left me wondering why poison to her, was the very thing she relied on all these years later to provide the help so that she could remain in her house till just before the end?  Or did my help become the poison that took her from this world, like I had taken so many others from her in the course of my life?  Did I love too much?  Or was I some kind of death magnet...  I might never know.

Overcoming Fear...

This is a phrase that raises questions.  Sometimes more questions than I can find answers to.  And today in reading about Israel after they were freed from Egypt, I find that I am stuck in the question of how do I move forward against odds that seem impossible.  And despite the fact that I trust and have faith in God...  I still tend to worry about how I am going to get thru this next step.  

And I know that I am not suppose to worry... That God will provide all that we need.  And yet I struggle to figure out how He will provide all our needs...  and it gets harder when I find myself looking at our ever shrinking budget.  And it isn't like I am wondering how we are going to plan our next vacation...  I am simply wondering how to make sure that we have enough food to eat.  Or even that we can manage to afford to have clean clothes.  And even in the time that I seem to spend worrying about all these little things... nothing changes.  The bottom line is still the same.  That unless I am willing to swallow my desire to be able to take care of all these things on my own and seek out the resources in the community...  This is not going to change.

And yet, when you are new in a place... how do you find out where these resources are.  And I still have no idea.  And I watch my baby eat what is left in the house for food... counting the days until she will be able to eat at school... knowing that I will have to adjust to being able to learn that what little is left for me to eat... is all I will have.  And that I must just accept that I can provide food to keep my baby from ever knowing this empty feeling of hunger... true hunger.  And that maybe this is one cross that I will never be able to abandon...  One that started when it was my family and I accepted the little bit of what was left, so that my brother would never know that pain.  

And maybe it is the reason why I struggle so much with having a supply of food stored away for us as we need it, but right now I am having to start over.  And with that brings the days of the empty feelings inside...  and I use to know ways to make the feeling go away.  But it seems that all of the tricks have drifted from my mind.  And I am now having to figure out how to make sure that I can with a smile... give my baby all the food her body requires and settle for what is left...  And to pray that I can keep her from understanding the struggle that life has become with so much loss...

And even while I hold my breathe and pray for a miracle...  I can't open my mouth and let the words come out and say I am hungry...  I don't know how we are going to be able to eat for the next week... let alone all the weeks to come until I can get funds to allow us to get more food.  So, I will settle for my meals of peanut butter and bread for all the days of the week just so that my baby can have food to eat.  And I will still try to hide the pain that I am feeling inside... wondering why in this world people can worry about where they will go on their next vacation and which restaurant will they eat at...  while I sit her wondering how I will feed my baby.  And I wonder how I will ever overcome fear...  And yet with faith I am to rely that I will never know hunger.  I only wish that was true. 

A Comedy of Death...

These past days have been hard on me.  And it really seems like these days have added up to several months.  Where this got to be difficult is the days that I had to step back and take care of myself, and I had to trust my friend, and let go of some of the control that I still seem to demand in my own life.  And in that process I had to risk myself.  And in many ways in stepping out in faith to trust someone, opens the door to the death of a small part of my heart.

Now that is not something one would typically find funny.  And you may wonder why I would say it was a comedy of death is because that is sometimes the only way we can deal with the struggles of our broken world.  When we go out and begin to start a day in the world...  the demands on us tend to make sure that we put on the outfit and manners that the world demands.  You see while we walk around wearing the mask of comedy... deep inside of us the other masks which show who we really are remain buried.  

And yet at points in our lives, we reach points where as much as we would like to be the person who is the perfect display for the world...  we are unable to accomplish this desire.  And we see that the desire for that perfect mask, actually makes us long to disappear...  to be erased from time...  and brings us in touch with death.


And yet with the world around us is dancing in the mask of comedy, seemingly missing the fact that our own mask has fallen to the floor and shattered.  And that in order to save us from falling into the draw that we call death they must risk also trusting us with who they are behind the mask.  So then we are faced with the question as the dance of death is lapping at our ankles, will anyone hear our cry within our heart for help... and willingly risk letting us know that despite the masks we all wear...  that we might see that they are as broken as we feel.

And yet calling it a comedy of death is actually the way we ignore the fact that in our world... people go out of their way to hurt people.  People they profess a great love to, and also people they hate.  And yet in that hurt, some around us feel so broken, and alone... That death seems like the only way to heal the hurts they see they are causing in the very people they love and yet are trying to steer away from the comedy of death... because that very act - bring a stop to the dancing and silence to all the voices of people who knew us.

And within me, years ago I faced for a small window of time being cut off from contact in what was then my world.  And recently I willingly went back to that world of silence, without contact to my world... 

In the quiet, away from what is left of my family.  The storms that had been gaining power inside of me came spilling out.  And the waves of emotions that threaten to drive me back into dancing with death... became ripples... fading into the lake.  And once back into the main body of water, their ability to live in my dreams and turn them into nightmares fades, just like the ripples in the lake after you drop a stone into the water.  But if we were to try to contain these ripples, you just might understand the hurricane of emotions that I feel inside of me... fighting to see the light of day.

And yet, in the world I grew up in, it was plainly clear that I either learned to contain the emotions that threatened to tear me apart, or to disappear.  You see, emotions have been drilled into my brain as showing the world that I am a failure, weak, and worthless.  And it forced me to learn ways to contain and deny that they even were possible.  And in this process... I learned that I would always struggle with this.  I had to do it perfectly for my mother to love me, along with lists of other things.  And that seemed to mean that I was never going to know love without the pain of learning by mistakes, which found me facing punishment and wondering how I would explain them away.  And this process with my mother became a different dance.  A dance for approval and love.  One that in time... I came to believe I would never master the dance and earn her love.  And yet, in the days before her death... the words I love you, came rolling out of her mouth... with no conditions, demands, or requests.  Years of being a servant for God, and praying my mother would love me...  ended with three little words and her death.  And in those moments, the comedy of death changed for me, FOREVER...

Photo: Credited to http://fifoglejdura.blog.pravda.sk/2014/07/15/kvoli-tebe/

Do You Love Me?

Love and trust seem to be the current trend on what is going on in my life.  And in ways that I am still shocked about. 

I went to talk to my pastor this week.  Honestly thankful that he is back from vacation.  And yet being able to tell him that currently the one way I can cope is to write.  Yet, writing e-mails works the best...  so, yet again I am encouraged to keep sending him e-mails instead of sliding further down the path of cutting.
It has been two and a half years since I last cut, but getting rid of the thoughts and pull...  That takes more time.  Time that seems to require the emptying of all the secrets I had buried inside, even those long forgotten. 

Well in the course of playing catch up with my pastor...  he got back somehow to the greatest commandments.  And from somewhere inside me... I spoke the words... I can't love my neighbors like myself.  They would be treated like crap.  I treat them better than that.

And it brought questions...  and a realization that I do not understand love.

I thought I did, and yet I am willing to walk away from owning anything and live in a tent...  just so that my brother can get the funds he seems to think he needs.  Which would also mean walking away from what I actually own.  And moving into a place where I don't even have a bed to sleep in.  He wants me to be gone... and of course he makes it sound like I am going to be putting him out on the street.  

At the same time I have already walked away from the house that my husband and I owned together.  I am told that at some point I will see funds from it, but like everything else in this life...  I am not holding my breath.  You see I know my to be ex-husband all too well to know that money is what drives him. 

So the two closest men in my world view love as giving them what they want.  And it makes me wonder why they even deal with me, because I believe in fairy tales according to them both.  The funniest part is each of them hates the other.  And it seems that now they both hate me.  

So... in my world... 

Love has conditions... Love is proving that you are worthy of it... Love always gives in to the others wants... and of course...  Love forgets you own wants and needs...  all of the greater good.  And maybe I have something to learn...  and I might be starting to understand just a little.

But it scares me to have heard that God says we should love ourselves.  All I can see is vanity smurf... walking around with his mirror.  And it is something that I fear...

Safety for Words...

Share It ~ Do you have a story or testimony of going From Consumer to Contributor or From Purposeless to Purposeful?

 I am finding that I am in the process of this transition.  I have spent a great deal of time doing well at being able to listen to others.  To encourage them.  And see a need and help fill it.  And yet I have reached a point in my life where all of that seems to be falling apart.

You see... I was able to look at others, and yet in many ways I was avoiding what was going on in my own life.  I managed to put all feeling into little boxes.  And adding to it all the images, words, and memories.  Never wanting to look in the boxes and face the pain that was growing in my life.  It was like I could keep walking forward in faith... as long as I buried all those boxes deep down inside what to me seemed like a castle vault.  And my mind had the fact that all those boxes were being protected by God.  That it was okay, because my mind was always on others.  

And yet... as you stuff things away.  Even believing that it is okay with God.  Eventually God comes knocking at the door of that vault.  And says "Let me in there also".  And when that finally started happening to me... I was already facing a divorce.  And yet, in many ways my answer was that I would gladly go and pick out a box and bring it out and then we could discuss that little box.

And yet, in the process of starting that...  I learned that when you willingly open the door to the vault, you must be aware that the spirit of the Lord will sometimes enter when you open it.  And when that process started...  It felt like my whole world was falling apart.  And for the first time in my life... I started to feel so selfish.  I am still struggling with that feeling a lot lately.

And yet one of the issues with all those boxes...  was that they were not only painful, but they were secrets.  And some of them are still secrets.  And as these boxes are being opened... often times without me even realizing that the boxes are being played with.  Something changes in me...  I feel driven with a great need to talk.  A need to seems to block out all other things that are going on around me.  I feel like I am falling into the fact that I am consuming others time.  And not being able to see the needs around me and serve others.  And this need to talk... really becomes in many ways focused on one person.  And while that need is improving, this past week it has reached a greater level of need that I have ever faced before.  And yet, the words get caught inside of me when I try to type an email, or even talk to anyone else.  I live with the fear of judgement, punishment, and see clearly my lack of perfection.  I can not look away from each and every mistake that I made, or think I have made as a part of that secret.  And I struggle to see the grace and forgiveness that is a gift to me.  Yet... I can freely forgive others, with the fact that all the blame is my fault.

And so... while my heart wants to be a contributor... my mind struggles with my past and all the secrets I have buried that need to be faced.  And I feel like I am sinking... holding on for that one right moment when I can talk and the words will come.  And a need to have that happen in the one place I feel safe... The one place I have found no judgement... just grace.  And maybe as the vault is emptied... it will be easier to contribute to the kingdom, instead of feeling like I am consuming a part of the greater good.

* I acknowledge that this might not exactly fit the design of the question, but it is honestly where my heart has been in battle for this past week for any number of reasons.

A detour in books...

These past few days I have taken some time to read something other than the book I should be reading for the bible study that I should be reading... and stopped to read the books that the Duggar parents wrote.  It was something that I had desired to read for a long time.  Most likely when they were first published.  But at that point other things kept me from purchasing them. 

And yet I will say that I read them in God's time.  If I had read them back then, I am not sure what might have happened in my marriage.  And yet now... with my facing divorce...  I can better understand where things broke down.  And most importantly in our communication.  I could go thru a laundry list of what I tried, and what I didn't.  And even what I desired and what I did not desire.  And that discussion could start at the moment we woke up and continue right up to our life behind the door of our bedroom.  And yet I won't share these thoughts.  I will share that I failed my own husband, and yet I couldn't fail our child. 

Part of this comes from the fact that a mother's job is to protect her children.  And to teach them to cherish God in all they do.  And in these past few days of reading... I have been given a small measure of peace on moving forward as a single parent.  And to make sure that my daughter grows up to understand what it means to be a Woman of Excellence... A Proverbs 31 Woman.  And while we have time before we get to that day... I can see how my actions and even what I say about her father can effect her.  I am very clear to be truthful.  I tell facts, not stories.  And I pray that in this process of healing that we can find a way to bridge a relationship with her father, even with the fact that he is the one who ended our marriage.

And yet what blessing I have gained by reading these stories is a sense of the fact that even if I had kept striving to be the person that God wants me to be...  It might never have been enough for my husband, who is to this day most likely still convinced that a story told when he was in the third grade is still sending him to hell.  Instead of reaching out to God, who would love, cherish, and accept him. And while I will struggle with the changes that the end of a marriage brings...  I also struggle with the fact that forever has been thrown away.  And yet I still need a peace of what is acceptable to come.  I took the fact of forever to heart... and wonder what becomes of a women who's husband just throws her away.

It's ALIVE!!!

Today has been an interesting day... We were headed to the back of the house to sort thru things that we needed, and/or were mine.  And we get to the dining room.  And there is our cat Port... meowing and pacing.  Then I look down and see what has gotten her in such a tizzy.

There is a dead chipmunk laying on the carpet.  And Port is trying to figure out how to eat it...  Okay not the best action to find in a day.  So, in the spirit of I don't want to clean up chipmunk guts off the carpet...  "Chippy" needs to get out of the house.

Well... we found something to pick up the dead animal with.  And then I started the removal process... And we got a shock.  Up jumped "Chippy" and tore towards our door.  With some closed doors, and some herding we managed to get a slightly scared and injured chipmunk to run outside.  

Let's just say that we had a learning curve today... on what is really dead and what is still alive.  And that chipmunk played dead so well it scared us both.

Do I have value?

In the past few days we have been talking about damaged goods and even grace.  We have even talked about what it means to be religious.  And yet in the midst of all this, I am finding a question that is surfacing again.  Do I have value?

So, for some reason today I went to look up the definition to value... Merriam-Webster.  And it surprised me that most of the definition of value is related to money.  Or into rating something.  It was only in the end that it related to usefulness.  And then the synonyms caught my eye... appreciate, cherish, prize, treasure, love.  I found this interesting.  Mostly because we tend to treasure money.  And yet in my mind money is a necessary evil.  And in a world where we tend to place more worth on what we have and what we desire.  But then it makes me wonder if I am desired...

I am trying to understand this...

If you were to ask the man I married so many years ago... You would see that I only have the value to set him free of me, and allow him to move forward in his life, without me.

If you were to ask our child... I have great value in the simple fact that I am her mother.  And she is a blessing to me, granted by God.  And I have even more value to her when root beer floats are on the table.

If you were to ask my family...  I am a failure.  And that is from the ones still living.  And I am wishing I knew the answer of value in those of my family who are gone.  Yet messaging to heaven isn't working the way to allow us to know those who are gone.  Yes, we still can hear God.

And yet, I am trying to understand.  And that is a challenge for me, because I still see myself as damaged.  And yet in the midst of my doubt, I am seeing a light.  And finding that light would seem like an accident to most people.  Because the light was found in a manner when I didn't even know I was looking for it.  

A year ago, after having spent some wonderful time with my baby at church camp, and a music festival... my mother felt abandoned.  And in that process my mother made a choice, like she had done so often in my past...  And that choice was that we needed to go.  She wouldn't allow me to sacrifice my relationship with baby at the expense of helping others.  And yet it was my relationship with my baby that was focused on during that time.

So we packed up and went back into shelter... and that also sent us on a path that took us thru the doors of another church, since I didn't want to drive back to what was then our home church.  And then our pastor, gave us a direction.  And given that where we were there are four churches in the denomination.  So, on Sunday Morning afraid to be late...  I got to church early.  So early that we brought our breakfast with us, because I was afraid if we ate first I would have a sick child.  And that would mean spare clothes, and more thought than I could bear that morning.

Arriving early I was surprised to have found the door open.  And as quiet as we could, we looked around to find a safe place to sit and wait until church started.  And we were just getting settled and thinking about breakfast, and all of a sudden we were greeted by someone.  And at that point, just the fact that a man was talking to us seemed to send my heart looking for an exit.  And yet a part of me was paralyzed.  And yet even in that first meeting... I saw love.

Here was someone that I didn't know, who didn't yell or scream that we were early for church.  Okay he seemed a bit surprised.  And was trying to figure out why or what we were going to do with the time that we had to wait until church started.  And he was even more surprised to find out that we were going to eat peanut butter crackers for breakfast.  And somehow he convinced us to come with him and he took us to eat breakfast.  He didn't stay, but took us to the place and paid for our breakfast.  And I think that I gave in because of my baby.  And because I also think I was not going to win in this argument that morning.  It is hard to argue against kindness and love.

So that morning, at a point where I felt so damaged...  there we were eating chocolate chip pancakes with bacon... and all I could do is wonder why someone would want to make me feel special. 

And yet that day... I began to see in other ways where I was being served.  My baby was convinced that she wanted to go to Children's Church.  And for some reason... off she went.  And there I was left standing.  I felt like a lost child, because I was so use to being in church with my baby.  And then I felt like I was seeing someone I knew.  And yet in many ways...  I couldn't put a finger on how or where I knew her from.  In the end she broke the ice, and reminded me that she meet me at church camp.  And then I was taken in hand... 

In the course of the summer... I went back to help my mother.  And yet the pull towards that church was so strong, that by the fall I became a member.  And in the process I was encouraged to talk to that man who had that first day shown us love.  The funny of it is he is my pastor.  And over this past year he has been the person who has shown me that I have value.  In many ways... while I can see my value in his treatment of me... I struggle to see it in myself.  I ask myself how when I am damaged in so many ways can I have value?  I can't hold a job... I can raise my baby, but that won't last forever...  And I write.

I spend hours writing e-mails to my pastor.  And then can still write here and pour out my soul... wondering if it means that I have value.  And while I have faith.  Faith that God works all things for good...  I struggle so hard to understand what is to come.  And yet I must trust.  And for now, it helps to have someone to share my struggles and give a voice to all that I have seen and lived thru.  And in this process I may not yet understand my value, but the past is not haunting me in my sleep.

Boxes to Trust

4. SHARE IT ~ Do you have a story or testimony of going From Damaged Goods to Trophy of Grace or From Religious to Grace-Covered?

 I am starting to feel like I am currently in the on-going process of leaving behind me as "Damaged Goods", and yet a big part of this process is trying to see myself as a "Trophy of Grace". 

In my life that image of damaged started when I was small.  I felt like I ruined my mother's life just by being born.  And yet I also faced a great deal of drama from choices of others about my life.  I became aware of this at a point where I felt damaged enough and had my cousin inform my parents that I had been the first that her father had chosen to sleep with.  I struggled already with a feeling that I was a mistake and that my life didn't matter.  I found that I couldn't sleep and was living almost two lives.  During my time at home I was bubbly and cheery, yet at school the reality of my feelings were hard to contain.  And I learned to live in a world of my own design. 

That world was full of rules... If I had an expectation of what needed to happen, I made it happen.  It was an attempt to bury the pain I was feeling, and striving to be perfect for my mother and family.  But the perfection was not just that... It was also for God.  Somewhere I had learned that enough sacrifice and adjustment would be enough to make up for all the mistakes.  And the mistakes were all inside me.  Locked away in boxes along with all the details, and the emotions that were being buried.  I knew I had to grow up, and I thought that growing up was showing an ability to not have things phase me.

Honestly this roller coaster is one that I still struggle with.  It took walking out the door on my husband to save our baby...  for me to start down the path to learn how God sees me.  And even at that... It was two years after he tried to kill me that God put me on the path that I could start to see change.

You see, in my world I strove to perfection even with my marriage in a mess.  Being sued for divorce was not something that I had to face, because I was still married to him regardless of paperwork in a court system.  And that perfection also was such a part of my life that even how I was raising my daughter, her behavior or lack of mattered.  And my need to control everything was growing.  And yet in many ways that need to control also is what drew me to the person whom I found trust.

That trust is something that in my damaged life is rare.  And in my mind I still wonder why with all the pain as a child, and then as an adult in domestic violence... Why I in the end was lead to trust my pastor, who is a man.  And yet I have been shown that I have value by him.  And sometimes in simple actions, like stopping to listen to me...  and listening without judgement and interruption.  In this process thru his actions, I am starting to understand much better how God sees me.  And while I would love to say that this past year has brought me thru all of my past...  I am still a work in progress.  Each layer of damage that we deal with in talking and scripture, brings me to another level of pain that I have buried.  And yet in this process... I now have feelings instead of boxes...  I feel safe to share things that at times I don't have words for, and find understanding.  And a feeling of safety and encouragement to walk thru the damage to find and understand what being a "Trophy of Grace".  

One part of this whole process that surprises me is a willingness to just listen on his part.  And to allow me to talk to work thru each step... which sometimes leads to many e-mails and at other times, it has lead to him putting his schedule on hold.  And his words are this is where I need to be right now.  And without that ability to shower me with an unconditional love and understanding... I fear that I would still be focused on my lacks to the point of stress.  And now when those feelings and fears come up, I have a place where I can talk about them and remain safe... and learn how God sees me instead of the world.

A journey to Grace

3. WRITE IT ~ Choose one of the following writing prompts from Chapters 3 & 4 and share something from your heart relating to our study: Spiritual GPS, Deceived Into Doubting, Image Bearer, Humility, The God Without Limits, Marinate on That!

Honestly, the one thing that stands out to me this week has been the fact that I have been taken in to my church.  And it wasn't a church that I sought out.  You see, I had moved in with my mother... and went to the church in town of the denomination.  And in many ways over the course of that first 6 months I felt that I didn't belong.  But then at the same time I felt that I didn't belong at home with my mother.  In many ways, I felt like a failure that myself and my child had been forced to move in with my mother, but she swore she needed us.

And in the course of a week during that summer, things started to change.  Granted they were starting to change in small ways before that week...  But that week was just different.  My mother in her normal change her mood and desires on a whim, made the choice that we needed to move out of the house.  She couldn't be bothered with me at all.  I was running around apparently like a teenager and ignoring my daughter.  The funny of it was, the first issue was the days we spent at church camp together.  And then the days that we spent at a Christian Music Festival.  You see my mother thought I was volunteering to work at these events and ignoring my daughter.  And yet the whole focus of these times was to focus on my daughter...  just the thing I was told I wasn't doing.

And then in normal form for the number of times in my life my mother had thrown me out, disowned me, and whatever else she could think of doing...  I packed up what little we needed and drove away.  I honestly didn't know where we were going to go, but I was bound and determined that we were not going to move in with my friends who were renting my house to keep it afloat.  That is what my mother wanted from me... to show that I loved my friends more than her.  And in order to prove my mother wrong... I wound up back in shelter with my daughter a short drive from where my mother was.

In the end, I came back to my mother.  It just felt what God was asking of me.  And yet in those days away...  I found something I had only dreamed about finding.  A church.  

The search for the new church, started with a lack of gas to make it back to the one we were attending.  And then I did a search on the church's website to find out there were four of our denomination in town.  That is not uncommon in the state, it was dependent on population, and currently the ability to maintain the churches.  And I couldn't begin to figure out which one to attend on Sunday.  So, I asked my current pastor, where he would suggest that I go.  

In a lack of knowing the pastors where I was living.  He  sought out information from other pastors he knew.  And then for some reason sent me to Grace.  And honestly I would not have known what a longer term change that was to start in me. 

I had started talking to my pastor and that was the one thing that seemed odd, because I don't tend to trust anyone.  And yet, I took a step to trust my pastor, and we got up that Sunday morning and got ready to go to church at Grace.  And with my nervousness in life, we left early.  Actually very early.  I wanted to make sure that we found a corner to sit in.  And that I was able to find the church.  I was so sure that I was going to spend hours going in circles seeking the church.  And the funny part was the church was so easy to find. 

We found our way inside Grace and then found a place to sit.  We were just reaching a point where we were going to start to eat our breakfast.  And then we were found.  Someone approached us to say hello.  And to let me know just how early we were.  I was aware of that and was just matter of fact that we were planning on eating breakfast.  And pulled out peanut butter crackers. 

And then something happened that I still am in shock over.  My daughter and I were taken out to breakfast.  I can still remember the feeling of shock & yet the feeling of being accepted.  That morning chocolate chip pancakes and bacon was the best food I think I had.  And I am still trying to figure out almost a year later how to return the kindness.

That started a feeling of belonging, not just that thought.  When we got back to church after breakfast...  I ran into one of the people we had meet at church camp.   And she was just the right person to take me along to find a different set of seats and to start to introduce us to some people.  And our day was completed by being taken out to  lunch.  And finding a friend... and so much more.

Come the fall, I took the steps to transfer my membership to Grace.  And part of that process is standing up in front of the church.   And that there I had to make a profession of faith and express my desire to join Grace.  And standing up there, alone... I took the steps and then was enveloped by arms.  And told that I was home.  Home... that was something I had been seeking for so long. 

That step... changed me.  And over time I started to trust my pastor.  Something I am not sure I can explain.  He has listened and listened.  He at times is just willing to listen as I talk.  And has patiently read probably 100's of e-mails that have been written when I have felt like the world was falling apart around me.  This ability to listen and yet to make me rethink has helped so much.

This belonging to Grace has seen me thru my daughter in the hospital, followed by my mother in the hospital.  To then see my mother back in the hospital... then to a home.  And now thru her death.  And yet still exists to see us as we start to move forward in life... to find what is beyond my past.  And yet there is a person who will listen to me...  Someone who I feel honestly cares.  And the knowing that chances are they will always care.  And not just because it is his job...  because he is called to it from inside.  And that calling has changed me. 

It has given me a place to sort thru all that I have held onto.  It has given me a safe place to share all the things that I have hidden in my heart.  And the more I have talked and shared with my pastor... the better I have slept.  And my mind has started to slow down so that I can feel like I can breathe.  And maybe I have found a home...  because currently despite the realization that we have to move out of my mother's house...  I don't feel drawn away from Grace, but towards it.  Like there is still a purpose for my being there.  And all I can say is that I look forward to the discovery of what it to come.