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.