To Remember is to Honor

It's that day of the year again, the day I should be celebrating my sisters life instead of grieving it. To honor her, I share her story, praying that it impacts one endangered life in a positive way.

My intention is not to state that every bad relationship is abusive, it isn't. I'm not saying that every negative comment is abuse - we need people in our lives willing to correct us when we are wrong. I'm not saying all sarcasm and "joking" is abuse, sometimes it's just a horrible sense of humor or a bad day.

Abuse is a pattern of behaviours designed to control and manipulate. It isn't isolated incidents by flawed humans - we all are. None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes, we all hurt those we love on occasion.

Having said that.....

Domestic violence kills. Sometimes it will sneak up on a family in the form of verbal and emotional abuse, then taking it by surprise when it becomes horribly, terribly physical, leaving the family shattered and broken in pieces. Irreparable. That's what happened to my sister. Literally overnight our family was affected by the worst form of domestic violence there is - death. She didn't live in constant fear of physical harm, she never had to hide bruises and yet she is no longer with us because the one time, the first time he hit her was the last time.

Our society is so ingrained with TV and movies showing how "funny" it is to insult and degrade those we love and care for but the reality is ... THAT is emotional and verbal abuse. Treat those you love LIKE YOU LOVE THEM! Don't make them wonder if your sarcasm or "jokes" contain the truth of how you feel about them. Don't speak harm to them and then laugh if off. Words are powerful. Words created the world and words can destroy a heart and a family. When we speak ill of someone long enough we come to believe it for ourselves, and when we stop appreciating the value of the people in our lives, we stop valuing their life, period.

My sister lived with verbal and emotional abuse. She didn't even recognize that she was being abused (let's be honest - hindsight is 20/20). Set your boundaries and insist on being treated with respect and kindness, especially from those who claim to love you. Recognize your own self-worth, see your own value, believe that you deserve to be treated well. Loving someone does not require that you allow them to hurt your heart. If the person in your life does not respect you, speak lovingly to you (even - or especially - when angry!) IT IS OKAY TO WALK AWAY! Do it safely, do it wisely but do not allow yourself to be trapped in harmful relationship.

There is no abuse that is "safe". It is always, always, always life threatening. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not ever for you, but it ALWAYS carries that potential.

I've heard it... "that's the extreme, it could never happen to me"... but my sister said that too.

Please, let her story help you - and help you help others. Don't stand by and let yourself or your friends/family be treated poorly. Say something! Abuse thrives in darkness & silence. What happens behind closed doors should be the same as what happens in the public eye -- what if it was your daughter or son? When we turn a blind eye to the hurt of those in our lives, we contribute to their pain.

It isn't "just words". It's dangerous, it's scary, it's harmful and sometimes, yes, it's life threatening. Beware your words, beware the messages being spoken to you. Stand up for those who are having words used against them. Stand up for yourself. Be there for someone who doesn't see their own value and worth enough to protect themselves from abuse. Put aside judgment to be supportive. Be in prayer for those around you! Educate yourself on the warning signs of an abusive relationship - for yourself and for those in your life. Don't be afraid to be a voice, to be a presence for someone else. Ask the question. Don't be offended if someone asks you the question - accept their concern as love and be honest.... consider the source and take a good look at your relationship - maybe they are seeing something you don't. Maybe it's just an area of your relationship that needs some work.

I miss Angela every single day. My heart aches for her. So many people were touched by her life. She was my best friend, my big sister, a wonderful mother and a loving aunt... my boys don't remember her, my youngest never even had a chance to meet her. Her boys miss their parents immensely, my parents wonder how it is they have outlived their daughter, her friends still miss her too. There is a HUGE hole in our lives that she used to fill. We have the memories, but we miss her presence.

Don't let this become your story or your message.

If this touches your heart for yourself or a friend, if you ever need to talk, please leave me a comment. Find the resources for your community and call a distress line - they are there to listen and help when you are ready. You don't have to be alone, help is available and YOU DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE YOU ARE LOVED AND CARED FOR.

What is Humility?

Christians, in particular, seem to struggle with the concept of humility. For too many years, I thought humility was to depreciate myself, to cling to my failings and faults in order to refuse value. I thought humility was always being aware of my failings, my sins; to live in degradation because of the things I do or have done wrong… in other words, to continually pay for the consequences of my sins.

God is working on my heart. I have realized that humility is very much like courage. Courage is strongest in the face of danger. A person who never faces a challenge, who never faces danger cannot claim to be courageous; so also a person who does not believe in their value cannot be called humble.

If we do not have an intrinsic understanding of our value, we cannot truly understand humility.

Let’s look at some Biblical examples. Who does Scripture admonish to be humble? At first, it is the Israelite nation. Why? They have intrinsic, God-given value. God made it abundantly clear to them that He held them in high regard. He literally moved oceans, rivers and armies to prove how much He cared for them. They KNEW, without a shadow of a doubt, that they were chosen to be God’s special people. What did they do with this knowledge, however? A lot of the time they used it to set themselves apart from the other nations … and not in a healthy way. They set themselves up as more valuable than other people because they had God’s favor. So often, they took the special favor given them by God and decided it was their right rather than their gift. They forgot the source of their value. They refused to be humble. In turn, they had to be humbled.

God doesn’t want proud people. Prideful people treat others with disrespect and abuse. He wants us to understand we are valuable and then show others that they, too, are valuable.

That’s what humbleness is. Humbleness is knowing intrinsically what your value is and helping others to see the same value in themselves.

Pride is believing you alone are valuable and have the right to hurt or hold others down so you look more valuable than they are.

Then there is self-degradation. Self-degradation is refusing to believe you have value, focusing only on your failings and believing that you cannot have value until you have achieved perfection. This is disproved in Scripture time and time again. You simply have to take one character to see this, David for example. David was a simple shepherd, without value in his family of origin, shrouded in mystery, small in size, without anything to recommend him when Samuel anoints him to be the next king of Israel. Suddenly, his life does a complete turnaround and he is pretty much left reeling from the changes. What David does have to begin with is a deep understanding of his value in God’s eyes. David understands that all his accomplishments are because God has provided them and protected him. Even knowing that, even understanding that God was beside him and eager to answer any question he had, David was not perfect. Sometimes he forgot to ask God what to do. Sometimes he blatantly chose to sin, such as when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had Uriah killed. Sometimes he made huge errors in judgment because he neglected to check in with God. History, however, tells us that no matter what David did, God continued to show him favor. David didn’t need to be perfect; he needed to maintain his humbleness by remembering where his favor came from, returning to God every time he messed up, and using his favor to help others.

Self-degradation … the belief that you have no intrinsic value, is pride, not humility. It stands beside pride in believing that you alone are responsible for achieving and holding value.

Humility comes from understanding Someone Else (God) holds your value, it is a gift meant to be shared. Humility is understanding you don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to accomplish it all or be strong enough to sustain life. Humility is remembering where you have come from, what you have survived; it is knowing you have value despite the mistakes and errors made along the way. It is seeing the full journey, recognizing God’s hand in your life and treating others the same way.

Maybe.... We Need A Different View

I never expected this picture to be a source of conflict, yet that's exactly what it became on a friend's Facebook page earlier this week.

People were decrying her for posting it saying "This seems like a very bad way to portray all men" and  "it doesn't make sense" and just in general critizing with the impression that it was wrong.

To me it says... blame the criminal, not the victim. To me it is a reminder that we have to teach people to treat others honourably. Maybe the satire of this meme is unneccesary, maybe it will have absolutely zero effect on absolutely everybody who reads it, but....

Maybe.
Just Maybe.

It will reach one person. It will reach that one boy who grew up in an abusive home, who was never shown or told that you needed to treat other people with respect, who was shown that women were there for him to use and abuse.

Maybe I'm giving too much strength to a meme. Maybe others aren't giving it enough.

There are people who are hurting in this world. There are people who simply haven't been taught the proper way to interact, to have relationships.

There are boys and men who believe women are theirs for the taking. There are boys and men who don't know any better because all they've ever seen is women being used instead of being loved. There are boys out there who have been inducted into gangs and rape because that's what is expected of them. They may even not realize the depths of how wrong it is.

Yep. You can argue with that statement, but think about it carefully. If all you ever see is hatred, violence and abuse; if your largest people of influence think that is okay and promote it, will you truly see the danger and risk of it?

Maybe it will speak to that one girl who has been sexually victimized from as early as she can remember. Maybe it will tell her that it's not her fault. That her existence does not mean she has to remain a victim because the crime, the shame, is not hers. Maybe it will give her the strength to start believing that she has value.

Maybe that girl thought she could only be loved if someone was using her sexually. Maybe she doesn't even realize yet that she's been raped because ... it's only ever been taken from her.

Maybe, this just brings home to one person that rape is not the victims fault. Maybe, the next time you sit on a jury this meme will ring in your memory and you will look to the suspect, not the victim to explain why they are sitting in the courtroom. Maybe, just maybe it might start to change societal views, police attitudes, justice....

Maybe.... if we started looking at it differently, we'd start seeing a different result.


Let's be honest. It's a meme. It's using satire and humour to address a very serious issue. It's not a perfect representation, but isn't it time someone said it?!

Fearfully Frozen

Like I said last time, fear is a powerful motivator for deep privacy. I am really only beginning to recognize the depth of the role fear has played in my life.

I read, a lot, and one of the benefits of reading is that you can observe all angles of a situation, you can see clearly the battle, and often the solutions that evade me in real life, and my eyes are opened. One of the eye openers lately has been this theme of fear. Fear is isolating. Fear is restricting.

In a recent book I'm re-reading, the heroine fell to her knees in tears (and in private) and her tears were healing. God spoke to her in that moment of brokenness. He also spoke to me.

In my thoughts, I fall to my knees often. In my head I collapse in His arms.... but I rarely, if ever, do it in life. I'm a whole different person in my head. Part of it is that I fear falling apart. I feel like a shattered windshield, held together solely by the shatter proof threads built into a windshield and if I fall, if I drop, I will break completely into a million pieces, never to be whole again.

There it is. Truthfully, I don't feel whole now, but at least I "look" all together... sort of. Those looking at me see that I'm all together, that I'm all there, nothing glaringly obvious is missing. If I let people in, if I open the door of my heart, they might notice there are cracks in the windshield. They might see I'm being held together with ugly duct tape and mud. If they touch me, I might shatter in front of their eyes and who would want to see that?

I don't have time to fall apart. I don't have the energy to fall to pieces. .... at least, that's what I tell myself, but maybe it's that I don't have enough faith to let it all go. If I stopped trying to hold it all together, maybe I would have the energy I need to fully live.....

Maybe not.

Dreaming

I have always been a private person, and in the last 6 - 11 years I have found myself becoming more so. It's not easy for me to open my heart and soul, to expose myself to others. The reasons for this are varied and all boil down to fear. Fear of being taken advaantage of, fear that what I say will be used against me, to hurt me. Sadly this has happened. These aren't irrational fears, they are based on experience. Those who purport to love me the most have taken advantage of me and hurt me deeply, using what they know of me and my story to do so.... overcoming those fears is a journey. God keeps calling me to it and I'm doing my best to answer His call.

So, now you know where I am coming from. Why my blogs are sporadic at best. Please bear with me as I endeavour to share my heart with you.

About 15-16 years ago I began to dream a dream. I started thinking of something that I would love to do. Around the same time God put in my life people who believed in me, people who encouraged me, people who set up opportunities for me. I am a singer. I love to sing and I'm not horrible at it. I was put in a place where a tv show would hear me sing and I was encouraged that it could be an opening door. Somehow while I sang of God's love I was overcome with the feeling that this was not my path. That this dream would (also) not come true. I felt that God was saying "no", or at least "not right now". Nothing came of the experience and I believed that dream was not meant to be mine... and yet I haven't been able to truly let it go.

Along the journey of my life almost every one of my dreams has been abandoned, shattered or blocked in one way or another. Many of the messages I have received have been that I don't deserve happiness. That my lot is to be disappointed, pushed to the background, to be a shadow of someone else and never to shine on my own. If that is God's call for my life, I will accept and be happy with it... but then I feel guilty for dreaming of more, for wanting what is not mine to have. And yet, is it not God who gives us the desires of our hearts? Is it not God that reveals to us what the desires of our hearts are? How do I reconcile the desires of my heart, my dreams, with the realization/belief that what I dream of will not come true for me? As I get older it feels like time is running out on some of them, maybe on all of them.

I love being a supporting role for my friends and family. I love knowing that what I do can help them succeed and pursue their dreams. Many times I don't know where my value is if I don't have that. Other times I experience envy and wish that I could have my dreams too. I have spent my life doing good for others, serving wherever there was an opening, helping wherever I could be of use.

It's likely my own fears, my own resistance to being vulnerable that stand in my own way. Maybe one day I'll recognize the open door and be able to walk through it. Until then.... I cling to God, I cling to trusting His plan for my life and I'll keep helping those I love pursue and realize their dreams. I'll keep asking Him what my goals should be, what path my life should follow.

Faith as a Child

When I was a child, I had faith as a child....

God tells us in Deuteronomy 7:18 to "Do not be afraid of them; Remember well what the Lord your God did..." I've been remembering lately. I had the privilege of attending Captivating Advanced (with Ransomed Heart Ministries) this past October and while there God reminded me of how He's been with me all my life, how He's taken care of me. Which has brought me do doing a lot of thinking about my childhood. My retrospect has been heightened by the recent death of my father, helping my children live theirs and praying they find God in the midst of their journey, as I did.

I see the faith I had as a child. I was fearless. I knew God was at my side, I did not doubt it, it was as real to me as the walls of my house. His angels were at my side and that was sufficient for me. I didn't know what anxiety was, and there was plenty to be anxious about in my childhood.

How do we lose that as we age? The older I get, the more fears I have, the more worries I cling to, the more I see the dangers that are spread along the path ahead of me. How do I regain the faith of my youth? How to I hold on to the certainty that Christ is my rock and my strength. 

How do I balance Jesus words "Unless you come to me as a little child, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven" with the words of Paul "When I was a child, I spake as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things". 

I need to return to the "childish" faith of my youth. That sure confidence that God would take care of me, no matter what was happening around me. Call it a blind faith if you will, but it was sustained by evidence time and time again. To return to it, I need to Remember, so remember I shall. 

You'll find me in memory lane this year - pulling out the dusty memories of how God has walked with me, protected me and saved me for all of my life.

Oh, and if you need your heart refreshed in the Spirit, I absolutely recommend you check out the Retreats offered by Ransomed Heart. God spoke to my heart in a blatantly clear way, refreshing my soul and bringing me home ready to face the world again.

Rescuing... continued

After my blog last night I ran into a few difficulties...


1. I couldn't change my thoughts to something else;
2. Despite being exhausted and going to bed early, it was after 2 am before I finally slept; and
3. I had a horrible nightmare about not being able to rescue my best friend... I won't go into details.


Where did this leave me this morning (besides reeling a little from the too-realistic images of the dream)?


It left me realizing that my desire for rescue in my life is for me to be able to rescue the people I love from the difficulties and traumas in their lives. I realize that I feel responsible for the bad things that have happened to those I love. I have experienced this realization before, when I felt I should have prevented my children from getting hurt, feeling like I should have been there for them, protected them, seen the dangers. I am beginning to realize that this extends to others as well.


People like my sister. I feel like I should have been able to save her, both as a child and as an adult. Intellectually, I am aware that there is nothing I could have done, I am in no way responsible for the way her life unfolded; that there is no way I can protect my children from every trouble that they will come across.


Knowing that doesn't mean I don't feel responsible. It is an extension of the question "why was I not enough?".


Why was my word not enough to protect my sister from a lifetime of abuse?
Why was my love not enough to keep my brother from committing suicide?
Why was my advice not enough to convince my sister to stay safe?
Why were my instincts insufficient to recognize the full dangers my loved ones were facing?


There it is.... I want to be infallible, I want to be omniscient. I'm not God... I don't even want to know everything... until it comes to rescuing my loved ones, and then I want to know it all, to protect them from it all. I don't even want to live in a bubble or to put my boys in a bubble... I want to and want them to fully experience and embrace life. To chase down the dangers and fight through the difficulties.


Where does this leave me?


I feel like I'm spinning, spinning, spinning tonight and need to take a few different steps in my dance.

Rescuing

This is actually a hard one for me to type tonight. I am putting myself on the line, my fears of who I am.

Sometimes I wonder at the types of stories I am drawn to. There seems to be within me a deep need to have a story of survival. Which, is actually kind of funny if you ask the people who know me best, because they will tell you (and me) that I have that kind of story. I guess to me it seems very surreal. Like it's somebody else's life. Like it couldn't have really been my life. Anyone else's life and it would be traumatic, dramatic and horrid. The kind of story fairy tales are made of, the damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really someone else. If my story doesn't truly belong to me. It's as if it happened to someone else. Perhaps that is because I WAS rescued and when I was young; not by a flesh and blood person, but by God.  Does it make sense that I feel as His protection and strength that sustained through the worst things has left me feeling less whole?

That can’t be true… so, if that’s not true, then perhaps it was not wholly His strength that carried me through. Perhaps there is a large part of me that is completely dissociated from my personal history. Perhaps because most of it was not my fault, that there was nothing I could do to stop it, escape it or change it I cannot fully accept it. That should be a good thing too.  At least I recognize the truth of the matter, but….

I made some pretty stupid mistakes too. Those things I am responsible for. Some, when I was a child done out of ignorance and a cry for help, some as an adult done out of a desperate need to feel. To be loved. To be wanted…

I feel lost within myself. I love the TV shows, movies and books where someone comes in and saves the day. Where the police catch the bad guy, where the stranger sweeps in and rescues the hurting person – be they child, woman or man, where good triumphs over evil. That’s not a bad thing.

I find it hard to believe that someone will want me for me. That I can or will be loved because I exist, because I am enough. Too many have rejected me, too many who were supposed to, or promised to have caused the most damage to me.

I am strong. I don’t NEED to be a part of a couple to be whole, I acknowledge that, but I yearn for it. Just because it is necessary doesn’t mean it isn’t greatly desired. I believe it is part of our make-up, part of our humanness to want to share life with someone else, to not be alone. In the beginning God said “It is not good that man should be alone” and made him a wife, a helpmeet. I want to be a help meet. I want to be a part of something bigger than me.

I waffle between feeling like a giant, something so big it’s untouchable and feeling like a tiny grain of sand, beneath notice and walked on. Both leave me feeling lonely, unnoticed and unwanted.

Where do I go from here? How do I learn to be satisfied with what I do not have, what I (seemly) cannot have? I love my life. I love what I have, but I’m starting to desire more…. How do I balance contentment with that desire? How do I push to have the “more” in my life without losing the appreciation for what I already have? How do I fit more in my life?

Lots of questions today. Very few answers. I do know that I’m going to keep dancing, keep singing and keep searching. Life’s a dance, we learn as we go. (Garth Brooks)

Perfect?!

So many thoughts running through my brain these days. Sometimes it's too much for me to sort through and sift... Tonight I thought I'd write them out here, because... well, because I need to and maybe someone out there needs these words too.

There are times when I wonder if I left my marraige too soon, if I gave up too quickly. Then I look back and read the words I've written before, here and in my journals, and I realize that I didn't. I gave it everything I had and then some.

Something a counselor told me once was that I have the right to divorce my husband simply because I want to, I don't need a reason. I have reasons, but that wasn't her point. Her point was that it is my life to live and I don't need the approval of anyone else for the decisions I make.

I tend to be a perfectionist. I'm recognizing this more and more about myself. More importantly, I'm recognizing that this is not a good thing about me! I am human, I need to accept myself with all my flaws, failings, mistakes and humanness. I don't need to do it all "just right".

Someone else asked me recently who put this on me? Who asked me to be perfect, who told me I had to do it all "just right", who ordered me to climb every mountain.... I'd never been asked that before. I'd never thought of it before. It's me.

It's me who had to have the perfect marriage, who had to be the perfect wife.
It's me who has to be the perfect mother, who beats herself up when I falter (okay, there are also plenty of other people out there waiting to jump on me if I make a mistake, but if I'm okay, their opinion will matter much less!)
It's me who has to have the perfect documents sent to print, no errors allowed.
It's me who has to be the perfect friend.
It's me who has to sing perfectly every time
It's me who has to look perfect.
Be perfect

To be honest, the only thing I'm perfect at is failing. I'm not perfect at anything. I am perfectly imperfect. It's time I learned to be okay with that. No one else expects it of me, why do I keep expecting it of myself?

Where did this need for perfection come from? Satan sure loves to take something good and twist it into something evil. Christians are quick to tell you we are expected to become perfect, as Christ was perfect. That we are to live sinless... I think we need to revisit the definition of perfect. My BFF tells me  perfection is constant communication with Jesus and if we have that, our mistakes are simply... mistakes, not sins.

So, I declare today:

I am not perfect.
Furthermore. I do not need to be perfect.
I will stop expecting perfection of myself.

I will slip and I will fall in this dance of life, but as long as I keep getting up and trying again... that's okay.

Loneliness...

What is loneliness. I'm dwelling on that this evening.

It's been a rough week, a longer day and I'm wide awake at 2 a.m. instead of sleeping like I need to be, like my body is craving and my mind won't give in.

I've been feeling lonely lately. Interesting how I felt lonely almost all of my marriage and then the loneliness changed. I'm growing, changing and realizing that I crave a social life. I need to be heard... That's what I discovered tonight. I need to be heard, I need someone to hear me, to be listening.

Loneliness is not always simply the state of being alone, for me it is often the state of being unheard. Of not knowing who is near or far, no knowing who wants me, who misses me... I don't know the thoughts of others. I know the people who love me, the people who care... but I can't know what they are thinking, I fear when they don't communicate that they are tired of me, that I have become less important in their lives. I allow myself to be easily set aside, to be walked away from. I don't fight for people to stay in my life for very long or for very hard. I'm sure my best friend might argue with that, but I can quickly accept (right or wrong) that someone just doesn't want to be around me anymore.

Sometimes it's hard to dance alone all the time. Sometimes I crave a partner, even a temporary, short-term friend who is willing to dance with me. Some days I just need someone with skin on (who is older than 18 years old).

Seeing the 'Muscles' Grow Stronger

Tonight I am sitting here and I am realizing...

I am beautiful.

I am worthy.

I am valuable.

I am special.

I am enough.

Tomorrow, I might need reminding. I am learning to appreciate myself, to value myself and to see myself as someone special, someone worth knowing, worth being with.

I realize that not everyone may feel that way about me. Well, I actually KNOW some people don't feel that way about me. I'm learning to be okay with that too. Honestly, there are some people already that I don't care if they don't like me... I could even list names for you, but I won't. In fact, there are some I would rather they don't like me because I wouldn't want to be liked by people of their caliber. Abusers and narcissists top that list!

I can see the healing God is working in me. I feel the strength beginning to rise in my heart. Dancing with God truly is great exercise! I highly recommend you try it.

I'm learning

I'm learning to be okay with me.
I'm learning to allow myself to be set free.
I'm learning that I am enough
I'm learning that I am okay
I'm learning that it's okay for me to heal
I'm learning that it's okay for me to be happy
I'm learning that I am wanted, valued, loved

I'm learning.

When I was in my early 20's, I spent a good 5 years in counseling. During that time, I made choices that deepened the ingrained belief that I was not worthy of true love or happiness. I also learned tools that when push came to shove, I was able to realize my mistake and heal from it. I learned it was okay to take the time to heal before moving on.

What I didn't learn was that it was okay to not lock myself into the consequences of a future mistake. See, I got myself engaged to a man who didn't really want me. In fact, he told me at one point that he was only with me until "someone better came along". It was a month before our wedding when that someone better came along. I was heartbroken, but I think (looking back) that I was more heartbroken about the wedding being cancelled than I was about him breaking up with me... I think I expected it to happen sooner or later. Now, I'm eternally grateful to God for breaking us up because he turned out to be a lousy husband, a philanderer and abuser.

The other thing I didn't carry forward was into my next relationship the forgiveness towards myself for past relationships and mistakes. See, I had made myself a promise and when that promise was broken, taken away, I still felt I had to honour it. I decided that I had "made my bed and must lie in it". I was mistaken. If I had been able to forgive myself, to set aside my actions and feelings from the reality before me, I could have saved myself from more heartache and disaster.

I made my choice. If I had to go back, I'd probably make the same one because I can't imagine life without my boys, but if I could advise a woman in the same situation, I would give different advice.

For example, just because you slip up, make a mistake, sin, fall, however you want to word it, you aren't stuck with a bad choice, with a bad relationship because of it. I would advise that you step away from that moment, action or decision and look at the relationship outside of it, would you stay with that person if that moment had not happened, if that activity did not exist? I wish I had asked myself that question - in fact, I went out of my way to not ask myself that question. I thought I owed it to God, to myself, to my family, to my reputation.... to do the "right" thing. I did the wrong thing.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm in a state of reflection lately and while I regret my thought processing in this matter, I cannot say for sure what decision I would have made if I had thought it through differently. I'm not the same person today that I was then. I've come a long way, done a lot more healing, educated myself better about relationships.

Which is to say that relationships still terrify me! I pray that should God provide a next relationship (and I pray He does), I will be wiser, freer, and more careful.  Should I make a grave mistake in my judgment, in my actions (in my own eyes!) I will be more forgiving, give myself grace and not allow it to be the basis of a long term decision.

God has brought me to a forgiveness for myself. He promises that He does not hold our past sins against us, that when He forgives, it is gone. As long as I choose to accept Him, my sins died on the cross with Christ, all of them. If He does not hold them against me, if He has already taken the consequence up on Himself, if He has already washed them clean, what am I saying or doing when I cling to them? If I cannot let Him take them away from me, if I insist that I still must face the eternal consequence for them, I have not accepted His gift and I negate the sacrifice that He made for me. I'm grateful for His Gift, His sacrifice and I have no desire to throw it back in His face or devalue it.

With this forgiveness... and some days I must remind myself of it when Satan is out to try to make me forget it! ... comes a freedom previously unknown. It means that I can walk with my head up. It means that today is a fresh start... that today is a clean slate... that tomorrow can also be a clean slate.

It means that I can dream, and love, and live, and dance lightly, happily and joyfully as I move into the future.

Dancing free of the cobwebs

I'm having flashbacks regularly lately. One seems to lead to another, one memory begets another memory and I am learning / remembering more and more of my past. Unfortunately, I can fend off the memories until I lay down at night and then my brain is flooded. Last night, the flood came to the point that I couldn't keep my eyes closed and yet opening them didn't stop the flood. Last night, I realized there was more to my marital abuse than I was ever willing to admit or acknowledge. I've taken responsibility for things that were not my responsibility. I am stunned to realize that my marriage was based, not only on the lies he told me, but on the lies I had told myself, the decisions I made because of those lies.

It started with a memory a few weeks ago regarding a childhood incident that I had always instinctively known must have been there, but couldn't remember. Now I remember. The memory came in a flashback with feelings and thoughts, which lead to other instances in my life where I have felt those emotions, which lead to a time immediately after I met my ex-husband. One memory regularly leads to a whole review of that portion of a relationship and I have been battling nausea with the realizations shown to me.

I will no longer be stunned into frozen. I won't  allow my boundaries to be bulldozed, my desires ignored and my voice silenced. I will look at a situation and no longer expect one thing, but will state my expectations ahead of time. I will expect to be treated with respect from now on.

I feel as if my brain is dancing free of the cobwebs. With the freedom comes the memories both good and bad... I'm truly okay with that. Even if I am left reeling from reality, the fog is lifting and my thoughts become clearer, my future starts to look brighter and my hope begins to rise that something better is actually out there.

This is just another part of the dance to freedom. I feel God's hand, firmly but gently, leading me down this road. He wants good for me. He wants me to escape the prison walls abuse has built around me, the moat I dug within them in case someone tried to breach the walls. We're filling in the moat, breaking down the walls.

Is it safe?

Only when He leads the way.

Rescue

I have been dreaming lately. I mean actual night dreams this time... I have never done this. Even as a young girl, I thought it strange that I never dreamed.... my friends, siblings, parents, classmates, would all talk about the dreams they had the night before and I always had a blank slate. I slept pretty soundly, but there was just blackness, no dreaming. It's a new feeling for me... sometimes I wake feeling unrested because so much had happened while I was sleeping!

A recurring theme through my dreams has been that of needing to be rescued. For so long, I have (day)dreamed (since childhood) of having the knight ride in to rescue me, or ANYONE to ride in and rescue me from all that was going on... My dad was once the hero in my (day) dreams, then as I got older it would be a boyfriend/husband, then police, courts, TV heroes.... There has never been a hero. Even now, I must confess, that I keep waiting for the courts to rescue me, for someone to see the truth and step up to say "You don't have to fight this battle alone, I will fight it with you".

I've come to the realization that I must stand alone. That there is not going to be someone to rescue me. I have prayed for God to rescue me and still felt alone, still felt like I would have to rescue myself. My dreams have portrayed this to me... My own fears coming forth and bubbling over. In one dream, I dreamed I was drowning... then I dove in and saved myself. Now you know it was a night-dream... The second me could breath underwater while the first me couldn't. Maybe it was a sign that I'm getting stronger, that I'm healing, that I need rescuing less.... But when I came up out of the water, there was a crowd of people around and none of them had even noticed I was in trouble.

Then came an experience. I love that God speaks to us through experiences. (I know that He also uses dreams, but for me an experience speaks louder!)

I was at Rainbows (Singles) Family Camp and my youngest wanted a canoe ride. All the other parents and adults being busy with their families and activities, I took him out on my own. I'm a pretty strong canoe-er and thought nothing of it... I also didn't intend to go very far. He was a little scared of the rocking of the canoe, so I taught him how and where to sit, had him turn around and face me because when you see someone you trust it's easier! A motor boat came along just as I planned to turn around and I decided to wait until the waves died down before returning to shore.... except I didn't plan on the wind that day or realize how far we had paddled.... When I tried to turn the canoe, the wind pushed it right back. When I paddled toward shore, the wind held us still. When I paused to rest, the wind and waves pushed us farther away.

With my son watching me, I couldn't show my anxiety, I couldn't let him know how scared I was becoming! I knew I was rapidly running out of energy and I couldn't remember how to get the life guards attention! I forgot that in the boat were the tools we needed to be rescued. He knew we were having trouble getting back to shore... and, bless his little rule-keeping heart, he was worried we were getting out of the life guards sight.

I looked at him and I prayed out loud, asking Jesus to come pick up a paddle and row with me. I gave up trying to turn the canoe and just paddled backwards. As we gained ground, as we came closer and closer to camp, my little one said "I guess that's why we needed to have two paddles in the canoe, hunh Mom". He knew Jesus was paddling on the other end of the canoe. He knew we had just been rescued by THE Rescuer.

I was so relieved to be back at shore, I was so grateful to have been able to return safely (and without embarrassment, I might add) that I missed the fact that I had just been Rescued.

I know my Rescuer and His name is Jesus. He hasn't left me, He knows the truth, He will continue to protect me, He will continue to carry me through.

Boundaries

I struggle with setting boundaries. I'm learning, but it is difficult for me to stay strong in this area. As I sit here this morning, the thought struck me that I don't feel necessary, I don't feel valuable, unless I am helping someone. So, I set aside my needs, compromise my boundaries in order to be helpful to others because it is only in helping others that I find value in myself.

I don't find value in taking care of me. I have work to do in this area, but since we cannot change what we do not acknowledge, I'm going to see this realization as a good thing, as a step in the right direction.

This happened again at the hospital Friday night... My son needed stitches in his knee. I let his dad know what was happening and he rushed over to the hospital to see the boys. I let the nurses know he only had supervised visits and I needed their help because I don't want to be alone with him and the boys. The came up with an acceptable solution, and then later came and asked me to change it to make things simpler for them. What do you say when the nurses tell you they can't honour their word? How do you demand that their suddenly busy ER still help you keep your boundaries. I conceded and they sent him down to stay with us, leaving us alone with him. They said they would have him leave again when the doctor came, but they didn't. I had to be the one to ask him to step out, I had to reset the boundary to make my son's experience easier to get through.

I felt ignored, like my children's needs, my needs were unimportant in light of their needs. I'm still not sure how I could have done things differently in that situation. Sometimes you have to bend, to break a rule for someone else. Sometimes it's more dangerous than it seems. With all the domestic violence posters they have in the hospital, I felt like they should have been more aware of the potential risks.

Education for domestic violence is key. I'm glad God has called me to work in that area. So often we see normal when we should see abuse.

I'm getting better at the boundary setting and keeping. It's a work in progress, but isn't the best dance one that is always improving?

Heart of the Matter

Lately the tears are striking at every opportune moment... and some inopportune moments. I lay down to sleep, close my eyes and start crying. I will be washing dishes and start crying. A friend says something (even something nice) and.... I start crying. Someone does something nice for me and, guess what... I start crying.

God and I had a pretty intense conversation all day yesterday that culminated in a Facebook friend phoning me with a message from him. She spoke 2 sentences and... yep... I started crying - bawling actually, I even missed part of the message I was crying so hard. I realize they are healthy, healing tears, but it can get quite annoying... and tiring. As I lay in my bed (crying) last night, I was complaining to God about it and it was almost as if He said "It's okay. I'm catching your tears in My bottle. They are not wasted or unseen."

It's been a week of realizing how I feel about myself, what my fears for my future are, and new memories of the past. It was a day of God loving me, of telling me that how I feel about myself is not how He feels about me. It was a day of Him wanting to change my perception... and me fighting the process. Are you SURE? Is it even possible for You to love me like that? To want good for me?

Funny how we question God. Funny how it's so easy to accept the lies that we are unlovable or valueless. Funny how it's hard to believe those might be lies. What do I do, how does it change who I am to accept that God's love is sufficient for me? More than that, that God's love is MEANT for me? Why am I afraid that I will become conceited and arrogant if I accept God's view of me?

Therein lies the heart of the matter. I have been taught that feeling good about oneself is wrong, prideful... inherently evil. Yet, if God is giving the message, how can it be evil or wrong? He seeks a humble heart, one that is not puffed up with itself. Is doubting my worth, is holding onto MY view of me being puffed up with myself? Is the very act of doubting the value and love He holds for me an expression of pride and conceit? Is it possible that the "humbleness" that we equate with low self-esteem is actually the exact opposite?

I need to STOP living in my fear!

I realized this evening that I am living in my fear. There have been things happening in my life lately that I have no control over... that's normal, typical and just generally true of all of us. There are some things in life that we just plain have no control over. I'm okay with that.... until it starts to hurt my boys and threatens me.

I won't go into full details, but suffice to say that my ex has been playing some nasty tricks, accusing me of things and even going so far as to try to take the boys away from me. I'm afraid that one of these days he's going to come up with something, and somebody is going to believe him enough. As a result, I'm desperately trying to be perfect. I'm desperately trying to do nothing wrong, to appear as if my world is completely under my control.

HA!!

My world feels so far out of my control... and I know that every time I try to take control of my world, I fall apart. I fail. I am completely incapable of being in control of my world. I much prefer to let God be in control of my world. Life runs so much smoother when I just let Him guide it.

I know this fear will pass, and identifying it will help it pass that much sooner. God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of Power and a strong mind. So, I'm claiming that promise! I refuse to live in fear.

I have noticed that when I live in fear, I often act in anger. I become more concerned with how others see me than I am with reality. I worry about being condemned, about being criticized, about being labelled ... you get the idea. When I lean and focus on God, I can remember that I don't have to be perfect. God loves me just the way I am. He's not condemning me... Jesus said "I came not into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Me might be saved." His goal, His purpose, His mission is to save me - even from myself. From the lies that have been spoken, that are being spoken and that will be spoken... about me and to me... from other people and from Satan.

Yep. There are things I need to work on... things that I can do better at... but being in control. I am returning that responsibility to God... He's much better at it than I am anyway!

Tonight... I'll dance knowing that He's in the lead... AND He's choosing the music!

Strength

People tell me I am a strong person. I have heard it from a number of sources, from people who know me well, some who know me a little and others who hardly know me at all.

I don't feel like a strong person. Sometimes I give in to the urge to hide from the world, to bury myself in my life and forget about others. Sometimes the energy it takes to reach out to someone, to speak honestly about how I am doing is too much for me. Sometimes the energy to do more than the absolute necessities is more than I can do.

I'm trying to allow myself to rest when I need to, be at peace when I need to and let things slide a bit when I need to, but honestly, it makes me feel like an absolute failure. I feel weak. I feel as if I am not enough, like it wouldn't matter if I had all the strength in the world, it's not enough. There is so much that feels overwhelming... emotions, appointments, children, eating, school, housecleaning, and that's just the stuff I'm forcing into my schedule, not even the things I want in my schedule or dream about for the future. Where do I fit work in? I want to start speaking, I want to go back to school someday, I want to make sure my children are healthy and happy. I need to take care of me and make time for friends.

I don't feel strong. Maybe strength is not in what I cannot accomplish, but rather in what I can. Maybe strength is in the deciding each day that I will move on, that I will continue to work hard, that I will not succumb to those who would see me fall. Maybe strength means just staying alive.

I think that strength has a different definition for so everyone. Let's face it, we are all our own worst critics and I am no different. I am hard on myself. I expect more from me than I would ever expect from someone else. I guess that's the way it is. I've always looked at life from the perspective of "this is my life. I'm just living it" and not really stepped back to look at it the way someone else might look at it. Strangely, I fear that if I take that step back, I will still not see things the way others do. I think I am hiding myself from them enough that they can't see the real me, the way I really live, and if they saw that... they would agree with me about my weakness.

I have weaknesses. I am human. Maybe it's just okay for me to not be strong in every area of life, even though I have striven to do just that. In a dance, there are usually two partners and they take turns supporting each other. I all too frequently feel alone in the dance of life and yet I know that God is leading me... I need to trust that when I feel weak, His strength will come through and hold me up so I don't fall.

I need to learn to be comfortable with my weakness... To just fall back and know HE will be there to catch me and not let me hit the ground.

The Lack of Contentment

I don't want to be where I am. That's not even a figure of speech, there are so many places that I'd rather be. First, Spokane, or BC, even Manitoba, or anywhere. I don't feel like I belong here. I want to be with my friends, with the people who love me and accept me and need me.

I don't even want to be here emotionally. I want to jump ahead to healthy, skip the healing and go straight to the end.

I know it doesn't work that way. just as much as I know that I live here, I live in this place and it's home for now. In so many ways I am where I am and there will be no where else until I decide to move on. Some things may be out of my control, dependent on other people's choices and actions but most of the time where I am is up to me. When we're talking emotions, it's just a path we have to take.

It isn't all bad either. Some days I'm so happy with my life and with where and who I am that it's a touch scary! There's a conundrum for you!

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Even if I trip over myself ... or someone else, God is leading this dance and He'll always pick  me up so we can keep dancing. The other good news is that sometimes, when I fall, it hurts so much I don't want to move for a few minutes. He'll sit down with me and wait til I'm ready to dance again... and then He'll carry the weight to keep me from reinjury and excess pain.

Gotta love a God like that! I do. I hope you join me on the journey with Him.... He never lets us down or leaves us alone.

Remembering Sometimes Hurts

Tonight is a night of memory. Sometimes that isn't a good thing, or doesn't feel like a good thing. Sometimes I'd rather have the memories stay at bay and just let me sleep, sometimes I'd just like the memories go away completely.

The anniversary of my brother's death is coming up. It makes me remember what was happening all those years ago. The day he went missing I was in Banff, enjoying a band festival. When my family found out he was dead, a week later, I was out having dinner with friends, it was the first time I'd been away from a phone for a week. It felt wrong, it still feels wrong that while his life was ending, mine was celebrating.

Ironically, it's not my brother's death, however, that weighs most heavy on my mind tonight. Tonight I was reminded how valuable sister's are, how much that relationship is treasured and sought. How close sister's can be to us, no one else can be a friend like a sister.

You know, I had to look up the date of her death. I can never remember what day it was... It just was. I still don't really know what date is was that morning.. I think it was the 23rd of December, but it might have been the 22nd, it depends on if they put the time of death before or after midnight. I was dancing in the kitchen with my almost 2 year old son to "Six White Boomers". We were getting ready for Christmas and it was a happy day. The sun was shining and the snow was glistening when a police officer knocked on the door. I've never had a reason to fear the police. I've always looked up to them and honoured them so when they knocked on my door, I didn't even think about it until they asked if one of them could take my son to the other room and I saw the looks on their faces. I knew then I wasn't going to like what they had to say but I was totally unprepared for the news.

My parents were out of town and I honestly thought I was going to hear that they had had an accident. You're supposed to lose parents. No one wants to, no one is ever truly prepared for it, but it's the natural course of life. You aren't supposed to lose siblings.

So many thoughts ran through my head. A selfish one "I'm the only one left", a determined one "I want to bring my nephews home", a horrified one "How can this be true? How can it have happened?", and a controlled one "Mom's not here, I have to find Mom. There's so many people to call, so much to do".

I don't know how to recover from this. Even after all these years, I don't know how to live without my siblings. I still want to run to them, to talk, to be their sister.

Tonight, I close my eyes and I see those policemen at my door. I now fear their presence... not because they'll hurt me, or punish me, but that they'll be the bearer of bad news. That they'll be coming to tell me someone else I love has gone. Tonight I'm reliving the morning after my sister died. It hurts. Seven and a half years later, the pain is just as strong, the missing her is still so intense only now there's nothing to distract me from the moment, the emotion. There's no one to find, no one to care for, no one to need me in this moment. There's also no one here to catch me as I fall.

Except my Savior, my Jesus. He's gently leading me. He knows tears heal, that I need to face these things and He gently leads me in the dance... It's painful though. I don't want to be found. I don't want to be found. I don't want to feel this pain, this intensity that I can no longer escape from.

God hold me up. Carry me through. Heal my heart and make me new. How do I go on? How do I embrace the pain of losing my friends, my loved ones, my siblings? I've survived by shutting down... How do I survive the pain of restarting? Can I?

I want to dance the dance of joy. I want to be alive, I'm just afraid of the path to get there.