REIMAGINE YOU AS YOU!

I don’t often reshare, but this has so much truth that I am. Praying it blesses you as much as it did me.

Reimagine You as YOU!

To be subjected to sexual trauma and abuse distorts how you think about yourself. If you had these experiences when you were growing up, you came to conclusions about your value. If a predator or a passive bystander didn’t value you, your boundaries, or your humanity, it’s pretty easy for you to believe that you have no value or personal rights. If you had these experiences after you became an adult, where you once might have felt empowered and able to take care of yourself, you now know that you weren’t as strong or empowered as you needed to be.

These experiences shape – or re-shape – how we think about ourselves. We hear it from survivors all the time: “I feel as if part of me died.” The actions of predators and the inactions of passive bystanders twist in your mind and heart until you begin to see yourself as they saw you. You begin to value yourself as they valued you. Their warped disregard for you and your well-being often translates into a kind of personal derailment of the life you should have been able to live.

The tricky part of recovery is to be able to pull apart the tentacles of lies that have attached themselves to your soul. It is to untangle the deception and free yourself from its grip.

Think about how the actions of the predators and passive bystanders communicated their view of your worth. Now, ask yourself if you believe THEIR value system. If you can see it for what it is – that you have accepted THEIR twisted reality – then you can insist on redefining yourself in ways that are true to your value and personal rights.

Here’s a fact: they were wrong. Not only in what they did – their actions – but in how they devalued you. They were wrong. They were wrong, wrong, wrong! Got it?

So, take their definitions of you and dump them in the garbage where they belong. Take the time to think about yourself, untethered from their warped ideas. Reclaim you. Reimagine YOU, not as they saw you, but as you see – or want to see YOU.  And remember: “Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life”

(Golda Meir).

Written by Sallie Culbreth and Anne Quinn

©2015 Committed to Freedom / STAARR – Sexual Trauma and Abuse Recovery Resources

IN THE TELLING

So little can seem like so much sometimes.

This morning does. A simple dream, puzzled together of past and present, like an awakening.

These times are like rising from a fog, limbs heavy with the emotions of the memories as I must choose.

There are forces within, battling, you see. Past and present swirling about, vying for me.

These are the hardest of hard times for me. How I simply want to go back to sleep, to hide in slumber.

Waking is never easy these days.

Grounding myself in the present is what is needed, the only way out.

Abba is always with me, I have all of my heavenly family watching me and drawing me out, I see them and love them, beckoning smiles and arms held open, inviting really. I always look to heaven first, my true home, my heart’s sanctuary. This is my present truth, that which floods me with emotions that are present to drown out past, the angels sing the glory of our Lord, and I can open my eyes.

Yet, humanity is still where I am, thought I would love to sit at Heavens gates all the day, life calls. I am reminded, as I turn to embrace the day that my Abba has purpose for me here, I am honored to fulfill it and serve Him.

How much I am loved and seen and heard.

Heard being the one He is waking me too now, In the telling.

Someone told me a few days ago that I, “Can tell them anything, that they want me to.” How I have sat with these words. Such a flood of emotions flows from my head to my toes as I savor the, I, Tammy, can tell.

In the telling shall be no more secrets…  no more hiding… no shame,  no matter the horror…

In the telling I can free the nightmares that haunt me, loose the bonds of then… find release

In the telling lies are shattered that the truth of them burst forth, shiny and bright, dispelling darkness.

I feel these words to such a depth, “I can tell.” It is as a vanguard before Satan that shouts, “I am telling! You have no power, for Jesus loves me and has given me someone to tell! Go away, I am washed clean in the blood of Christ, I am innocent. It wasn’t my sin and it won’t become it!”

In this someones listening I am safe, heard and free of blame. I am given understanding and love, seen as a person not an object. I find that I have a voice, my feelings matter, consequences are not the end of the world and won’t bring me harm.

In the telling I feel so shattered sometimes, the gentlest of touches to take me by surprise, voices to reach me in the fog, as I find it clearing.

In the telling the fog will lose…

For In the telling…

I am rising with the Son.

^“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”

 Romans 8:34-39 (MSG)

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

Childhood Sexual Abuse
Have you ever really stopped, when hearing that someone is a survivor of this, to consider what it means for them?
Of course, the word sex, impacts you immediately with horror.
As it should.Rape on any level, is horrible, make no mistake, no matter the gender or the age.
Imagine if this is all you knew, from birth, from your Father…
While neglect and hate came from your Mother?
How would this impact one?
What I would like you to consider is this, that you can pray for these survivors as truly needed…
Here is what God is showing me are the emotional scars I am left to carry from this, for my childhood was such.

The child is left with only this…                                       

Love is sex, for sex is the only love I have known
Thus sex must be love too.

Touching has no boundaries
You have no rights.

Everything that happens to others is your fault,
Since you started it all by being born.

You wanted it to happen

No one cares since you are no one

Your sole purpose is to serve others wants

And on and on the list of twisted perspective you are fed goes, the pattern to continue, often, into adulthood. Why wouldn’t it? It is all the child understands.

I mean, think about it.

As a child…

Attention = sex
Being heard = sex
Being seen = sex
Touched? Sex

You get the picture? Sense the turmoil? Feel the frustration, the confusion, the utter lostness to understanding right from wrong? How twisted I was, how lost my heart.

How cruelest of cruel is childhood sexual abuse.

How betrayed I was of my parents.

All of this to be what my marriage was based upon, with my husband not showing me different.

How blind I was.

How Great is our God, that I am no more.

Being awakened to all the truth of what I endured, was horrible, hard, and overwhelming on so many levels

I have had to share things I don’t want to know or acknowledge let alone tell

There is no holding back the tide once the dam is broken

Only in facing the truth of what was can the truth of what is replace it

Truth is that I am loved, outside of sex
My Lord heard me even then, outside of sex
He saw me and wept for me, sees me now, outside of sex
Sits with me in my Spirit, communes with me, touching my heart, outside of sex.

Sex isn’t the sin I thought it was
It is a gift
One that was used against me
That doesn’t make the gift wrong
It was given wrong

Someday, perhaps, God will give me the experiencing of this gift right,
In marriage, a true one, built on giving, not taking
Or, perhaps, He won’t.

Thing is, He already is, in a sense
He has given me such a depth of His love and presence that it is enough no matter the future.

He is my Father, my Soul Mate, the Lover of my Soul.

Everything I need He supplies, I find no greater joy then in giving Him my all.

The past is done, the new begun.

The surviving done

That the thriving begun.

I AM BLESSED

I am weighted down

full of the abuse gone by,

the memories invade me

a stream of visits,

a turnstile of arriving,

never-ceasing

past remembering of that

which sank me lower to lower                            

my bed to carry my frame…

imprinted upon it.

for I was no form

rather a mold.

shaped to serve their sinful choices.

there was no me there,

only survival

I was strong for I had to be to survive…

I was indifferent in an attempt to convince myself that it didn’t matter.

I was anger and sorrow intertwined,

filled up of others sin

that I…

boiled over…

with wrath at the injustice.

I screamed out, in all the wrong ways.

for I was not heard, not seen, a no one to them.

an object to be forced down,

every part of me ground up.

I hated their faces full of leering and wanting and taking always

I went to my can…

with joy.

telling myself that if I curl up tight,

I can make-believe I am be within a womb

I can pretend tomorrow will be new’

that I am in the womb and will be reborn.

but, it never worked

I was still trash to her,                             

and his toy.

each day a horror I lived

so I became anger at night

indifference by day

i survived, I did

but now I am weighted with the memories

seeing me,

seeing them.

they are like lead drowning me in my slumber,

crashing into my dreams…

waking me.

that I must pull myself from this lostness…

this fog…

find me.

then I can be full of truth instead.

I resist the urge to go to where peace is,

to curl up outside, safe…

to be waken in love and gentleness,

to be found this time,

wanted and soothed.

I am going now, instead, to sit and be in Heaven awhile

Momma Mary is smiling at me,

she knows and is whispering, “Come.”

she will wrap herself around my nakedness

Abba will stand guard.

I can go home now…

to them

home.

it feels as somewhere I have never been,

that now I am.

and oh, how, precious beyond precious, it is.

MISTAKE OR LESSON?

When feelings find me, new ones that I have hidden from to survive, they get under my skin. An emotional “itch” that can so easily turn into more. It feels like it is festering and growing, fed off of fear, as I internally revisit the incident. The end result to be loss of peace as panic attack mode rises.

I don’t like this me.

This morning was/is one of these me kind of days.

I knew I had a meeting that held the potential to make me feel little, all wrapped in fear, the wrong if I do or if I don’t kind.

I rose early, fasting and praying to Abba, that His bravery would be mine. Reminding myself that I am not then, I don’t have to be fearful and that, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 (KJV) 

I prayed that I would love this person, stay objective to what was shared and remember I am loved with the greatest of loves of my Lord.

It worked, no fear, for Abba always keeps His promises, just gotta remember to claim them. He helped me remember.

Thing is, I forgot other feelings. As soon as I felt that I was being misjudged, my words twisted and thrown back at me, I got defensive. Angry too, now that I think about it. I wanted to point my finger at this person and say, “Look in the mirror, how about the way you talk to me?”

But that is not the point, it isn’t what matters, in the end.

No, I must answer for me, not others. I need to work on where I am at fault. That won’t happen if I don’t open my heart to truth.

So, here I am, writing it out to stem the panic. To see with Spiritual eyes rather than human. Eyes on me, not others.              

Judge not that ye be not judged.

I entered this meeting full of judging, attitude wise. So sure of my perfection, not open.

I want to cry just now, I am not liking me, I am ashamed and saddened at my attitude, that my heart, my Abba heart was so un-Christlike.

Can’t stay here though, no, gotta pick myself back up and move on.

Thinking I will let Jesus carry me awhile. I am sad. It is ok to need His help, He wants to help me.

I learned my lesson today.

That is what I am thankful for.

“I am sorry, Abba, forgive me. Help me to do better.”

Amen

Best thing is, He already has, trick being to forgive myself. That can be hard for abuse survivors, especially childhood ones. Hard but not impossible.

So, instead of beating myself up I will praise the Lord for this opportunity to learn and grow. I will find the joy in having moved forward in my healing, one small step at a time is still a step in the right direction.

I choose joy and peace, even as the storm rages.

I choose Jesus.

UNLIKE ANY OTHER

Today was today, so different from any other day i have ever lived

A day that started out right and went wrong, as I found disappointment. Oh, how I found it, or rather it found me. Swallowed me whole is what it did. I felt crumbled inside, like my heart was bleeding out. I couldn’t stop the tears, I tried, oh, how I tried.

I don’t think I have ever allowed myself to truly feel this emotion before. I have spent most of my life disappointed, without even really knowing it.

When I called a friend and shared what happened, with my anger bubbling to the surface, my frustration with the persons I felt caused this let down, she said, “So, the issue is really that you are feeling disappointed.” I argued, “No, I am upset with so and so.”

How wrong I was. Past me wrong. I didn’t see this right away, but as more of my day brought me into this emotion more, I came to realize that she was right.

Disappointment.

So  much of my life has been lived directed by this,

Disappointed as a child that Momma love wasn’t mine

Disappointed that my Daddy didn’t keep me safe, brought me harm

Let down by those that knew and did nothing

I married for all the wrong reasons, which only added to my weight, of this load

Disappointed to not be wanted, seen and claimed.

Do you see what is happening?

My being disappointed led me to accept all as just how it was and to eventually become a burden, one I placed on God

I to be disappointed that He didn’t give me what I wanted-needed and deserved, I was sure.

I begged for all I missed out on, to be mine, now

It didn’t work that way, wouldn’t have been good for me if it had, not the part of me that matters

My soul.

NO, I really have no reason to be disappointed.

As a child, it was ok, as I was being robbed of what a child is to be provided with

But I am not a child anymore. I am growing so much in my Lord, I am more than circumstances and others choices.My days are directed of God, He is in control, thus my disappointments can be used of Him, to His glory, if I open myself to Him.

My friend helped me to see this too, challenging me to give the day to the Lord and thank Him for how it went. I didn’t like that but I found that I couldn’t stop my mind from going over all my past pains so I started reciting the Our Father, and soon I  could move on. I asked the Lord to show me what He would have of me, He told me to walk away. To value myself and forgive.

So, I did.

I took time for me. I asked Him to guide me and open my eyes, soften my heart towards myself and realize that people are people and it wasn’t the end of the world it felt like.

Then, I had a day, unlike any other

I was in the city, Baltimore, and I simply started exploring. Walking the piers and seeing, for the first time ever with eyes that were open to what I would enjoy, to spending time on me, to simply relaxing and taking life in.

Oh, the sights, the wonders I discovered!

I sat eating an ice cream cone as live music was performed, watching an older couple dance together with the slow rthym of knowing each other to a depth that moved me.

I saw people being people, not fearful of what others thought, but being themselves. Feeling free and expressing who they were in their dress and style.

I watched singles sure of being alone, couples linked  and families bonding. I saw so much with my eyes that my heart had missed all these years.

I felt with my body too, the wind as it swirled around me, the scent of the harbor, all the heartbeat of creation

I saw that life is out there, for me too. It may or may not be the life I envision, but life it is.

Waiting for me.

Gifted to me

Mine for the claiming

So, no more wallowing in what isn’t that I wish was

No more trying to lay plans for how I feel my life should go

No

Instead I shall rise each day and wait upon the Lord.

Praise Him  for A day like no other

In the Sun

Through the rain

Amidst storms

And even in disappointment

In the end, all I need, I have

That being, my Jesus ❤

A SHOE KIND OF DAY

“Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long.”  Ephesians 6:15-18a (MSG)

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my “shoe issue.” I smile as I type this. Smile because I know many of you are doing just that, thinking, “What shoes?”

Now I am chuckling a bit.

Shoes, they aren’t really my thing. I am more likely to be without than with when it comes to them. Oh, I have lots of them, tucked away in a magnificent antique box that I found, perfect with all its cubbies. Thing is, my shoes spend more time there than on my feet.

I do love some of them, how they are comfortable, I don’t buy them if they aren’t! No high heels for this girl!

I just don’t wear them at times.

How could I revel in the walking through the rain puddles if I did? Feel the texture of the earth beneath my feet? I feel so much with my feet!

Yet, I am learning that there are times for shoelessness and times for wearing them.

After all, going barefoot in the snow, as I have often, isn’t good for my health. Caring for my feet requires shodding them in the heat, guarding them from harm.

So,  shoeless kind of days are less.

Today, Abba, woke me to this about wearing shoes.

But let me start at the beginning.

Yesterday I interacted with someone who put me on edge. The type of individual who raised a red flag for me as a sexual abuse survivor. He made me very uncomfortable as we rode the elevator, I found myself putting objects between us and guarding my answers to his questions.

Protecting myself, that’s what I was doing.                           

Wearing my shoes.

Big Girl shoes.

Safe Girl shoes.

I wore these shoes with confidence.

I felt grounded in my present.

No more barefoot used and tossed away.

No

This is the pair of shoes I found myself wearing yesterday…

Fearless ones.

Beautiful to look upon as they were embellished in Christ like  gemstones

Yet, well made that they not give.

I wasn’t afraid.

That’s big for me. I have had a lot of opportunities to fear these last few months, and I have found myself on the side of that fear way to often.

I have coward and shrunk back, cringed and claimed false blame…

Yesterday was a no more kind of day…

A shoe one.

I am allowed to guard my self,

I am secure in Christ and that means a world of difference, all the difference,

Yet, only if I shod myself in this truth,

I do.

 

With gratitude, in awe, and in praise.

Oh, I shall still enjoy strolling barefoot from time to time, splashing through the puddles..

Smiling as I do so, 

For these feet were made for walking and that’s just what they do!

Only, now they go with truth and love,

Now they walk with God.

Gotta go, it’s raining!

RIP, TEAR, SLASH

 “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

John 8:32King (KJV)

I had someone who is oh so special to me say something to me that I did not like.

I was so hurt by it, couldn’t believe they would think that of me, accuse me of the very opposite of all I felt I had spent my life doing.

I cried to find that I then became angry at them, “How dare they!” I thought.

I so tied up over this one question.

It was ripping me apart. Shredding my self-control as it slashed through my heart.

I just knew ti was eating me from the inside out. Consuming me as it stole my peace, causing me to question my heart, my perception of me, all I have done my whole life.

I wanted to call them back and dum my feelings on them, rant and rave in defense of myself. I wished I was there to shake them good and look them in the eye and say, “What? You don’t know anything! You weren’t there when I was strong and did it all, you didn’t see how much I sacrificed, I did this, I survived that, I sacrificed, I and I and I.”

This is where Papa stopped me. He woke me to hearing myself, noticing all the I’s rattling through my rant.

So I cried it out, poured it forth before the throne instead, while asking, pleading and imploring Abba to tear down my defenses and slash the I from my perspective.

One thing about Abba, He always hears, listens and delivers.

Ripped apart my defenses and let me bare.

Didn’t like this raw view o my heart then.

No, I, most certainly didn’t.

But staying there wasn’t why He woke me to it, isn’t what He wants me to focus on.

Christ went to Calvary to “stare all o sin in the face, held up to tear down. I needed to allow God to do the same with me, for me, in me to all my sin.

Eyes off of self.

I then understood.

I was applying this comment to me in relation to others. I wanted to point my finger, turn these words away from me so I didn’t really need to consider myself in relation to them.

It is oh so easy to look at another’s sins rather than ones own.

God showed me so much because of this

This person is growing in their walk and service with the Lord, so it was a very good call to have them ask me it. They are young and should have done so differently but God will mold them in understanding that.

Just because I fulfilled this very responsibility in the past doesn’t mean I am not failing in it now, so it was right of them to call my attention to it, to help me be aware of this responsibility.

I sat with this feeling, is what I did. Sat with it and ripped it apart, tore it down to its basics and slashed it apart from my heart.

I looked at it with perspective and thankfulness despite how my emotions reacted to it

It was just a statement,

The power o it to lie within me,

Or lack of the power

It is only words, ones that can only break me if I allow them to.

I won’t

Because Abba doesn’t want me to.

He would rather I turn them over to Him

So, I did

Such a load lifted.

He will tell me what I need to glean from them

if anything.

My job is simply to be thankful that this person cared enough to be honest and share truth

Truth isn’t always easy, but it is truth

and…

“Truth sets us free.”

HOT POTATOE

Today reminded me of this childhood game, the one where you pass the “potato” round the circle because you don’t want to be the one left holding it when the music stops. If you were you were the one out of the game, everyone to yell, “Hot Potatoes!”

No fun to be the one out.

I felt out today, like I didn’t know what to do with what I was left holding.

Me.

How I felt, the feelings from an interaction with someone.

I have been holding so many “Hot Potatoes” emotionally this last week that I truly felt I would drop this one.

I cry now just remembering.

How on fire my feelings were, so alive and just here. Learning to sit with them is so hard and yet I so want to grow. I know that I must claim all of me for this to happen, I must take my turn, hold onto all of me no matter how much it sears my heart.

For in the end it cautherizes the wound a bit more. Painful healing that is needed.

“Hot Potato.”

Looking back I know things the problem being it is so hard to feel them. I know I wasn’t being reprimanded for failing rather shown an area to grow in.

Thing is knowing and feeling are so far apart sometimes for me.

I know I please this person with my performance yet I feel so like I failed. I know I didn’t, so must put the feeling aside and embrace the facts.

Pointing out areas I can grow in isn’t reprimanding, it is supporting me in growing fuller into my job. Offering advice to how I can handle something better isn’t condemnation to how I have but a sharing of personal lessons that I find my footing better.

“Hot Potato”

I think I dropped this one tonight. Allowed the feelings to win. Cried while acknowledging I was ok. So much questioning of self, fear building that I messed up. Self loathing that I didn’t remember to keep after things for better cleanliness, pity for self followed by anger.

“Hot Potato”

Worth holding onto. One to keep close that the warmth of it remind me that I have come so far, far enough to feel. Just as I have learned to find joy and embrace peace as God intended so I must the glory of what was handed to me of God today.

Allow myself to feel, all emotions, good and bad. Hard or easy, right or wrong.

A Hot Potato, that is my “Potato.”

I am out, out of then and choosing to go away.

I am in though because, of this out.

Out of wrong.

Into right.

 

 

“TELL ME”

“Tell me” when all is naught as it should be

“Tell me” when your past comes knocking, fear of then to cinch your heart

“Tell me” how vapors rise, fogginess to lay grip on your mind

“Tell me” and fear not, for there is naught to fear here

“Tell me” that I may “Tell you”

“Tell you” that you are safe and loved

“Tell you” that present is where you are, where you shall stay

“Tell me as I tell you” that you need not go alone, never, ever again

“Tell me” please, I long to hear, to help, to be there with you

“Tell me” that I may “Tell you” I understand

“Tell me” for I want to hear

“Tell me” in childlike faith believing

“Tell me” for I am listening to hear

“Tell me” that you too may hear

As God “Tells you” Listen for the color of life   

 

Listen for Me in then

Hear the sound of my heart

Find the beauty of staying

Hold tight to the colors of now

“Tell me” for I and Mine are right here

and We are going no where without you