WAS, WASN’T/IS, ISN’T

 

I stand before a mirror these days, many mirrors

For within I am but a House of Mirrors

To look within one is to see another

Stretching back to was and wasn’t, as far as my inner eye can see

Each mirror seems magical

In a curious sort of way

 

For though they are now

They show me then

To stare into one is to glimpse a was

While living an is

I have fallen down the Rabbit Hole

Where up is down, down is up

Then and Now having collided

It is so easy to keep my eyes downcast

To hide

This I am good at

To hide was safe, then

To touch wasn’t

Reaching out was fearsome

Withdrawing secure

My mirrors show me all of this

Hiding is not safe, now

For it will end all that has begun

So, I lift my head

Open my eyes

To see

What is

What isn’t

To shatter the lies

With the truth

I am not alone

So I can smile in all my then fear

I am surrounded of Heaven

Mama Mary beside me now

Holding my hand reassuringly

All of Heaven here

 

For many of my mirrors reflect my Momma of then

I was to not touch her

Never to look her in the eye

To want attention meant harm

“See me Momma,”

The unuttered cry of my child’s heart

I look rather upon Momma Mary

She smiles back

This is safe

So I reach out

Hesitantly, unsure

I touch ever so lightly

To find no rebuke in doing so

My touch welcome

I accepted

The  mirror cracks

Was and Wasn’t shattered

As Is and Isn’t remain

I have many such mirrors

Within my house of me

Yet, mirrors is all they are

Easily vanquished

 

Pieces to lie at my feet

The colors of now

Reflected in them

A rainbow

Of love within

 

 

 

Upside down

Turning right side up

 

 

 

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)

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.

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!

ALIGNING STRENGTHS

“Put your back into it!”

“Foot Forward, be ready!”

Watching your footwork, blocking, parring and rolling along with slipping and countering are all moves studied by boxers.

Moves that help them discover their weaknesses and find their strengths.

Defensive moves to offensive.

Fascinating stuff to read that God is using to teach me too.

I woke this morning with something someone said to me once rolling around in my thoughts, “I need you to align your strengths with the Lord, too, not just your suffering”

I truly had no idea what this meant, read and reread it so many times, asking God  to show me.   

He has and is..    

Today He gave me this vision…

“My Guardian Angel, Angels actually, for I am surrounded of them. How they fight for me. I see them now, in battle, defensive with swift swords and eyes ablaze. They never falling back in fear or doubting the victory will be theirs. The stand tall and true, backs straight and shields ready. Fear does not control them, they know they have the advantage, the power from on high.

Thing is, I see myself as well, and it isn’t a pleasant picture. I am in the center of my defenders, cowering. Down on my knees, head hid as I peek out. I am not viewing my wall of defense as that, rather I shiver, looking for a break to happen. I expect them to fail, am sure that I will be breached.

“You are wrong!”, my Heavenly Warriors shout at me with a mere look.

I cock my head and ponder this, looking down upon me. I see this armor of God I am clad in. It has seemed so heavy that I was unaware of what this new weight was. Not the pain and abuse gone by, as I thought, but my new me clothed to fight. I simply haven’t been putting my back into it, I have been choosing to hide.

“Do it!” the clanging of their swords command.

Uttering a plea, to my Commander and Lord Jesus Christ, for strength, I rise, slowly yet steadily to my full height. I am taller than I  can fathom, the mighty coursing of my blood sounds in my ears with each sure and steady beat of my heart.  It was I, my fear, that was the breach. Victory is what is happening around me. How I long to taste it as well, put an end to fear and doubt, being used and discarded.

My Lord nods at me as He motions to the fray.

A smile plays around the corners of my mouth as I nod back.

I am ready, I have strengths that are more than my weaknesses and an army to fill the gaps as needed. This battle was fought and won. upon Calvary, the blood shed for me then ensures my path onward, upward and forward.

There is no going back unless I choose so.

I don’t, not anymore.      

I kneel, one last time, here amid my Angels. I kneel in surrender and humbleness before my Lord. I bend knee to He who is worthy and gratitude. I kneel with strength and assuredness as He helps me rise and says, “Go forth, Tammy Anne of God, you are mine, freed to win.”

LOVES ME, LOVES ME NOT, LOVES ME

Love, what a conundrum…

Least it used to be, not as much these days.

Abba is maturing me to understanding love.

The what is and what isn’t of it, from the me part of giving it to the receiving end.

It is so much more than I fathomed even while it is far lesss than I perceived.

It isn’t about touch or words really, not how I thought it was

I don’t have to hear it to know it exists, it is greater than words

Finding it in touch does happen but isn’t the wearwithal for experiencing it

No it is more complex than that, found in the breadth of friendships and the existence of life

I am seeing that nature surrounds me of it, sunrise beckons me with it even as moonlight lulls me to sleep wrapped in it

Love is everywhere, in everything

All inclusive, for love is God and God is love

I was taught that love was a two-pronged fork, one to give wrong the other to deny

I sure came out twisted from this

I so positive that if someone isn’t giving me all of the attention I want, then they don’t love me

If I was starving for love, I would desire touch of any kind, hurt me even, because that was all I had known as a child.

Use or neglect, love being the term spoken when used of a father

Unknown to me safe and secure love, from a touch withheld of a mother.

love wasn’t what I lived, i was told so, but it wasn’t true

I like this love definition I am finding

It is comforting to know I am cared for in more than touch

I am valued for my mind, my emotions and my input

I am someone worth loving in the right way, loved by deed and action, cared for in providing, wanted around

Love is really all of these

Touch to stem from the relationship in a godly way

A kind look, a smile aimed at you, a question of, “How are you?”

Thinking of you and how can I help, that’s love too.

Genuine love

I like that simply being in someones presence suffices

The freedom it gives me to love back in the same way

To love right

To stem from giving rather than getting

That’s Abba love

That’s my Jesus love just like He gave me

Momma Mary, Papa Joseph and all of heaven-sent love

I couldn’t love my God more, I know how much He loves me

I feel it even though He isn’t visible to me,

I find it sitting in His presence, listening to His words, resting in His peace

He is love

Thus I have had love all along

Thank you to all of you who have loved me through this healing, still are too

Loved me in my need and want, my give me and hold me, given the lost child within what was missed

In the end it has been your love of Christ that has healed me

His love lived out that His love show me this truth

I, Tammy Anne of God, am loved

with an everlasting love

beyond form

in existence.

“My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.”

1 John 4:10 The Message

THIEVING

                                                                                                                           But he said to me,                                                                                                                                                                                                       “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”                                                                                                                                                      Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,                                                                                                                                                                                     so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV

This morning I woke up feeling lost and alone. Trickles to slowly track their way out of the corners of my eyes and pool in stains upon my pillow.

I don’t panic anymore, when I wake up with feelings, they are what they are but I am only what I allow them to make of me.

I laid here awhile with Abba, just letting the trickle flow, no more hiding allowed, holding in only creates pressure til I blow.

I am tired of blowing up.

Abba is showing me how these trickles are release, how they can flow from me, collected of Him and become this stream of healing waters. He shows me how I can lie within them and rest, not worry about their source as He purifies them. The frozen icecaps of emotions denied, bound up and locked away melting to be these crystal clear waters of now.

Now

This is where He has me, showing me and teaching me that I am His now girl.

The tears and running still now as I say this, for He is showing me this morning that I have been a thief.

Thieving to survive much like a child on the streets of Calcutta does

Mine to be an emotional thieving

You see I can be with folks in all the wrong ways, past ones.

I want family and I can pretend others is mine

I crave touch and I can watch someone getting a hug and draw from that to satisfy wishing it was mine

I steal smiles sent others way and pretend they passed me by on the way to them

I thieve to survive emotionally

In the end robbing myself

I have so much love in my life from not only my God, but people too

I am no longer hidden away or cast out

I am inside

So I must choose

I must break the bonds of these old habits of survival or they will rob me of now as then did so long ago

It is so hard to let go, to say I am me here I am and what you can give is sufficient

I am oh so childish in wanting so much more, all of people

Help me Abba to make You my all that I turn to you

For hugs and holding, a whisper to my heart, the twinkle of an eye upon me

I don’t want to live off of stealing anymore

Open my eyes and heart to the treasures surrounding me that are already mine

Take my eyes off of wants

Purge me of my selfish give mes

My childish perspective of need

Hold me tight

Teach me right

I yield, to You, this day…. my sin of thieving.

I WILL BE OK

 

It is amazing to feel pretty… to think maybe someday God will bring a man into my life that will enjoy my company. I am astounded to realize I want to be free to be me, no more defined by others, I was always alright with that, thought I wasn’t worthy to have an opinion or free to choose. Now I know and feel I am, I am someone just like everyone else, it is an amazing discovery. It feels like I am saying this wrong, I just like being me and embracing the gift of being female, make up and pretty dresses, all that stuff.

I have known and felt the love of Christ in my life, the hand of Him through so many of those who have and are journeying with me on this journey of healing. Abuse leaves such scars, especially when it is heaped on one after the other, now I am waking up to finding my body without those scars. To seeing myself as God does, pure and beautiful, unworthy but still loved, I can give yet am worthy to receive. Joy is mine to claim, hope for what God created me for as a women, more than to be used, pushed and thrown out. I am someone not only as a human being but as a woman. I can feel attractive and it isn’t haughty, I can enjoy a man’s company simply for that. I can learn to dance, laugh out loud and share my thoughts, some day I may even have my first kiss and I like that feeling. Guess I am saying I feel alive. Confused some, but oh so alive.

TammyAnneofGod

 

I HAVE TO LEARN

I have found my lost years in a new way lately, not a pleasant one either.

I am finding that I, “Have to learn.”

Learn like all children do. Things that seem natural to you are so not for me.

All grown up means sharing and putting others first, I am finding I feel quite selfish sometimes.

All grown up means I listen, not just to hear the words but to put them in practice.

All grown up meant acknowledging where I fail and changing that.

If I am grown up I will see that life isn’t all about me no matter how much I wish it was, also realizing that life is about more than me.

Finding my footing grown up is hard, painful and oh so sad sometimes.

It feels like part of me is just going away, the part that has loved me always.

Childhood vanishing, I suppose, is what I am feeling.

How I wish I had more of it sometimes… more all me attention, more take care of me, more don’t leave me please, kind.

Thing is at the same time I am so excited to be making friends and carving time out for myself.

I like knowing I am doing someone proud and choosing right,

I love feeling grown up and that maybe someday I will be all grown up inside… the kind that is brave and strong.

I don’t feel so brave sometimes these days or strong, rather it feels that I am straddling two worlds.

Teeter totting back and forth

Up with independence, down with loneliness

Up and down, up and down,

Scared to brave, Sure to doubtful,

But it’s ok

This playground sure is a lot safer than the one I used to live in,

Now I can experience all of these childhood passings while safe,

Accept that I feel forgotten but am not,

Know that scared isn’t something I have to be because no cruellness is behind the words and actions

Only love for me,

Rooted in kindness and graciousness, forgiveness

All the important things that ease the passage from childhood to grown up.

I have been childish some these last weeks, so childish

whinny and full of tantrums.

Thing is I can see it so that’s good.

I am at the top of the slide

and oh so ready

to go down.

I shall enjoy every moment of it

and by the grace of God

surrounded of the love of friends and family

I shall land on both my feet

Even if I fall down a bit I shall glory in the ability to get up

Falling down isn’t the end of the world that I thought it was

so…

Goodbye childhood,

I hold you dear now and that in of itself is more than I ever expected to land in my heart.

 

 

THE OTHER SIDE OF MY HEARTBEAT

 

 

My heart, a mystery unto me all these years I have lived.

Even more so it seemed as my healing progressed.

In the beginning of this journey it seemed to be missing, just a hole where it belonged. When I would stumble upon it I to have no idea what to do with it. To hold it in my hands left me full of sorrow as I looked upon its bruised and bloody pulp. If I strived to lovingly return to self it would shock me into past. jolt me awake to all endured as a child sending me fleeing and hiding as those memories, now alive, overwhelmed me.

My hearts very aliveness to seem my greatest enemy.

To claim my heart was to find me.

How scary this was.

Little me, toddler me, child me… all rejected

Growing me, teen me unto woman me void of touch, lost of heart.

Oh it was there, within my frame for such is our created being.

Yet, in my mind’s eye, it was gone…     

Endurance having replaced it, survival the flow through my veins…

How deeply I hid my heart, to save me, to save it.

Handed off from one abuse to another as it was secreted away with each.

Lies to self the oxygen needed that a fake existence emerge.

A child to cope by going away from even self.

This is the side of my heartbeat I have been traversing.

Finding bits and pieces of then as God led, pulling my heart from hiding that I feel it’s true beat. Accept the truth of its being mine as it was placed back within me. Such a painful journey as each beat coursed through me, each throb tied to an abuse, each memory a horror unto its self.

Wanting my heart back was not desired, allowing God to do so, simply because Abba always knows best, was hard and ugly work. Focusing on Calvary and the truth that Jesus experienced the same was where I stayed.

Here also is where I was healed, here is where I found me, here is where the end began.

The wrong side of my heartbeat.

Death while living, dark in the day, cold and lonely always. Heartbeat slowed that I not exist to me.

Bit by bit I have been waking up to me, to the fact that I am now not then.

Bit by bit learning to sit still as I simply feel, beyond the memory to my being there, experiencing what was my truth of then as it woke my heart to the other side.

Now.

The right side of my heart.

Life. Living while enduring possible for Christ is with me, His light going before me lighting even the darkest of days. Hispresence the warmth when cold blasts find my heart, His arms enough to show me I am never alone. Heartbeat to race that it seemed it would explode, He to sit with me even in this that I learn it won’t. My heart need not be hidden, it is safe to carry it within me, for He guards this as well. He desires to teach me how to do so as our hearts beat as one.

I still hear my heartbeat knocking from time to time these days. Gentle taps of  my childhood hiding. Ones that are begging their turn to be seen and heard. At first this scared me to realize what I was “hearing.”  I can feel so spent with soothing myself of the pain and using, the discarded times.

But I am learning that feelings don’t hold the power, God does. He gifted me with the ability to feel just as He did all of His creation, thus He is also teaching me what that means. How to be human and give Him the control, to turn the fear for self into compassion for others who are facing theirs. I am learning to look on others emotions gone haywire beyond the impact they have on me and feel for them instead. How great their own wrong side of their heartbeat pain must be.

Having my heart back is changing me, having Christs heart wrapped around mine transforming me, as only His power can.

I no longer panic when these heartbeats come knocking.

Rather, I invite them home.

Allow each memory its visit held in the arms of God, soothed of my Mother Mary, Christ’s Momma lovingly shared with me.

Then we say goodbye. Some to stay the side of Heaven to heal in light and love, others to come home to me that they be used of God.

Papa, God, tells us, “As a (Woman) thinketh in her heart, so she is.” Prov. 23:7 (KJV)

I am thinking now, thus my heart is too.

I am thinking whole is good, thus God is making me whole.

Whole of heart, body, soul, spirit and mind.

Whole in Christ alone

 

The right side of my heart,

His side.

 

 

FINAL PHOTO CREDIT

https://pilgrimcenter.wordpress.com/category/prayer/pilgrimages/

The church’s crypt marked the site of the fourth station where Jesus met His Mother as He carried the Cross to Calvary.