NOT YOU, JUST….

Not you, just your brother….

 

One of the arrows of my childhood that pierced my heart. My mother to proclaim this to me, over and over, day after day in all the moments of me existence.

 

He to be seen, held and loved while I was left in the background. Pushed aside to be remembered only in the abusing. To be spoken to only in anger and loathing. Never, ever wanted.

 

This arrow became me.

 

Became what I expected from life. Defined my perception, whether it was true or not for many a situation.

 

Sometimes it was and oft-times it wasn’t

 

Not you, just your friend….

Not you, just someone else….

Not you, just….

 

Someone to say just this to me while I was on my healing journey. Someone who was a Mother figure to me. How this tore me open all anew.

 

It took me years to forgive this person. To still the anger and hurt child within who was screaming, “Why not me?! Why am I not important enough or good enough? What not me when I love you so much? Why did you lie to me and say me, then say, not me? Why, why, why?” To realize that the real anger and pain was because of my real mom.

 

In the end God has shown me this….

 

He never said not me.

 

Always to say, “Yes, you.”

 

Yes me, even when I was lost in the wanting to belong to someone.

 

The lost little me so wanting my mama’s love…

The desperate young woman me wanting anyone’s love….

The forgotten wife me wanting to be seen and held….

The floundering mother me wanting love so much I hid in my children….

The healing me wanting all I missed out on as a child….

 

Always the me looking to people, when all along the most important person had me.

 

The lost little me, held in my Mother Mary’s heart and embrace….

The desperate young women, me, loved of all the Saints of Heaven….

The forgotten wife me, seen of my Guardian Angel and held in the embrace of all the hosts of Heaven….

The floundering mother me loved so much of my Jesus that He died for me, died to rise again….

The healing me being given all I missed out on as a child in the gentle, healing and loving touch of my God.

 

Yes, me, gifted with the Holy Spirit that I am never alone.

 

Yes, me who is just me….

In all my sins and failures…

In all my wants and give mes….

In all my humanity.

 

Yes, you, my God has said….

Yes, you, I died for….

Yes, you, I rose for….

Yes, you, I love.

 

This Easter I shout out to my God, my Lord and Savior, my Jesus….

 

“Yes, you are my enough!”

He to tell me, “It is finished and I have just begun!”

^“Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.”

I John 2:8 KJV

 

 

 

 

 

CASCADING

It began as a trickle…

from the inside of me to the outside.

An awakening of newness.

I watched in wonder as a Mother held her daughter, both grown women.

Held her close, as they prayed together and sat in adoration of their Lord’s sacrifice.

I watched as the daughter wept in her Mother’s arms.

Wept and was comforted.

I watched in wonder.

You see, for me, these acts can so amaze me. Cause me to stop and ponder them as I wonder what it would be like to have such? To feel arms about you whenever you long for them, arms from someone who want’s to share theirs in gentleness, togetherness, understanding or even just because they can.

I watch in awe at the ease with which this is shared.

I watch in longing, I cannot deny it.

I wonder sometimes as I am holding my granddaughter close, as my love for her wells up and out, overflowing… what if I was the one receiving this hold. Would it feel different from the other side of it. Is the being comforted as amazing as the giving comfort?

Is the loving physical touch I was denied as a child and wife all it feels it is?

I watched in wonder and took that wonder to my Lord.

I laid myself bare before Him and asked Him to hold me. To take this watching in wonder that is a deep longing and help me to find solace in Him. To please give me a miracle to find what was lost.

To know my Momma’s love.

The love I never had, the love that all children need, the love the part of my heart that is still so small in it’s hurting.

I left this prayer with my Momma Mary, asking her intervention as well, as I said my evening prayers and anointed myself with Holy Water before bed. Then I rose from my prayer bench, slipped into my bed, enfolded in my Guardian Angels wings.

To sleep a deep slumber.

To sleep physically as Abba, God worked His miracle.

He oft comes to me in my dreams, bringing healing that He works through the Holy Spirit.

In the dream I was with a friend who is very dear to me. I asked this friend, please can you just hold me for awhile. Can I feel your arms in more than a quickness to be gone, I need a time of holding. She to smile, as she ever so gently gave me just that.

Her shoulder cushioned my head, her arms encompassing me as her hands comforted. I was aware of her heart beat, slow and steady, peaceful. I let the tears flow as the emotions seemed to ripple up and up and up, but out too. Not caught in me in a swirling cycle as they usually are.

I felt peace.

I found the wonder I watched was mine to experience.

I found an end to my wondering.

I found a cascade of knowing.

Then I spoke, “Thank you, Momma.”

But I was ashamed I had said that because I knew this was my friend, not my Momma. I was so sorry for allowing my heart this confusion. I was afraid my words would turn my friend from me. I felt I had failed somehow.

But then, I dared to pull back and look at my friend, to apologize for my misplaced emotion.

I looked in wonder.

For my friend was not holding me.

No, it was my Momma.

The forgiving her of the abuse and neglect having come full circle.

I having found my Mother’s love.

I slept in wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now is the time…

Abba has been speaking so loudly to me these last days.

What began as a quiet urging of my inner me to spend more time with Him, to come back to my First Love has blossomed to a return to soaking myself in His Word and presence, oh so deeply. He reminded me of the hand of hope He was in the beginning of this, my journey of healing.

Times when I would steal alone awhile, in the early morning hours, to my church to sit before the stain glass window and bare my soul to Him as the sun rose. How I felt it to the depth of my soul even as the splendor of the sunrise illuminated the window so did the Son my soul.

The ecstasy of my relationship with my Lord and Savior then….

One I desired again, now.

Where had it gone? Nowhere, for Abba didn’t step away from me, I had from Him. From keeping Him foremost each and every day.

I bow my head in shame even as I lift it in gratitude.

I am so thankful that our God pursues us. I am overwhelmed at the depth of His grace and mercy. I am awestruck that He loves me so much that He pursued me, yet again. Held out His hand that we walk not just side by side, but hand in hand as one.

He is my hand of hope always, not just then, I was the one to let go. To run off on my own content with glimpses of Him in the far off. To miss out on so much in so doing!

Abba is such a loving Father, I wasn’t the one keeping my eye on Him like I thought. He was the one watching me, ensuring I didn’t get lost, allowing me to wander in my freedom of choice even as He yearned to hold me close.

To guide me forward.

Now is the time He is telling me.

Time to move on, to the Woman of God His transforming power has and is making of me. To free my inner child to grow, to turn from the past to now.

So, here I am, in the present.

The festering of abuses wounds purified, that only the scars remain, a visible sign of triumph over evil.

Ready, willing, and able by the power of God…

to go where He would have me to go…

to say what He would have me to say…

to be all He would have me to be.

Ephesians 2:8-10 

“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”

The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not Mine

Recently I was blessed to hear Jim Woodford speak, author of “Heaven.” It was a moving experience for me, one that touched my spirit deeply.

That which impacted me the most was the description of the Angels. They of mighty stature and the purest violet eyes one can imagine, and then some.

He shared how they are with us always, from our first moment of formation til our last breath. The awe of this fact fills me even now.

With me always.

My Guardians of God, sent to protect, guide and comfort me.

Even then, in my can.

My can. This is how I think of my times tossed away into the trash, literally, by my Mother,for “allowing” my Father’s abuse.

My can.

Except now, God has used the vision of Heaven he gave to this author to comfort me in the now as the then is healed even more.

 

You see, I have often wondered at the fact that, though I remember the feeling of abandonment I felt those long nights, I have no memories of fear or loneliness.

I understand now… it was my Angels who sat with me. Who wrapped their wings around me, miraculously to fit within with me. They stood guard over me that no harm come to me, shielded me from the hot and the cold, loved me in my abandonment.

As God is waking me to this truth of those times, He is also showing me this…

It isn’t my can, it never was.

I was placed in the trash, discarded, tossed away, but it wasn’t my can.

I can release this time of abuse, for it was never mine.

I didn’t ask for it, as I was told.

I didn’t deserve it, as I was told.

I didn’t belong in the trash.

It wasn’t my can then…

And…

It isn’t my can now!

 

 

Who am I?

I have been gone for so long, gone from writing, from sitting with me and letting the words escape, releasing me from then.

From them.

From all that is gone.

I found writing therapeutic, yet, find myself shying from it so often.

I think it’s fear.

Been a good bit of that of late.

Not a right in my face kind, no, more of a sneaking up on me one. I find that I have been feeling it without knowing that I have.

Yeah, that’s one of my big issues, naming emotions, I mean, it was best as a child to hide from them.

So, this fear… it’s more of a quiet uncertainty I carry around. I am not even sure fear is what it is. I just know that I am unsure of myself, afraid that I am wrong in my thoughts or actions. Or that if I am not wrong I may still be perceived wrong.

I wonder at times if I am good at things I think I am.

Like at choir practice, I couldn’t bring myself to sing out, so sure that I must sound awful, off-key, a nuisance to those who can hear me. Yet, I have been told, by the choir director, that I sing well. I mean she wouldn’t have asked me to join if she didn’t think so, so why do I doubt her and myself?

I was asked to apply to a position as a bookkeeper recently, and even though I took the test to show my qualifications, I still was so afraid to say yes. What if I can’t do that I thought? Yet, I have been doing just that for the last 5 years for my previous employer, and doing it well.

Sigh…

So I am asking God, to please fill me with His confidence. To remind myself that He has faith in me, so should I. Faith in the gifts and abilities He has gifted me with, faith that He will enable me and walk with me.

  Faith that I am the me He wants me to be.

 

IN THE NOW

I haven’t written in such a long time… I ponder to think about this from time to time. Writing has played such a huge part in my healing. “Why, then do I shie away from it?” I recently asked Papa God. He has been awakening me to why, He is like that, always answering.The question is, am I listening, especially with a willing heart? I realize I haven’t been, the truth scared me.

I wanted to hide, not from the exact why, I didn’t really know that. No, I wanted to hide in general. It’s so much easier than processing. Thing is, that is only true in the short run. In the long one, hiding draws out the healing, freezes me in where I am.

Who was I kidding? Surely not my Abba, He knew right where I was.

Hiding hurts me, as I shut out the penetrating light of His touch. The, “Me first,” winning. Little, tired and fearful me forgetting who I am in Christ. Cowering rather than rising clad in my new self.

No more, I finally said to myself today, no more as I laid upon my bed feeling.

Feeling.

Oh, how I feel these days!

Ripples upon ripples to pass through me…

I lie still in the mornings as they wash over me, I relish them. Memories flood me of the here and now.

I am ok and…. it’s all alright.

So much of my abuse took place where I should have been safe. I am finding that these emotions are arising when I am in those places. Home to awaken peace, my bed welcome.

I realized something last night as I snuggled deep within the comfort of my bed. I have a stuffed lamb that is dear to me, it was gifted to me in the now, and it has helped the wounded little me so much to pull it close. Helped me in the dark of the night to remember that I am now and loved. The other day I found another stuffed animal, an old worn Owl. I smiled when I stumbled upon it, remembering how I bought it for myself the first Valentines Day I was alone after my husband abandoned me. I named him Who, so every time I pulled him close I would remember who I am to Christ, Who I am to others in the present, Who I am now. I placed Who on my Bed beside my Lamb. That night as I crawled into bed and I pulled them both close, I heard Abba say, “Your Past and Present are one, give them to Me, and we shall fuse them together into a glorious future.

This Lent, I offer to my Lord the sacrifice of my past, I offer my vulnerability I feel in writing to Him. I ask Him to use me, my writing, whatever and all I have to offer because of His grace and mercy gifted to me.

I arise now, and step from my hiding

place. Propelled forth of the wind of my

guardian angels wings, into the light and love of His waiting arms.

I now realize that I don’t need to leave His embrace to move forward, He doesn’t send me off on my own, no, He’s got me, tight… and won’t let go.

We journey together, sometimes I am carried, others we to walk hand in hand. No matter what, He is beside me, and I am never ever alone.

Even in my hiding, He sat with me.

Past and Present are together opening a new future.

Healing can only be as effective as the depth of my presence in the now.

 

I DON’T WANT TO

I didn’t want to go to Mass today, not at all. I woke full of flashback invaded dreams, remembered. I so wanted to curl in upon myself, drown in going away. Away from remembering, away from life. Stay in bed and pity my past me. To go where the victory of Christ is partaken of? Nope.

I wanted to be done, this journey seems never-ending at times. I will have my footing, then, wham, bam, I am down again. Down of heart and weary of mind. The final count to feel welcome. 1…2…3 she’s out!

Yep, that’s just how this morning was.

I was so lost in the feelings, the overwhelming emotions my child me suffered that my adult me wanted to throw in the towel.

I dreamt of the using and taking, the abuse rained down on me… thing is that wasn’t what was tearing at me when I woke. In my dream I was sitting alone, after, so forlorn. I was crying, not because of what was done to me, rather, because I couldn’t seem to dress myself. My clothes were inside out, a jumble at my feet and it felt as though I simply couldn’t do it. I cried that no one was there after, that I was so alone not only in the abuse but further abused as those that could and should have, didn’t as well.

Rather turned a blind eye, a deaf ear and an indifferent heart.

So, I had me a good cry to the Lord and begged Him to help me care in the now. He did, I still didn’t feel it, but He reminded me that I needed to go. I imagine my Guardian Angels wings whooshing as they propelled me forth. I certainly didn’t go in my own power.

Mass. The remembering and celebrating of the greatest sacrificial gift, ever.                                                              Mass. Where my Christ endured for me the very thing that I feel this day, betrayal.                                                                                               Mass. He to suffer again and again what was then for me in the now, flashbacks.                                                                                                                                                                                   Mass.

One of the hardest yet most helpful things for me as I heal has been to revisit the abuse and see my God there. Find how He was with me, yield the whole truth of then to Him that He be with me now as He was then.

This is what I was really wanting to hide from today, I wanted to give up and not do my part of the work in my healing. Imagine if my Lord had given up? Had called forth all of Heaven to save Him from the cross? He could have, yet He yielded, “Not my will, but thine be done.” He uttered to His Father.

So, there I was at Mass. A quivering, emotional mess, kneeling and crying, oh, so tired.

Then the homily was shared. Father to talk of how much we have to be thankful for. The beauty of life and creation ours to see, hear, experience.

It hit me then, all along I was heard, I was seen, someone was far from indifferent.

God my Father, Mary my Mother and Christ my Brother and Savior not only were then with me but are now.

I am home, now is safe, I have oh, so much to be grateful for.

For I am no longer then.

 

 

 

DROWNING

So much assailed me yesterday. So many emotions found me. I was upon the sea of them, floundering unto drowning, lost.

There was no life boat, nothing to cling to that I could see. How could I ground myself if beneath me was simply more tears, if the sadness was drowning me, if the anger stirred up the storm even more and I was all alone in the vastness of it?

I was drowning I was sure. For each time I opened my mouth to call for help it seemed naught but more of the emotions rained down to be swallowed til they were swallowing me.

I wanted to simply let go and sink. To stop fighting and just be done. I didn’t care of the depth was dark and lonely, to let go would end it I was sure. I could journey elsewhere and forget, even if elsewhere required drowning, so be it I thought.

Yet, I couldn’t. Not the real me deep down inside, the part of me that knew  my God was in this storm. To believe He is in control of all my life means the storms as well.

So…

I turned my face to the Heavens as the circumstances of this storms creating pelted me, the lightning flashes of the anger I felt seemed to be striking me as I was tasting the salt of the tears I was drowning in. I let them come. I accepted the anger as mine to sit with. I acknowledged that I had a right to be so, while asking the Lord to cleanse me of it.

Then I realized that the sadness was being fed of the anger. That they were the stirring of this storms wind and buffeting. I though I will drown from within so I must let it all out.

I cried, again and again as my body curled in upon itself and wept with me.

I was adrift and alone.

I was lost and weary.

I wanted to stay this way and wait for a hand to reach for me, for someone to come and see me and be with me, I wanted a person to know.

In my wanting of this I was really doubting God was enough. I was saying I know you  are in my storms, Lord but I need more that just you.

How human of me.

God wasn’t having any of it.

He pursued me, all the while, He does that.

Finally, from the depths of my despair I looked up.

Finally, I cried within, “Save me Abba.”

He scooped me up, pulled me close and sat with me. The storm raged still, but seemed less pelting for He overshadowed the brunt of it. In His embrace I found it was ok to cry. It was safe to feel the sadness and that the anger wasn’t worth the energy it pulled from me.

Now I am beyond this storm, and I am ok.

Alive and still me, weary but safe.

It isn’t the end of the world, the sadness is real but the rainbow is already spreading across the sky. Tomorrow is real and beckons, one that God already has in His hand.

So sadness and anger, all of the emotions of life are safe.

As long as I stay and walk hand in hand with my Master.

 

 

I am…

I do….

I will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RIPPLES

 

the edge of me touches the ripple of life

dips ever so gently into its flow

as I become a widening circle of life

I flow into what was lost

or missed

I am rippling out

as life cascades

into feeling

connected

to love

I watch in wonder

its pure form

touches of gentleness

brushes of lips upon foreheads

gentle as the breeze

safe hands upon shoulders

around waists

being pulled close

for closeness sake alone

to rest one’s head upon another’s shoulder

in comfort

in togetherness

or even just because

is a wonder to behold

gloriously beautiful

ripples have always flowed away from me

except

now they are being met by others

such a melody floods my soul

in this collision of love

ripples colliding

circling back to me

 

 

 

 

I AM…

I am the rainbow these days                                                                                                                   The color and beauty of my emotions vibrating                                                                                   They spill upwards for all are fading                                                                                             Flashbacks of feelings separate from the happenings                                                                         No more do the dragon monsters of then wrestle caged within me                                         They have been slayed                                                                                                                 Replacing the darkness with the brilliant light of present                                                                 I live in the light                                                                                                                                           Breathe its sharpness in to cut out the then                                                                                           I exist from inside out spewing forth life                                                                                             I’m among the living now                                                                                                                       No battle scars as they burst out of me                                                                                                   They do not matter for they are not who I am                                                                                       They are not my reflection                                                                                                                         No.                                                                                                                                                                 My me is a rainbow of truth now                                                                                                               My me is light and love and now                                          My me is gloriously free                                                         I am me                                                                                     I am alive                                                                                   I am color and light and love                                                                                              I am a rainbow flowing free