TODAY WAS A ME DAY
ONE THAT WAS ABOUT ME
FULL OF RESTING
LAZINESS
AND RELAXING
QUIET TIME WITH ABBA
PEACEFUL COLORING
THOUGHTFUL PUZZLE MAKING
NAP TIME
SNUGGLE WARM IN BED KIND
EATING WHEN HUNGRY
STOPPING WHEN FULL
TALKING WITH FRIENDS
WATCHING POINTLESS TV
DOING WHAT I WANTED
NOT DOING WHAT I DIDN’T
I THINK I CHILLED OUT
EMOTIONS WERE OK
MEMORIES SMILING KIND
LIGHTS ON
NO DARKNESS
A LIFE AS LIFE IS DAY
GOOD
NEEDED
HAD
A ME DAY
FOR ME
I don’t often reshare, but this has so much truth that I am. Praying it blesses you as much as it did me.
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.
i curl upon my bed, my me here
Feeling so much I never have before
I find that I feel safe lying down
Warm and secure beneath the covers
Not in a cowering or hiding way
as of old
beds are safe, I am finding
memories too
as I lie here
no more wrong wanting chasing me in my dreams
no more confusion within my heart
i am liking this new
loves unwrapping bit by bit
real love as love really is
fleeting touches that linger for days
butterfly kisses kind of ones
eyes full of seeing
me
smiles that curve more than the mouth
reaching my heart
I lie here
sleeping not
body resting, yes
within so alive
cascading truth washing over me again and again unto again
doors are open waiting for me
lights left on
inside is belonging, warmth and love
i am kept out in the open
free to come and go
playing allowed
sharing encouraged
truth what matters
heard and seen
found
all of this passes through me
again and again
my form learning from it
to rest
finding what truth is
even for me
my heart 
long last
at rest
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
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.”
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 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.
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.
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 ❤
“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!
elsewherebygrace 