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                                                                                                                                                     

 

NEW YEARS EVE ALONE

 

 

2016 found us last evening.

I spent mine home, alone.

Away from partying and celebrating, no other person around.

No televised broadcasts of dropping this or that, no cheering or reveling.

I quietly saw it pass and loved doing so.

Reveled in the contentment I experienced in being by meself.

This is a bit of a miracle for me, a sure sign of healing.

Holidays always are a challenge, in one form or another. Some to be triggers to abuse gone by or remind me of how alone I was. Oft I would find jealousy knocking much as Scrooge did watching Tiny Tim’s family through the window.

New Years Eve saw me not even giving this a thought beyond to be thankful to my Lord that He has healed me so much that it is natural to live in thankfulness, to see the beauty of what is now as it literally obliverates then from my heart.

I enjoyed a quiet night home, doing things i find relaxing and bringing in the New Year just the right way for me.

New Years Eve alone, a precious, cherished memory.

 

New Years Eve alone, that I experience contentment with self, celebrate the joy of life in Christ and come to understand that I do belong, I am loved and I am someone too.

Happy New Years to me and to all of you.    

 

LITTLE DO THEY KNOW

“Mary, did you know?” is one of my favorite songs. Did she know what her baby boy was destined for? Did she know how her, “Yes, Lord,” would resound through the ages? Did she know?

I wonder that today about folks around me. I wonder, “Do they know how much they have touched my heart?” Do they know that some of the simplest acts they extend to me reach to the depth of my heart and soul?

I think they don’t.

How could they unless they understand the horror of my childhood?

To understand is to have lived it and I am thankful they haven’t.

Yet they know some, and in that knowing they show and give me so much. Often unknown to them.

So it was today.

A hug, a kiss upon my cheek and an, “I love you,” that, totally took me by surprise. Stopped me in my tracks as I looked in wonder at him.

Simple everyday acts to most, so amazing to me.

You see, my earthly father is dying soon. I have been confounded by this, confused in how I feel. Sad at times, for what should have been as a daughter, while empty at others because of what was that shouldn’t have been. Mostly I simply accept that he is passing as all humanity does and I pray that God grant him mercy.

Then today, someone who is a Father to my friend,  treated me with the dignity a father should a daughter.

I am proud of myself that I don’t feel all like I am his daughter, that was a struggle for me in the past. The overwhelming desire to claim someone for my Father and Mother.

No, this is different.

I simply cry at the way it felt to feel safe in a father figures arms, safe in the world, loved right, mattering as someone not something.

I feel as though I can’t say this right, I do know, I feel it right.

It is as though it is an it’s alright your daddy is leaving, others here and now, your family of God, we have you.

We will keep you

We will love you

And we will give it all with Christ like love

Safe

Secure

And as love is meant to be

http://fascinately.com/feel-good/2014/11/incredible-performance-of-mary-did-you-know-will-get-you-in-christmas-spirit/

DAUGHTER OF THE DAY

 

But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation.

1 Thessalonians 5:5-8 (MSG)

Daughter of the Day, I heard this phrase at church last week. It struck me then and has been with me since.

Daughter of the Day.

It made me feel secure at first. Safe. I was overwhelmed with gratitude to Abba, God that I am safe now from the darkness of the abuse. That I need not fear the descent of night anymore or the darkness of memories.

Daughter of the Day, His day, light and love mine, here and now.

As the week passed I felt it even more. An awakening is happening. I am as one emerging from a cocoon, from Darkness into Light, from Night into Day.

All of me is awakening to this truth, to being alive, Night always meant death to me, of body, feelings and my existence. Day would often bring a continuance of those horrors so I was trapped in night. Living in darkness of the truth of even my.

No more.

As a Daughter of the Day I feel me. I am finding how amazing life is and discovering myself.

It started with washing my hands. I to be enthralled with the feel them, the emerging of the bubbles while rubbing them together. The water so crisply cold or warm. I splashed it on my face and marveled at the wonder of being clean, feeling clean, wanting to be so and knowing I can.

Sounds ridiculous to many of you, and that’s ok, it is only for those who never have had that the understanding exists. I am thankful there aren’t more that havent.

Now?

my body is awakening. I am finding a deep love of music to the point that I dance with it, hang on the words and smile. Hunger finds me that I cannot ignore it and full follows with a realization that I can eat whenever I want so its ok to stop when my body says enough. The way emotions flow from head to toe, waking up to feeling my body. Knowing when I am tired and need rest. Not judging myself harshly or pushing to hard. Even understanding that my mind to has it’s limits.

I am a Daughter of the Day. His Day, My life His.

Tammy of God, awakening to all that living 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!

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

 

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.

BULLS EYE TO PIN CUSHION

 

Sometimes visual is scary, sometimes it is more than I like. Sometimes it alone brings the tears, sometimes I drown in them.

Bulls-eye kind of drown, as they hit the very nerve of the happening, pierce the shell of me and drive themselves deep. I look upon my self to see them thee, wound upon wound upon wound. Arrow after arrow having hit its mark. If I move, each will only embed itself deeper, pain to emanate out and out and out as the hurt burrows and settles with the bone. to grab hold in an attempt to take them out awakens my voice, silent screams of agony. To sit with these arrows is pain, yes, yet to remove them is more than I know how.

This is my past vision of me, a child who was a target, always. Arrows of many kinds to fly at me, always tipped in poison, that they cause the most damage as possible. Arrows that where let fly at me purposely, aiming always for me heart.

My heart, me.

Arrowed me.

I feel lost this day in this vision, all of the pain of those fiery darts of anger, words hurled in hate, hands in grabbing and eyes upon eyes upon eyes piercing.

I find myself this day remembering darts of then, of my abuse. Arrows of now the bearers of these.

I think this is how my Jesus must have felt upon the Calvary Tree. How He too was a target, hands to literally drive the first ones home in the nails they heartlessly used to secure Him there. The laughter and jeers, the spitting and cruelest of all arrows. directed at Him. Hands upon His form, letters the feathers finely crafted that the words fly true, He hanging there, bloodied, beaten, wounded beyond endurance, His physical form used up.

Yes, He knows just how I feel, I feel how He felt.

Thus I cry more, here and now as well as then and past.

So many darts found their way into my Jesus too. I must focus on this, that He has been here as well, that He hung upon that cross, stayed the course of Calvary that I know He understands. He bore the darts so I can let them fall from me. He carried this pain I feel oh so piercingly when they the spear entered His side. He, He, He.

Who am I to look upon my suffering and self and allow it to lose me? His so much greater, yet… He stayed Himself, for me, with all of Heaven at His call. He endured unto death unto life.

I have endured, now it is time I die to that, time I embrace the life of now.

Come down off my cross, lay it at the foot of His.

Arrows still shall fly all around me, but my Lord is more, His sacrifice has freed me that I can move. My hands no longer bound that I can use them to defend self and my hearts words set free to command them to drop before they ever find their mark.

I look to my Savior just now, tears falling from a fresh wound, an arrow having somehow found its way deep just yesterday. I feel that I cannot move, But my Jesus is showing me otherwise…

“He is upon my cross, behind me. His arms spread wide too. I look down where my heart should be, so sure that I shall find naught but an empty hole to see a radiance glow. His Imacculate Heart sending arrows of love instead, they piercing  lights of love instead. A balm of Gilead. I do not need to see behind me to know the expression upon His countenance, I feel the understanding His eyes carry as He brings His arms forward, mine freed now as well, wraps them with mine across my chest and holds me tight. We are no longer upon my cross, He stands with me and promises we can stay this way awhile. I can rest in this embrace as I bring home to Him all of the parts that need seeing.

His arms are strong and sure, safe and secure, they open, hold and love every lost and lonely, bruised, beaten, used up and forgotten me.

Nothing that has been is more than Him, no abuse greater than this my Great Physician knows how to heal.  

I see these arrows now for what they are.

Pinpoints of memories that Satan desires I feel as the arrows of then. They are not. I will not be Satan’s target anymore, I am not the helpless child I was then no matter haw many arrows he sends to convince me otherwise.

In Christ, I am more.

Yes, I will fail, yes some may find their target, but that doesn’t make me them or them me.

No.

I can pull them from me, nothing but a bothersome prick of a needle, and look up with the biggest smile as I drop them,

“Take that Satan! You tried, you even hit the target…

But…

my Jesus deflected it, so really…

you missed!”   

STILL

 

 

SILENT THOUGH MY INFANT CRY,                                                                                 STILL YOU HEARD MY WAILING

FEARFUL TODDLER UNMOVING,
STILL YOU WAITED FOR ME

LONELY IN UNWANTEDNESS
STILL YOU SOUGHT ME OUT

CLOTHESLESS AND FILTHY
STILL YOU LOOKED UPON ME

SHIVERING AND SAD,
STILL YOU SMILED AT ME

CONFUSED UNTO LOST,
STILL YOU TOOK MY HAND

DROWNING IN SORROW,
STILL YOU WIPED MY TEARS

 

TERRIFIED, DOUBTING                                                 ,

STILL YOU HELD ME STILL YOU LOVED ME
STILL YOU KEPT ME
STILL YOU DO                                                                                                                                                                                                       FOREVER YOU WILL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LET

How this simple little word can so confound me at times.

My Momma wouldn’t let me love her, she would say, “Don’t you dare to think I care or that you are allowed. who do you think you are that anyone would want you or your love?”

My Papa wouldn’t let me alone, my older brother wouldn’t let it be.

While others, let it happen.

Let, let, letting.

I said something to someone yesterday that sat with me through out the day and night, “Thank you for letting me love you.” It doesn’t seem right in some way to say it that way, even as it makes perfect sense to my heart.

Love isn’t about letting or not letting, it is about being and not being. Being there right, not being there wrong. It is the actions visited upon us.. or not..

It is the nature of God lived out to all, of kindness and gentleness, words pondered and spoken gently even in correction.

I am twisted yet with this one, I feel it. Knotted inside with gratitude and confusion all one

My small abused me to wonder why she would let me love her while the healing part of me dares to grasp at her response, “It’s easy.”

Me, Tammy, easy to love..

Loved not of Father, Mother, Brother or Husband. My love given, so fully, rebuked.

Now, here, this women of God, along with so many others past and present on my healing journey, love me.

Let me

Be a part of their lives,

Welcome my presence,

Help me, see me, hear me.

I have nothing to let happen

I needs must let, letting, go

For in the end, it is God Who allows all things to be

even for me

so i let go…      and…      let Him