Wake up to the Reality

Things are difficult. I cry at times when I don't expect tears to come. Making potato soup yesterday, I was overwhelmed with worry about what Travis was eating, and in the next moment felt pathetic and small to care so much for someone who cared so little for me. He threatened divorce the other day with an ultimatum that I apologize for something that was irrational. He is free to make whatever choices he feels are necessary. But it hurts, and driving in the rain to get my kids from a birthday party I just let it all out. Between the tears and the rain, I am not sure how I made it to my destination.
It is a lonely road that I am on. People encourage you and love you and tell you you're brave, and what a great job that you're doing, but in the end you are the one that must wake up every morning to the reality of your situation. In general, the kids and I are very happy. There is a peace that has settled - this feeling that we're going to be alright and I am so thankful for that. But in the meantime there is still a lot of hurt, a lot of unresolved issues, and memories of terrible things that happened that I had long since buried deep inside myself that keep coming up like vomit. I have to deal with them, but to tell you the truth I really don't know how. These are ugly, awful things - and even though I was the victim and not the perpetrator, I feel hideous inside for the remembering. I can't really explain this fully - but yesterday morning when Porky (the pastor of our old church The Chapel) said "The One who knows you best, loves you the most" just overwhelmed me with emotion.
I am still trying to reconcile all of it. Abuse makes you feel filthy, dirty, worthless, small, powerless.... The touching - all the touching, and the anger, the things flying around in your head, and the names you're dodging, trying to hold your breath until you're allowed up for air, and hope it isn't too late. You try to rationalize that you aren't the things you are called but you were taught so long ago not to trust yourself because you are nothing. You become convinced that even God regrets having created you.
I am having a particularly hard day. There seems to be nobody in particular to share it with. For the most part, though I have some amazing friends, I feel like I have to keep a lid on all this intensity for their sake. I need them, and I don't want to scare them away. If I start to really allow myself to cry this out, I fear I may never stop. This song that I heard the other day keeps running through my brain...

....please don't fight these hands that are holding you.....
What isn't making things any easier right now is that I injured my back. I am hoping it is muscular strain from all the moving and unpacking, but I am literally waking up every couple of hours and finding that it hurts so badly I can barely roll over. Once I do get rolled over, I can't get comfortable, and then I'm awake very early. Just what I needed.

Ugh

This breaks my heart.

The Day Everybody Cried

Yesterday was one of those kind of emotional days. All three of my kids at one point were crying. The tears weren't the simple "I fell down and boo booed my knee" kinds of things, they were life-traumas - things that touched the heart.
Kendra was overwhelmed at a situation where she tried to do the right thing and apologize for something she did that was wrong - but was not forgiven. She cares about somebody who has been pulled between two worlds, and is believing a lie. She has had to remove herself from that person for a time, even though it is painful. To top everything off, her friend who was coming to visit her in December now can't come until January - which just made her feel more homesick and alone.
After years of not having her hair cut - and growing it very long Kaitlyn told me about a week ago that she wanted bangs. We have discussed little else over the last week. She has asked me 3,593,264,698 times if she should do it. My friend Tina predicted she would not like it - at least for the first few days, and she was right. Kaitlyn went right to the bathroom and started to cry. When I saw her come out with her hair wadded up in a rubber band, and red, puffy eyes, I knew something was amiss. She loves the bangs, but says the lady took a little too much off of her length - and she "worked so hard" to grow it. (I know what she meant - but we can't actually work to grow our hair now can we?)
On the way home from running errands yesterday, Kullen was very disturbed to find a dog that looked just like our black lab, Jett on the side of the road. He knew it wasn't Jett, but when he started to think about it - the waterworks came on.
Oh brother - it was one of those days. Everybody needed a little extra love.

How Blue

Today was a day when I was really struggling with homesickness. It isn't anything I can explain, but I imagine it must be a lot like grief in that it is triggered by something usually unexplainable, and comes in waves, the ferocity of which you can't anticipate. I have been here for over a year now, and still feel that I do not have one really connected friendship. I am the kind of person who would die if banished to a deserted island. Remember John on the island of Patmos - my visions would have been even freakier!
This evening we were listening to the local Christian radio station and the DJ read these verses out of Matthew from the Message translation:

You are blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule. You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment when you find yourselves the proud owner of everything that can't be bought.

These words were so healing - because for a short while today - I was at the end of my rope. These precious words helped me to focus on my Father. Losing the community of friends in WV was a traumatic loss. Some days I manage with the grief, the feeling of space that is always with me. Other days like today - you hear there is a Teddy Bear birthday party that you are missing - and you know the friend that is having it didn't tell you because they didn't want you to hurt, and yet you hurt anyway because there is no win in this situation - you know you are watching their lives from a distance now. When they call or email or send you a letter that says they miss you, you know that something in their day made you cross their mind - but what they don't understand is the hole, their absence in your life is palpable in almost every moment of every day.
We ate dinner out tonight at CiCi's Pizza and I was snippy with Travis through the whole thing and when we were leaving I started to cry. He was pretty patient with me. It was later that I heard those words from Matthew - and it was like a hand reaching down to lift me out of a hole. I am so thankful to have such a loving and compassionate Father that He would cause them to read just the words I needed to hear - I am blessed, even in grief I am blessed.

One Down, Four to Go, Where the Sixth One is We'll Never Know

The kittens are SIX WEEKS old today! This morning a FedEx truck stopped out in front of our house, and the lady asked what we were doing with our kittens. Evidently she had stopped once before and asked Kullen about them (big mistake) and he said we were keeping them all. Anyway, she had her eye on my calico - but I had to sadly inform her that she was the one that we were not getting rid of, but she took a liking to this little white one. We realized when she left that we had never named her - and so we decided we would call here Edelweiss - Edie for short! (that really means that I decided!) It is sad to watch them go - but we really can't keep six cats! I know she will be loved - the lady has a 10 year old son and a 7 year old daughter. Edie is sure to get lots of TLC.

The Fellowship of Suffering

After my post yesterday about being an open person, and how freely I share, I have been sitting on a tremendous hurt since yesterday afternoon. I opened my email to an emotional bomb - with devastating consequences. In fact, it hurt so much that I could not even muster up words. My sweet husband knelt with me at the foot of our bed and prayed while I cried. I am grieving a loss - for about the millionth time, which you would think would make it easier, and yet for some reason, it seems to make it worse. However, the Lord and I have walked a long road of fellowship in this. He continues to remind me that He knows what rejection feels like and while it hurts deeper - I am more able to handle it than ever before. I know that there is a spiritual principle here somewhere that I cannot identify, other than maturity.
My thoughts are slightly clouded by grief - someone that I love - in fact one of my parents - has chosen to sever a relationship with me. There is nothing I can say or do - as I know from past history. I am thankful that while it continues to repeat itself, God shows no limit of pouring love and forgiveness through my heart to strengthen me for the roller coaster ride that this relationship mandates. I am innocent of blame. Their perceived injury is that of Satan's design, and he continually blinds their eyes and encapsulates their heart.
This morning I was so comforted by this verse - John 1:11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Jesus was familiar with the sting of rejection from those we would have expected to love Him the most. I know Christ better by sharing in the "fellowship of His sufferings". If walking this road is necessary to experience the power of His resurrection, fill my heart with courage Lord.
God spoke comfort to my heart this morning with this verse as well - (in italics)
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
I know the answer to this question is YES.
Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
I know the Lord will not forget me. I know that He loves me. I know that all the things that have transpired in a lifetime Satan meant for evil, but my Lord intends to use them for His good.

And as I write this, I can hear my children down the hall singing from Matthew West's song, Only Grace, these words, "there's only grace, there's only love, there's only mercy and believe me, it's enough, your sins are gone without a trace, there's nothing left now, there's only grace". The Lord has freed first me, and then my children. I am so blessed. I am so very very blessed.

Bridge to Terabithia - Movie Review

I took the kids to see the new Bridge to Terabithia movie yesterday afternoon. I am glad that we had a chance to read the book before the movie came out. It always gives me a sense of accomplishment, and is nice for the kids to use discerning eyes and notice differences and similarities.
The story is sweet and sad. It is a story about unlikely friendship, and sincerely loyalty. Two children, a boy and girl that need each other become friends and conquer the world - both enemies in the real world, and foes in the imaginary world of Terabithia that they create for themselves - an escape from their not so rosy reality.
I love the imaginations of the main characters, and the example of how a vivid imagination can be contagious. I like that a boy and girl can be friends, innocently.
One thing that was a little more exaggerated in the movie than in the book is when the female character, Leslie Burke goes to church with her friend, Jesse Aaron's family. On the way home they are talking about Jesus and God. She doesn't believe that God would "damn a soul to hell", yet she goes on to say that the story is beautiful. She tells Jesse that he has to believe it (evidently because it is his "religion") and hates it - but she doesn't have to believe it and thinks it is beautiful. It is one of those conversations that might make you uneasy if it weren't for the fact that it is incomplete.
The story is sad, and we can all relate to the sense of regret, and the sentiments of "if only" that resonate in the sadness. I don't mind a sad story sometimes. There is an understanding that into each life a little rain must fall (although some people seem to get a torrential downpour and others seem to get drizzle), that connects us all as part of the human experience.