BOO

Sorry for the long pause. I don't feel like I have much to say. Shocking, I know. Everything seems relatively calm. A blessing and a curse. I am finally, ten weeks after starting, on week four of my support group study. ''The Fear Of Joy.'' Fitting, eh? I haven't started it yet. Not smart since I have stuff to do tonight and tomorrow night as well as all day Saturday. Oops. I will get to it, I'm sure.

I am typing this on my phone as I wait for an old friend. We are going
to the haunted house at my old church tonight. She still goes to church there, but that is beside the point. It is one of those that takes you through real life scenarios and shows you the consequences for your choices. I am not sure that scare tactics are the best way to get people to Jesus, but whatever works, I guess. I have gone through it more times than I can count so I am not positive
where this desire to go came from, but, here I am.

Seriously, I feel absolutely void of anything worth telling you about. I don't know what is going on. Perhaps I shall spend some time analyzing it to death. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Just Say No To Sunday

I've decided Sundays should be outlawed. I hate them. I don't mind the typical Sunday activities, it isn't that. I hate the way I feel come Sunday night. For no apparent reason I just feel like crap. I feel sad, I feel disappointed, I feel like I am nothing. No idea why. It seems to be a recurrent theme with the only common denominator being that it strikes on Sundays. I don't know why so I don't know what to do about it. Maybe I'll just go to bed.

On God and Relationships...and stuff

What's up people?

Sorry, I couldn't think of a better intro after four days of absence. So, I'm in a good place. Which is wonderful and terrible at the same time. Great because good places are typically a foreign concept to me. Terrible because they are also terrifying as I tend to wait patiently for the bottom to drop out and then be even more miserable after having been a true live part of said good place. Did you get all that?

Here is a struggle I am having currently. It's about people. It's always about people, isn't it. No, I'm kidding, it usually isn't, but now it is. I sound like I am on crack or something. I'm not. ;) I'm typing this at work, so perhaps I am feeling like I can't really zone in, I don't know. Anyway, back to people. I have issues with dependence on people vs. Dependence on God. Maybe not vs. but in correlation too. If you are supposed to be completely dependent on God, than why do you depend on other people? How do you? For me, were I to allow it, I would far more easily depend on another person as they are tangible while God is not. However, being that I am a tad of an extremist, I have a very hard time not becoming too dependent on people. So, where is the balance. I know that we are supposed to have intimate friendships, Jesus did. I know that we are supposed to have a network of close people, Jesus did. And even a larger support system, ie: the church, Jesus had that, too. I still don't know how to find the balance in that, though.

Ok, this isn't profound or anything, just something that is bouncing around my brain. Have a great weekend!

Waging War

Here I am.

I'm better, really I am. It was a LONG week. It will continue to be long, I believe. Yet, I am better, for now. I mentioned I am a roller coaster, right?

Despite not completely healthy behavior, I did continue to fight, internally, at least. It sucked, I felt like I was drowning beneath the weight of my fear, struggle and pain. But, I didn't drown.

I struggled with who God is. I struggled with who I am. I struggled with who other people should be in relation to me and my struggle with God. I struggled a lot, but that is the point. I struggled. I continue to struggle. And, that is life. A struggle that is painful and hard and sometimes seemingly overwhelming, yet, we have to keep struggling.

Shayne and Robin, you were right. It gets too painful and I pull the plug. I run, I hide, I do whatever it takes to make it stop because in my distorted brain, I just know that the pain will destroy me. But it didn't. And I didn't give up. I didn't run, though I tried. Am still trying, but I am also trying, equally if not more so, to not run. So, the battle continues. The terrified me wars with the determined me. The exhausted me fights with the complacent me. The lazy me fights with the strong willed me. God wars with satan FOR me. For me?? That blows my mind.

I am reading a book called Captivating. Last night I read that God is passionately in love with me. God's enemy passionately hates me. That is not new to me, and yet, if I allow myself to believe it, it is more than profound. If I allow myself to rest in it, it is life altering.

Yesterday, in church, a man spoke about what we call ourselves. Stupid, worthless, flawed, dirty, unforgivable, unlovable, unchangeable, hopeless.....those are a few of mine. And then he said, Jesus calls you none of those. He only calls me His Beloved. Of course my brain automatically retorted with 'impossible.' He can't love me. He couldn't cherish someone so hideous. He couldn't forgive something so horrid. And simultaneously, my heart said this:
The Lord your God is with you.
He is mighty to SAVE.
He will take great delight in YOU.
He will Quiet you with His LOVE.
He will rejoice over YOU with singing.

I didn't even notice anything more than the war then. Today, however, I reflect on the two armies. God and His enemy in a full fledged war for ME. Again, I am astounded.

I called a friend from church last night, still in the throes of this battle. I don't think she told me anything different from what I have been told by her before. But, somehow I haven't even grasped yet, she validated me. She told me that she knows I am trying. She told me that I have every reason in the world to be angry. She told me that it is ok that I am a huge mess. I am digging up things that have been buried my whole life, of course I am a mess. Like I said, nothing new, and yet, overwhelmingly validating. I don't know what made that conversation different. Perhaps my heart was open to hearing from God instead of making people agree with me about how horrible I am.

She also made me say, out loud, the truth that I believe about myself. (see list above for details.) Then, she made me say, again out loud, that must be stressed, God's truth about me. And though it took me much longer to say the second list, and perhaps it wasn't as lengthy, but it made a difference to speak it. And I will tell you, though I know this isn't permanent, I didn't have to war on this issue today. I would think about it and the negative truths I would cling to didn't even come to mind. I know them, but they didn't bombard. They didn't invade. I am aware that they will be back, but I can not express to you the refreshing feeling it was to spend a day not at war inside my own head.

That is all I have for the moment. By the way, as anyone would assume, Beth Moore was awesome.

No Fight Left

I am in that place I go sometimes. Part of me wants to fight to get out, part of me just doesn't care. The one good thing about being here is that it makes my diet very easy for me. Of course other people wouldn't like it, but so what. I am going to see a live taping of Beth Moore tonight and tomorrow, maybe that will help snap me out of it. Maybe not. I so just want to quit. I don't go two steps forward, three steps back. I go half an inch forward and thirty seven miles back. Hard to make any progress that way. I feel as though I have fallen apart. Like nothing can ever make me whole. Like this whole thing is a waste of my time. If God wanted me near, He'd let me get there, right? Sometimes, though I know it is a lie, I believe that God sits and watches me draw a little closer, then a little more. And the instant I think I am actually making progress in that direction, He slaps the shit out of me. When I regain composure I realize I am further away than when I started. What is the point.

So, How Was Your Day

I know you wouldn't have guessed it, but today was a bad, bad, bad day. I found out about my brother around ten. Got in my truck and cried. Wiped my eyes and got out to deliver invoices. Then did that same routine two more times. Got to therapy at twelve. Using every ounce of strength that I possess I do my best to speak without completely falling apart. Thirty minutes into it, seemingly out of the blue, my therapist says "Sometimes I feel like you hate me." What?? Where the hell did that come from. So I think about that and I guess I could typically see that. I do put on a rather tough front so as not to be vulnerable to attack. But could she not see my face, could she not see my blood shot eyes? Could she not hear the shakiness in my voice? It took me five minutes to respond to her because I knew I would be in tears every time I opened my mouth so I just kept waiting until I felt I could control it. She asked me if I thought therapy was helping me, did I want to keep coming. Which said to me, 'you are wasting my time and I don't think you are worth the effort.' We also talked a little about God and we see things quite differently, most Christians see things different than me. She said I should talk to my pastor about it.

I wasn't gone from her office more than thirty seconds before I was crying again. I pulled over and called my preacher. He didn't have time to talk. Going out of town tomorrow for five days had to get things in order, could you call back next week....uhhh, ok. I am getting the distinct feeling that my preacher doesn't really want to talk to me very much.

So, I followed the earlier routine the entire rest of the day. Cry my eyes out, wipe them, get out and do what I need to do and hope no one notices....repeat. I listened to the exact same song from the time I left the office this morning until I pulled into my driveway at 5:45. Every Now and Then by FFh. I was afraid that if I let any other song come on that something, anything would be said and I would completely lose control. No idea what that could have been, but I was doing my best to be safe. I prayed all day, mostly saying I don't understand, and you have to help me, I can't do this.

Beyond the struggle I have with God on this issue, there is the issue of the child. A child that I will never allow myself to know. But what happens, twenty years from now, when that child comes to me and says, "where the hell were you, why didn't you help me?"

My prominent thought today was how could God just deliver this child directly into the hands of this sick man. And then, my thoughts zeroed in on those hands. I saw those hands, I saw the destruction. I thought of the first time he will touch that child. And minute by minute, touch by touch, he will strip that child of everything. Of innocence, of security, of worth, of fearlessness, of hope, of love, of dreams, of the belief in a loving God, of the belief in good, of belief in themselves. All he will leave is an empty shell, left to be filled with all that is painful, broken, sad, empty, worthless, dirty and flawed. I am that child. And I want to hate God for knowingly, willingly, sending yet another child to the inevitable fate of that man's hands.

What The ................

Remember a couple months ago when I said that if my brother were ever allowed to have a child that I wasn't real sure God and I could ever be ok? Yeah, she's pregnant. I don't think it is very nice of God to test my faith before I have any. What kind of God gives a child to a pedophile. I don't get that.

God Stuff

I realize that I sometimes seem a lot like a roller coaster ride. I would typically apologize for that, however, I am starting to believe it is just part of the process. I spent some time trying to talk to God last night. Telling Him that I can't do it. I can't make myself believe and I can't make myself trust. I told Him if He wanted me, He was going to have to do it. I don't know how, but whatever you want me to do, I'll do it, but it Has to be you. I told Him I needed Him to show me who He is. Show me that His character is what He claims it is, show me that He loves me. As I lay in bed last night, I was trying to do the whole "Be still and know that I am God" thing. It's complicated because my head tends to spin incessantly, clearing it is a very hard thing for me to do. But, as I lay there, a verse I heard about ten or twelve years ago came to mind. I couldn't remember where it was or how it went. I could only remember the words "sing over you." So, I lay there trying to think of where it was, what all it said, and finally said to myself, "Well, are you going to get up and find it or not?" So, I did. I couldn't find it in either Bibles upstairs, so finally I came down to look it up online. Here is the verse:

Zephaniah 3:17

The LORD your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.

I emailed it to myself so I would have it on my phone. I am memorizing it so that I can say it, over and over and over, until one day I believe it. My friend was online when I got here and we had a good talk about this stuff, about faith, about what that really is. I struggle with my concept of faith right now. I do so because right now I have none. I can only keep telling myself that I believe, even if I don't. I wonder if that is what faith is. Forcing yourself to believe, telling yourself over and over that what you believe is wrong, that the truth you know is what is real even when you don't believe it. It seems manufactured to me. That didn't seem like faith, instead, almost like brain washing, but it is all I have right now. So, I guess in my limited way, my faith for now is hoping that God will take my manufactured faith and make it real. Whatever it takes.

I also heard a good acronym for fear yesterday. False Evidence Appearing Real. I like that.

Now, I brought up the roller coaster thing earlier because I don't want anyone to be disappointed if a day, or week or month from now, all the beliefs, that are really false but that I actually believe, come roaring back with a vengeance. I feel them, floating around on the edge of consciousness, biding their time, waiting to strike. My hope is that when that happens, because we all know it will, that somehow that verse will allow me to press stop on the lies and play on the Truth.

One last thing, we talked yesterday in my group about why I think I'm 'bad' and what I am actually feeling when I recognize the bad feeling. My new video playing up there is brand new to me. I was looking for a song to fit the mood of my blog, and stumbled upon this one. I thought it was fitting, but I listened to it several times before actually hearing the words in the second verse. It says ' I will always take you back, you haven't let Me down.' I can't help but feel like I have let Him down. Like I am nothing more than a huge disappointment. When I was younger and did something wrong my mother liked to say "How could you do that to God." And I never knew how I could. How I could be such a failure, such a let down. Well, last night during my talk, I was trying to figure out when it was that I decided I was unforgivable. Why I think I am so much worse than the likes of David, Paul, whomever. Here is what I came up with, I don't feel 'bad' instead, I am bad. By that I mean, I believe, however false it may be, that bad is my state of being, not just an emotion. Shame in other words. Since I believe, at the core of me, that I am flawed, dirty, bad, then I believe me to be unforgivable. Because, how can you forgive someone for being who they are. I can't change who I am, so I am forever unforgivable. I know that isn't truth, I believe it, but I know it is false. But, hopefully at least the revelation will be a starting point.

Decisions Made ....and Not

I have made the decision to not go to the wedding. I think dealing with the guilt will be better than what I would have to deal with if I went.

I went to the new group this morning at church. I guess one thing I didn't figure upon was that in an extremely small group I will only have to talk more. Oops. On the other hand, I know that is necessary, so I am just going to have to bow up and do it. The only problem, other than having to speak, was that another woman, probably due to codependency, wants me to feel better. Not a bad desire except that my dysfunction makes me feel just as hers does her, so I feel like I need to act like I feel better so that she feels better. What a beating, eh.

I had not yet told the facilitators of my other group, so I was dreading that. I saw one of them after group, before church, and just put my head down. She wanted to know what was wrong, so I told her. She was really nice and understanding. She did question my motives a little, not in an accusatory way, just in trying to keep me accountable. Well, we started talking and didn't stop until the church service was over. It was a good talk. More importantly, it was a real talk. Only drawback there, my friend Sandy came to visit my church this morning, so she had to sit through the entire service alone, wondering where I was....Sorry Sandy! Luckily she didn't mind and we had a good time at lunch afterward.

I found a new verse I like: Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

I don't really have a solution for the God thing yet. Well, let me rephrase. I have a solution, I just am not totally sure that I can do it. Let me rephrase again, I am not totally sure I will do it. I have to surrender. I have to trust Him. I have to walk straight through my fear and trust that the God I believe despises me actually loves me and has my best interest at heart. I have to believe that the character of God is what He says it is despite what everything in my world tells me is the opposite. I have to accept His grace and cling to His faithfulness. I don't know that I will do it, honestly. I believe a part of me wants to. I really do. And, if I am proved right than that is that. But, since I do know the truth, I know, whether I believe it or not, that I will not be proved right. I have to want it more than I fear it. Do I, though, really?

My Precious Angel,

I am so sorry, still. As the tenth anniversary nears, I find myself consumed with thoughts of you. Not a day goes by that you don't come to mind, but recently you seem to be overwhelming all other thoughts, until you are all that is there. Just me and the child that I killed. I am so sorry. You would be nine years old now. Blayne's age. Strange that the cousin closest to you in age is the one who looks so very much like he could be mine. My heart aches when I think of what you might have looked like. Would you have my laugh, my smile, my bad attitude. Would you sing, so sweetly that my heart melts at the sound of your voice. Would you be a story teller, a drama queen, an intellectual. Would you love me the way that I love you. Do you love me now, despite what I did to you. I'm so sorry. I can't count how many times I've gone back to that day. The scenarios I have thought up on how I could have changed that day. What I could have done to save you. I could have just walked out of the clinic. I could have told your father to go screw himself. I could have told him that my keeping his life from being ruined, was in turn ruining both yours and mine. I could have saved you. I could have let you live. I am so sorry that I didn't. I so wish that I could go back, I wish that I could change it. I wish that you were here sitting next to me, fighting about bedtime instead of in Heaven wondering why your mother killed you. You would have started fourth grade this year. I think you would have loved school, I guess most kids do at this age. I know I did. There are so many things I wonder about you. None of it makes a difference, but I wonder it none-the-less. I know I failed you, I know. I wish there were a way for me to make it right. I hope that you forgive me. I don't, but I hope you do. I so wanted you. You were wanted. You are loved. It was my fault, I won't make excuses, I chose. I just didn't know how to choose another way. I could have, I know, I just didn't know how. I hate that you were tossed into a plastic bag labeled 'biohazard' and thrown out like yesterdays garbage. You were not trash to me. You are still, ten years later, the center of my heart. I have thought of names for you but didn't ever feel like I could give you one. I guess it made you too real. Most people would say I have no right to grieve the loss of you. I would probably even say that. Yet, I can't stop grieving. I can't stop missing you. I can't stop hating myself for taking your life. I can't forgive myself for murdering my sweet baby. I doubt I ever will. I guess I just wanted to say how sorry I am, so very sorry. Tell your sister, or brother, how very much I love and miss her, too. My hope is that despite all the evil that defines me, all the worthlessness, despite how very much I failed, that God will take pity and let me see you both and hold you in my arms one day. You are forever in my heart.

Mommy

Too Much

Do you ever reach a point where you are almost sure that your stress level is surpassing your capacity to handle it. I am reaching that point, rapidly. Here is what we've got on the table for the present.

Ten year anniversary of what was probably the worst day in my life approaching on Wednesday. I am not completely sure I will make it through that day. I am sure I will, actually, but it will be an exhausting day of hiding from myself so as not to fully self destruct.

My evil brothers wedding is on the fourteenth. I expect that I just won't go. But in not going I have to deal with the guilt that I am most certainly disappointing my mother. Which brings me to number three.

My mother is not doing well. She is in a wheel chair now because she is too fatigued to move around on her own. She is too weak to even lift herself out of it to stand. My sister had to help her in the bathroom the other day. We were at McDonald's in between soccer games and she was sitting in her chair crying because she had to go to the restroom but knew she couldn't do it by herself, but she didn't want to have to ask. It wasn't pretty.

I am considering switching support groups at church. It is the same study, but they are starting a new group this Sunday that is female only and will only have about five members. I do believe that would be a better environment for me, but in order to do that I would have to tell my current facilitators, which I am sure you know I am not comfortable doing.

Then there is the gnawing question hiding in the back of my heart and mind constantly taunting me with the threat of eternal hell.

Too much stress, not enough coping skills. HELP ME.....ok, I know you all can't but I felt like screaming it just the same.

Alliance Air Show 2006

Not bad for a camera phone. The sky did provide me with a pretty good backdrop, I can't take all the credit.