Tis the season to stress over every little thing! Isn’t that how it often feels?

We stress over buying just the right gift everyone; having the perfectly decorated house and tree; making the best Christmas cookies; and hosting the best parties.

Yet we often push aside the real reason for this celebration called Christmas — Jesus Christ.

Often the most we do to remember Him is to put the baby Jesus in our Nativity scenes and add Him to the Christmas play at church. But many times we forget to place Him in the most important place — our hearts. ❤

Take time this month to reflect on the real reason we should be celebrating Christmas, the real reason Jesus was born on this earth. The real gift cannot be wrapped and placed under a tree — the real gift can only reside in our hearts giving us peace and rest.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.    ~Isaiah 9:6

 

Let us slow down this season and accept His rest, His peace.

Blessings!

I’m always amazed when I look back over my life — taking a glance in the rear view mirror of my life’s journey — to see where I’ve been and just how far I’ve come!

I’ve traveled a long, long distance in this life. And this past year has held a lot, more than many years combined. Some of it heart-rejoicing, most heart-wrenching.

A year ago we moved into a house on 3 acres in the country and we love it! It’s crazy to think how last year my words were typed while looking at a different view out of a window in a house I no longer reside in. Today my view is different. And while I’m blessed with the breath taking view which greets me each morning out a new window in a new home, somewhere deep in my heart — and some days, not so deep — is a yearning for that other view.

It’s not that I’m not happy where we live now, it’s that a part of me misses something from that other house. Times change and mostly for the good, and I suppose I’m still processing the change. Moving changed my routine, changed the way I was use to doing things whether it was my daily walks down familiar sidewalks or neighbors I was used to waving hello to or rooms painted in colors carefully chosen by me. Moving pushed us into a new season of life, leaving behind another time in which my husband and I had begun our life together, leaving the past behind.

Things change, it’s a part of life, but change has never been easy for me. I often yearn for days gone-by-too-quickly, days which hold special memories causing my heart to light up. I have found myself yearning for some of what-was because change can sometimes be painful as we have to let go and move on .

 

“…maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds… 

“Maybe…it’s accepting there are things we simply don’t understand. But He does.”

~excerpt from One Thousand Gifts

We cannot change our stories. We cannot change the past. We do not get do-overs — we simply get here and now, and perhaps it’s best that way.

“There’s a reason I am not writing the story and God is. He knows how it all works out, where it all leads, what it all means.”

~excerpt from One Thousand Gifts

 

Our stories, even the ones that are filled with darkness, difficulties and trials — things we would never willingly walk through if given the choice — create who we are.

 

Glancing in that rear view mirror allows me to catch a glimpse of what was and gain perspective for where I’m going. My past has shaped me and changed me, and with the lessons learned, pushes me towards a promising future.

This past year tossed me back into the past in a most violent way — ripping my heart wide open, causing regrets to weigh me down like never before. I’ve been in a wrestling match with all those past mistakes, not able to break free — having the very breath crushed right out of me. How do you ever truly catch your breath when the past tightens around you like a vise grip?

One breath at a time — that’s how.

One day at a time, one prayer at a time — grabbing onto God’s Grace and Mercy to pull free from all that weighs you down and squeezes the life right out of you.

As we near the end of this year, I’m finding my way back into life and I’m ready to jump into this new season with both feet. I may not know what the future holds, but I am certain of who always holds me. You see, when I look back in that rear view mirror of my life it’s not to focus in on the past, it’s to be reminded of how God never left me.  His hand is the only thing that I see so clearly when I look back over my life.

Blessings!

 

Our message at church today was to make our prayers more abundant than our worries.

I’m a worrier, big time! I’m also an empath, meaning I am very sensitive to what others feel and I often perceive their emotions very acutely, and this in and of itself often lends to many worrisome days because I become certain that someone is upset or angry with me when perhaps I’m not the target of their emotions.

We should be praying more than we worry. After our pastor spoke those words, I began silently repeating them to myself. Pray more than I worry. Why is it that’s not so simple?

Worry is my middle name…

I worry someone doesn’t like me. I worry someone is upset with me. I worry I will do or say something to offend or hurt someone else. I worry…I worry…I worry…

Today is the first day of the last month of 2019. Not sure how we got here so quickly — where did the year go? My Mom has always said that the older she gets the faster the years slip by — and I’m finding that to be true.

The last eleven months have been filled with — much. Too much to write about in one blog post. Much joy and much heartache — much gratefulness and much regrets — much healing, and much more healing to do.

My heart has been broken into a million pieces leaving me trying to piece it back together again and struggling to find my way back to life. And the message at church today reminded me that praying over worrying is the only way to truly live, because worry does nothing but keep us tied down while pray lifts us up over the trials, heartaches, and all the other potholes we will inevitably run into in this life.

Make your prayers more abundant than your worries and eventually those worries will have no where to reside.

On this first day of December I begin a journey into more abundant prayers, less worries and focusing on the things which truly matter in my life. I am taking a hiatus from Facebook, except for posting my blog posts, and my goal for this month is one blog post a day so that I may find healing and joy once again in my life.

Here’s to fresh starts, words straight from the heart, and more prayers than worries.

Blessings,

 

 

“I know that because I chose to stay and [my children] had no control over my decision, they must have felt an indescribable helplessness. Together, we kept this secret while walking on eggshells daily. My choice to stay was at the heart of where unforgiveness toward myself resided for years.”  ~excerpt from Healing Well and Living Free from an Abusive Relationship, Dr. Ramona Probasco

As a mother, I’ve made too many mistakes to count, but my biggest regret in this life was staying in an abusive marriage for 20 years and in doing so enslaving my children to a life of abuse also.

Just writing those words, let alone holding them inside for years, brings tears to my eyes and causes guilt to clamp down on my heart.

Last summer I discovered Dr. Ramona’s book and was absolutely amazed at how healing her writing was to me even though it’s been 10 years since my ex walked out and eight since our divorce was final. It was her chapter on forgiveness which broke something wide open in me that I wouldn’t fully understand until I received a phone call from my oldest son — and as always, God’s timing is perfect!

A year ago at this time, sitting outside at the RV park where our travel trailer was parked for my husband’s out-of-town job, my oldest son called to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day, and for the first time in 10 years he began to share his deepest hurts and raging anger towards his abusive father — and towards me also. His words were filled with hate and his cries punctuated the pain he felt, and while he unleashed all this over the phone, the book lay open on the table next to me — turned to the chapter on forgiveness.

Oh, I’ve forgiven my ex a hundred times over, but this chapter wasn’t speaking just to forgiving the person who has hurt us, this chapter went somewhere else speaking to that very raw open wound which I unknowingly still carried deep within myself — forgiving myself.

I’ve always felt guilty for not packing up my sons, and running fast and far away from that abusive home, but when I read the words above in the chapter on forgiveness, that’s when the truth of what I really carried was all about. In my choice to stay and try to endure through an abusive marriage, I inadvertently made my boys stay and endure abuse growing up — and that reality caused a hurt like none other to become embedded in my very soul.

“If you have…been told that all you need to do to make it all go away is forgive — please know it is simply not true.

There is a great deal about healthy forgiveness that often is largely misunderstood. A victim’s beliefs in this area can and will impact her tremendously. Forgiveness is not a substitute for boundaries, nor should forgiveness eliminate consequences.

Rather, forgiveness is first and foremost for you.”

Forgiveness is for us — ten years ago, my counselor had said these exact words as I sat on the couch in her office with tears dripping off my cheeks, hiccuping out the words that I could never forgive because that meant going back — and I would never go back!

But she gently explained, forgiving is not about letting the abuser off the hook or condoning his actions or staying in a relationship with someone who has hurt us — it is for us — releasing us from anger and resentment which only continue to hold us hostage to what was, to that person and what they did.

“Withholding forgiveness keeps you entrapped in the pain.”

 

So, all these years later after forgiving my abusive ex-husband and moving on with my life, my son finally opens up his heart sharing the hurts and anger he has shoved down deep, and even throws a few accusations my way. And that’s when the reality hit me, that the one person in the equation I had never truly forgiven, and perhaps didn’t realize needed forgiving, was myself.

The guilt has continued to weigh me down over the past year as my son has opened up even more, to the point of even accusing me of not leaving when I had the chance (and I had many, according to him) and therefore, making them grow up with an abusive father. Then to read Dr. Ramona’s book in which she shares this terrible pain she too had carried as a mother knowing that her decision to stay in an abusive marriage was leaving her children with no decision but to be there also — I knew I wasn’t alone in this feeling as a woman who had been abused.

And it is a common feeling among abuse victims that as mothers we let our children down and are partially responsible for the trauma that they carry from growing up in abusive homes.

“My biggest regret was staying as long as I dd, resulting in my children seeing and hearing things they never should have. I ached and still do for the pain my children endured.

The real irony, though, is that by not fully forgiving yourself, you will remain in bondage, and this in turn will affect your children too.”

But how to forgive myself has become the real question. Honestly, I don’t feel worthy of forgiving myself for allowing such harm to befall my children, even if I did do the best I could under the circumstances. And when my son looked me in the eye a couple months ago, while we were hundreds of miles from home living in a little rental house, and accusingly said, “You could have left, you had many opportunities”, my heart broke into a million more pieces.

I’ve been carrying regret and guilt around like an unpacked suitcase, too heavy to continue holding, but to afraid to let go of. If I set it down — if I lay down the regret and guilt — am I saying it doesn’t matter? Am I not taking responsibility for what happened while my son continues to hurt?

I apologized, many times over, for the pain and hurt he endured in that abusive home, and told him I prayed that one day he could forgive me.

“If you have children who grew up around violence, whether physical, emotional, verbal…they are probably still carrying deep pain inside, regardless of whether they endured it for one day or for years. They may be in denial about it, but the pain will eventually surface in their lives, and they will be faced with the decision whether to address it or to bury it.

Approaching this issue requires extreme sensitivity on your part as well as the need to respect the individuality of each of your children. One child may need to hear you ask for forgiveness only one time. Another may need to hear you ask for forgiveness multiple times before they are able to truly hear and receive what you are saying. And with another child, it may take years for that child to be in a place where they will be ready to forgive you.

…there is no formula for how or when to ask for forgiveness. Sensitivity to each of your children and where they may be at that moment in their lives is what this process is all about.

What’s imperative is that they hear you taking genuine responsibility by acknowledging how your decisions or actions hurt them. It is your responsibility as their parent to honor their pain by asking for their forgiveness.

Asking them to forgive you won’t erase their pain, but it will give them a starting point from which to heal.

Even if your child chooses not to forgive you, as difficult as that may be, please do not feel guilty. You have done your part by opening the door regardless of whether they are currently ready to walk through it. Hopefully, sometime in the future, they will make this choice for themselves.”

The heartache of knowing that through my choice of staying married to an abusive man for two decades caused such trauma to my sons is some days just too hard to bear. Yes, I need to forgive myself but it’s honestly one of the hardest things to do. Maybe the key to forgiving myself is the same that it took to forgive my ex — it feels as if I’m letting myself off the hook just as it felt I was letting him off the hook and that I need to somehow continue holding onto the past just as I felt I needed to continue in a relationship with my abusive then-husband. But the reality is — forgiveness is about letting go, and finding freedom from all that weighs me down and keeps me tied to the past.

 

And in the meantime, I continue to pray that one day my sons will offer me forgiveness too.

A dear friend of mine shared the advice her counselor gave her regarding regrets over past choices — he said we do not need to continue trying to justify what we’ve done, no matter whether our intentions were good or bad, because God has already forgiven and forgotten.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ~Romans 5:1

We have been forgiven. It’s done, it’s over — He’s taken all our guilt, shame, mistakes, and sins upon Himself, so that we no longer have to be weighed down by them, so we can finally unpack all of it and stop carrying it around. We are forgiven — it’s forgotten.

My devotion the other day really spoke to this:

“Every moment of your life, your accuser is filing charges against you. He has noticed every error and marked each slip….Try to forget your past; he’ll remind you. Try to undo your mistakes; he will thwart you.

This expert witness has no higher goal than to take you to court and press charges…Who is he? The devil…

He rails: “This one you call your child, God. He is not worthy…”

As he speaks, you hang your head. You have no defense. His charges are fair. “I plead guilty, your honor,” you mumble.

“The sentence?” Satan asks.

“The wages of sin is death,” explains the judge, “but in this case the death has already occurred. For this one died with Christ.”

Satan is suddenly silent. And you are suddenly jubilant….You have stood before the judge and heard him declare, “Not guilty.”

~excerpt from In the Grip of Grace

Romans 8:33

I know God has forgiven me but I think the reason it is so hard to forgive myself is the guilt of knowing my son’s pain and feeling responsible for not doing more to protect him all those years ago nor being able to take away his pain now.

Dr. Ramona says it well at the end of the chapter on forgiveness:

“…many victims of domestic violence do not have a healthy love for themselves, or the experience of abuse has eroded away any love they did have for themselves. A huge part of the healing journey is learning to love yourself again. You are lovable. You are precious. You are beautiful. Despite what your abuser told you, you are worthy of love.

What you may not realize, however, is that loving yourself involves forgiveness — forgiving your abuser, forgiving those who have not believed your story or judged you in some way, and even forgiving yourself. As you walk through this process of forgiveness, the freedom and healing you will receive are a part of loving yourself.”

To all mothers — those still living with abuse and those who have come out the other side — may we all give ourselves the gift of forgiveness this Mother’s Day — and every day. And may we learn to lean on His Grace, being confident that He calls us His daughters, and has forgiven and forgotten all that weighs us down. He’s already unpacked our baggage of all the guilt and regrets — isn’t it time we let it go?

Happy Mother’s Day! ❤

In Faith, Hope & Love,

 

My oldest son and I spent six weeks the beginning of this year in Pocatello, Idaho for him to receive treatment for Lyme disease at the West Clinic. It was a long six weeks and a journey about much more than just his physical healing. Growing up with an abusive father has left my son with a lot of emotional trauma, much of which he has buried down deep inside. And those unhealed wounds which have been festering for over a decade of his life were split wide open during our time in Idaho because the body cannot complete it’s physical healing when there is still emotional healing that needs to take place.

For a decade, my hope and prayer has been that my son would open up — that we could get rid of the elephant in the room. Before we left on this journey the first of February, and while we were there navigating through a new town and living in a small house together, my prayer was the same as it’s been for the past decade — for my son to bring down the wall he had built, one traumatic memory at a time, and allow the two of us to find our way into each others’ lives again — to rebuild what all those years had destroyed — what his father had destroyed.

And one day it happened, when I least expected it and certainly not in the way I had imagined — God opened the door. There it was, wide open for me to step through and honestly, it was the most frightening thing I’ve done. Was I really ready to do this? Would I have the strength and courage to speak my truth and say my peace?

What I’m learning through this journey called life is God’s timing is not mine and when he does move it’s often not in the way I’ve planned out in my mind. When he opens doors, what I see on the other side isn’t usually what I had envisioned, and can bring me to my knees with fear and trepidation. Yet, what better place for me to be — on my knees asking God to give me strength and courage to handle what He has placed in front of me.

There is the saying, “God never gives us more than we can handle”, but that isn’t true! I believe God does give us more than we can handle so that we turn to Him for help.

Faith isn’t about what we can see, but about putting our trust in God who promises to catch us if, and when, we fall. To give us the ability to handle whatever comes our way. And when He opened the door that night — I felt as if I was free falling, but I knew He hadn’t brought me to this place to let me go it alone.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for

and assurance about what we do not see.”

~Hebrews 11:1

My son’s anger over the past 10 years, has broken my heart into a million pieces and kept me on my knees praying for God to show him the truth — and for me to be brave enough to speak mine when the time was right. While I’ve wanted to share my side of things with him so many times through those years, I knew that doing so would only further push him from me since he spent all that time listening to his father spew hate, filth and lies about me. He may have known the truth, but it was getting buried deeper and deeper under all those repressed memories he just could not deal with. And all I could do was wait for God to open the door at just the right time.

And that day arrived at the start of our fifth week in Idaho. Sitting on the small couch in our rental house, I braced myself as my son sat across from me with anger coloring his face, and hate and contention dripping from his words.

That morning, I broke open just a little more as God began to crack open the door.

Everything within me said to flee and protect myself, but instead I clutched the couch and allowed my son to say those long-bottled-up words which he needed to get out, those words which had been pushing to get out for years. As painful as it was to hear, I sat frozen as his words flew past me like shards of glass, slicing me wide open — blaming me, accusing me — needing to make someone pay for his suffering all those years.

When he finished, I broke the silence by apologizing for any hurt I had caused him but explained there were many things he didn’t know regarding how his dad had treated me — that I too was abused, and while I wasn’t a perfect mother by any means, I tried to do the best with what I knew at the time and I could only hope that one day he could forgive me.

Leaving him with those few words because he was obviously not open to hearing more, we spent rest of the day in a strained silence in a too-small house.

 

Later that evening, my son came over to offer me a hug and tell me he loved me, and as we sat together quietly on the couch holding hands, my son’s voice broke the silence by asking the question he had been waiting to ask for 10 years — “What happened? What is it he did?”

And there it was — the door wide open beckoning me to walk through.

Admittedly, I sat confused for a moment and finally questioned what he meant. He reminded me of what I had said earlier about things he didn’t know that had happened between his father and I, and he wanted to know.

Taking a deep breath and whispering a silent prayer for the right words, I began speaking. My body visibly shook as God untied my tongue to allow the truth to flow, while opening my son’s ears to hear.

After all these years — the truth came out — my truth.

Sitting side by side on the couch in our rental house, I told him of things his dad had done — of the abuse he had perpetuated against not only him and his brother, but me also. 

The words flowed out of me, requiring little effort on my part except to speak them, to allow them out.

The words spoke of abuse, manipulation, control and the downright hate my ex had, and still has, for me. They told the story — my story — of being an abused woman. The story of meeting and coming together with his father; the night I could have rewritten the beginning of that story and walked away; the middle of the story; and the ending when I made the choice to no longer live with abuse.

 

As my son shifted a little on the couch, I checked in to make sure it was okay to continue. He nodded yes and I went on to explain how over the years my confidence shrunk, doubts set in, and fear held me captive, and how leaving with two young children was not so black and white. When their father would menacingly whisper in my ear how he would take those two precious little boys from me if ever I left — it was not a gamble I was willing to take. And I told him, that was my biggest regret in this life — not leaving and taking him and his brother out of that abusive home.

My son continued to shift every so often and my body refused to quit trembling, but I pushed forward. I acknowledged the fact that I made mistakes as a parent and didn’t always respond well in certain situations, perhaps coming across to others as the one who was crazy or abusive — exactly what his father wanted. Yet, I told him — my words clear and firm — despite my mistakes or poor responses, the one thing I never did was abuse him or his brother. I was not and am not like his father. I reminded my son that I too was a victim of abuse and explained how it changed me — I’d become a shell of a person by the time his father walked out ten years ago, but I tried hard to be there for my boys — my heart was in the right place even if he couldn’t see it.

I could feel a shift occur between us, one where my son seemed to finally be hearing and understanding things which had only been a source of confusion for so many years. And knowing that sometimes it’s better to stop instead of plowing on ahead, I ended by telling him that life goes on and we cannot change the past, but we can move forward, finding healing for what we can and allowing God to give us peace for the rest of it. I shared how my heart hurt so much for him in not having the father he should have had, and for my not protecting him more than I did. We talked about forgiveness and how hard it can be because we’ve been falsely taught that to forgive means our abuser is being let off the hook for those things they did to us and that we must remain in relationship with them. I told him how confused I too had been about what forgiveness really looks like and finally with the help of my counselor years ago was I able to understand that forgiveness is for us — it allows us to be free from bitterness and resentment — it places our abuser into God’s hands taking the burden off of us and it does not mean staying in a relationship with that person, especially if they continue to hurt us. In time, I told him, he will be able to forgive but until then, it will only continue to tie him to his anger.

Letting go isn’t easy, but it’s necessary in moving on and not allowing the past to continue weighing us down.

 

We sat in silence for a while, and finally I asked if he had any questions knowing there was still so much to share but not wanting to overwhelm him in one night. He said no, he was good, and so we said I love you’s and goodnight — hugging each other so very tightly.

I crawled into bed exhausted, absolutely drained — and for the first time in five weeks away from home, I slept.

I wish I could say this story had a happily-ever-after ending, but it didn’t, at least not yet — it’s still being written. What happened that night was simply the beginning — the breaking open of old wounds that had never properly healed, and had only been covered up and ignored in hopes they would disappear. But eventually, those things we stuff deep down in hopes of forgetting, will find their way to the surface and fester until we can no longer ignore them but must face them head on.

Trauma from abuse never completely ends — it changes a person to the very core of their being. Abuse changed me — it gave me a greater ability to deal with hardships and less tolerance for things which are not edifying in my life. It’s allowed me to look deep within and trust my own instincts while being more discerning, and what I was once told were faults I have found to be assets — and I’ve learned to love the new woman I see in the mirror.

That day, hundreds of miles away from home, crushed me. The hurts my son shared and the anger he lashed out with, caused regrets to grip me like a vise — you know the ones — would’ve, could’ve, should’ve — we all have them. It’s learning how to let them go, and as I told my son that night, realizing we all do the best we can with what we know at the time, and through every experience we learn and grow — but at some point we need to allow ourselves to move on. I believe the hardest person to forgive is often our own self. It’s time for me to stop beating myself up over things I cannot change or do over.

Time they say heals all wounds, but honestly, time only lessens the pain and replaces the open, raw wound with a scar that occasionally aches with the reminder of what was.

Perhaps one day I will find the ability to forgive myself for things I would’ve done different had I known better, things I could’ve changed if fear hadn’t held me back, and things I should’ve done but didn’t. And hopefully one day, my son will forgive me.

Six weeks together in an unfamiliar town and house proved difficult for both my son and I, and getting back into my normal routine in my own home wasn’t much easier when we returned over five weeks ago. In that time since being back, there have been ups and downs as my son decided to move back home with me and his stepdad. The first two weeks were like detoxing — releasing all the negativity and hurt accumulated while gone — yet through much prayer and heart-to-heart talks with a couple dear friends, I came to the realization that I was allowing my son’s issues to affect me and steal my joy.

While my son certainly has healing still to do, both physically and emotionally, he has his own story to write, and his own behavior and attitudes to own. I cannot and will not allow myself to lose my joy and stop living because of him. He is my son and I love him dearly and will always do what I can to help him, but it is time for me to move on into living my life — and choosing to be joyful in all things no matter what my son is going through.

And I am doing just that! I am laying it all down at Jesus’ feet, and allowing myself to find the beauty and joy each and every moment of my days.

Did I mess up as a mother? Oh, yes! Did I intentionally hurt my children? Hell no!! I certainly could have made better decisions in how I raised my boys, but I truly was doing the best I knew how as I navigated through an abusive marriage. I dropped the ball too many times over the years, but I’m trying hard these days to toss the ball to my sons in hopes they will choose to toss it back, and allow a new relationship to take the place of the old.

 

I’ve been writing on this blog post for five weeks, just not able to finish it and get the right words down. Perhaps I’m hoping for a happily-ever-after ending to occur, but perhaps there never will be. But I will say that as my son has settled into our home and I’ve stood firm against letting him bring me down, we seem to be finding our way through life together with fewer ups and downs.

My prayer is for healing for my son, both physically and emotionally — and I’m already seeing prayers answered. My son will be going back to Idaho in a couple months for two weeks of follow up treatments and I’ve made it very clear since we returned home that this is his journey and when he goes back it isn’t me that has to go with him. So, yesterday I was surprised when he mentioned us — me and him — going back to Idaho in a couple months! As he said this to me — I didn’t break wide open this time, but felt the brokenness in my heart and soul being restored. ❤

 

Life is good — then life can be hard — but in the end, life always works out. 

 

In Faith, Hope & Love!