Lavish Love

The Love of the Lord is a lavish rain
That caresses my stilled soul.
Calling to me to rest in His Embrace
as strength renews.
There I seize His Mercy
which I can’t attain on my own
It’s as a whisper blanketing every worry, care, and doubt
and finds me where I struggle to hide
Then I hear my Abba Father calling me--
“Come to me my daughter,
you are adorned in beauty and are being restored out of the ashes
As you stand in the lavish Love I have for you.”

Mirror, mirror

During one of my therapy sessions with Dr. C, she described me this way: “I see you like a broken mirror with all the pieces over here on the floor. Instead of putting the pieces back together and being a worthwhile and useful cracked mirror, you have completely turned away from yourself and are over here trying to make a whole new mirror of you for others to see.”
This analogy was just what I needed to bring understanding of how I was rejecting myself in preference to being what I thought others wanted me to be. Throughout this journey of healing I have realized that the mirror of me that I was trying so hard to make wasn’t me at all, and as I dared to look at the real broken pieces of me I felt shame because to me I had failed to overcome all that I saw as not good enough. It has taken awhile for me to see that though I was broken I could be mended, and I had to face many painful memories to make that happen in order for me to know I am worth something just as I am; I am enough for this moment to do what I need to do, and I am valuable. As I began to understand that failure wasn’t the obliteration of me—it was my humanness, and--just as it is allowed in my friends, family, and strangers--it should be allowed in me without fear of punishment. Perfection is the mirage I would never reach. I could never be what I thought everyone wanted me to be in all situations. Yet I was compelled to try at all cost…that cost was losing the real me while hiding from everyone else. I knew what God said about me was true in my head most of the time, but I needed to know it in my heart and embrace myself (good and bad) and accept myself. As it was, I felt my good wasn’t good enough and the bad had to be fixed.
With this new understanding of how I had been treating myself, I started testing my motives for what I did with questions such as “Am I trying to make a new mirror of me?” It helped me to see I had not been living for the right person, me. By living to please others to that degree was a sin against myself. I was on the Deprivation highway into Martyr-ville, and I was convinced this was what was expected of me since I had done it all my life to avoid punishment or disapproval in the fire of my parents’ anger. I was beginning to see that to put others first at all cost was a lie I had believed all my life. Now I know my value isn’t in how others treated me, but rather it is in what God made me: a unique person unlike anyone else with something genuine to give.
As a Christian, it is important to me to be careful about what I allow to mold me,and I often measure what I read about caring for your inner child,co-dependence, recovery from depression, what I learn in therapy, etc... to the Bible to determine if an idea or method is based in truth. All truth is God’s truth wherever it may be found, so I do think it is possible for psychology and Christianity to mix. My blog, my opinion…wow, I have come a long way. I digress… I was living to please everyone but the most important ones: God and myself. God was high on the list of those I was trying to please, but so were a lot of other people, and I was on the bottom, thinking: “I will be happy when others are happy.” Living with this mindset of denying myself was imprinted on me as a young child and kept me safe then but now it was slowly killing me. As I picked up the pieces of myself I see the beauty that I do possess, I see the strength that that remains, and I see the insights I have gained by facing the memories of my childhood and working through them. It is like a healing salve that helps me care for myself now, listen and honor the my inner child and I realize that I am stronger facing the memories that I am when I repress them and act as if it isn’t important. Now I strive to see the real me in full and to show that person to others rather than the person I think they want me to be. Now if I disagree with someone, it is okay. If people are angry with me, I strive to let them feel their own emotions as each person is entitled to without negative consequences. Now I work at feeling what I need to feel and accepting that it’s okay for me to be afraid, angry, sad, happy, ashamed, and brave. As I look at the kaleidoscope of me I see beauty in the ashes, healing in the pain, and joy coming out of the sorrow.

Playing House

A part of recovery from depression/abusive childhood is to get in touch with that inner child and not only feel the pain and sorrows but also to feel the joy and lightheartedness that a child has. 

 

I am about to make a confession, and, if I think about it, too much I might chicken out….. I enjoy playing Sim Social.  It is like a simulated dollhouse (which I didn’t have and always wanted), and in a lot of ways I don’t know how to make a home the way I want it.  I was left home alone A LOT and moving nearly twenty times in my lifetime--with eighteen of those happening before entering college--I never felt settled.  There was always boxes to be unpacked wherever we were living.   

 

When I have memories they are anchored to where I lived at the time and not necessarily my age.  When someone talks about his or her childhood home, I don’t really understand that attachment to a home.  So now as an adult I can "play house" with Sims and build, decorate, and redecorate while enjoying the creative process.  It gives my little heart a bit of joy….I refuse to be ashamed of that.

Opening the Door to my Fear and Anger

Dear Readers,

  There was a time when the only way I could express my fear and anger was to write about them in poems, because I thought of them as negative and shameful emotions, and could not express them openly.   The most critical thing I have learned is that I have to feel what I feel instead of denying it.   To feel fear or anger is to be human and not bad, but I often felt that I couldn’t allow myself to feel these emotions, much less express them to anyone, because as a child I wasn’t allowed to express anger, and fear protected me in situations where I had no control.

Free from my Cage of Fear

Fear,

You entered my life at a very young age.

You have haunted me

taunted me and drove me to hide in your cage.


I see you now and I accept that you are a part of of me

But I take myself back from the clutches of thee.


I face you with all the courage that is within me and tell you to GO!

I will not live by your dictation any more caught in your pit of woe.


I choose to no longer live in your cage but to be free

to live in the deliverance of Christ's perfect love for me.


When I am afraid I will not go back into your cage of fear

because I KNOW my Lord Jesus Christ is always near.

                                          Written  September 17, 2011

Anger

How I hate how you make me feel

With you I don’t know how to deal

I

 want you out of my life

To cut you out with a knife

I hear I am supposed to feel you

That is the last thing I want to do

Denying you has gotten me here

It is time to bring you near

To face you with all my courage

Time for the child and me to mirage

Feel it, express it, and give it away

When I just want to hid from it another day

So I lie on my bed and think about you

What I have allowed you to do

Thinking I could control you only lead me away

From the person God plans for me to be today

It’s not for the weary to do

To be brave and stand up to you.

Written 10-13-11