Brokenness

Jul062015

A sincere question

I have been wondering if my walk with our boy is extra hard for me because of my past. Is it this painful because of the pain I have seen before? Is it so hard because I am still broken? There is no answer yet, I am just sincerely putting this question out there and wait for the outcome.

It is a question I have asked our therapist, and I did so again last week. Our therapist, who is awesome!!!!, said she never answers questions for clients and then she got quiet… She said she had a strong feeling about it and withholding it didn’t serve anything, so she told me. Like she told me last time.

She believes that because of my past, because of my pain, I relate to our boy in a way he very much needs. Besides my husband being awesome, we are also making progress because I understand our boy so well. I don’t question his attitude, his behavior because I know he hurts and that is where it is coming from. And our boy needs someone to hurt with him. It is how he connects. And right now, he needs to inflict pain on someone else, he hurts and so someone else will. It’s just part of the process. And I carry the pain well because I am familiar with pain. I know it all sounds so crazy but she did a good job explaining the psyche that I understand so well at times. To continue, he also needs to hurt someone as he tries to trust. He is wanting to see what I do when he hurts me. Will I go away? Am I able to handle it? Will I go crazy? Will I say he is a bad kid with problems? Will I send him away? And beyond that, he is looking to see what I do with my pain. He has never had a good model. What does someone do when he/she hurts. His eyes are on me.

And so all the pain I am feeling is not necessarily bad. It feels AWFUL yes, but it is needed. And allllll my years of hard work, of therapy are paying off. I can handle the pain. I do not walk away from it or pretend it is not there. I might get quiet, I withdraw at times, but I always will address what is going on inside. I share with those around me. So our boy sees I do not inflict pain on others just because I hurt. I take care of myself and he sees it.

Our therapist believes our boy knows I have had a rough past. He recognizes things in me he doesn’t recognize in people often. Some how he has figured out I got better, he just doesn’t know how and he is watching me.

So that day last week, I walked away with more peace. I do not have to worry about my past and I don’t have to be insecure about hurting our boy when I hurt so much in our current circumstances. It is my past that makes this work. And whenever I forget, I just go back to the therapist and let her tell me again…

No matter how painful or broken a past… God can always put it to good use. Would I trade my past if I could? Absolutely! Can I? There is no way! But God does write beautiful stories with those dark pasts.

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Jul022015

I forgot

‘I am barely holding on’, that is what I have been saying the last few weeks. It felt like no one really understood the debt of what I was saying. Even the therapist, she and friends have been telling me we are doing great. That we are doing an awesome job in this trial with our boy. But all I felt was exhaustion and emotions. I was barely hanging on.

We are constantly trying to read our boy. When he behaves a certain way we are constantly processing our best next move. When he is angry we try to find ways to love him, and we certainly try to control our feelings and anger. It’s not an easy thing but we do not want to mess up and so we invest, invest, invest in doing the right thing and not become angry. When our boy is disconnecting from us, our house turns into this place of tension that is sometimes unbearable. We have to be okay with this uncomfortable feeling. We have to be okay with our boy either loving us, or hating us. For now, there is nothing in between. And it changes all the time.

Today I was reminded that God’s yoke is easy and His burden is light. Boy, it has not felt like that at all.

I forgot. I stopped seeing. Seeing the truth. Seeing God’s work. Seeing God’s call on our life. I am a hundred percent sure that God chose us for this boy. And we ARE doing an amazing job with him. And our behavior, in many ways, shows Jesus. I really feel we are being Jesus and it is so very powerful. We are SO determined to be the difference for our boy. We constantly remind ourselves that our boy is hurting and broken and he’s been through too much. That is the reason for the hardship, not the boy himself. It’s his past that get’s ‘in the way’. So when he yells three days straight, we try to keep it together and speak with calm voices. When he ignores me I still will speak to him and reach out knowing he is not going to even give me a glimpse. I still make him his lattes that he loves, knowing it will go to waste because on bad days he will refuse anything I do for him. And Jesus has given us the honor to be like Him.

But it is hard work. It is exhausting. My body aches and faints (literally) because I am drained. I cry, oh I cry a lot. Tim and I, we are working hard to hold hands through it all and not turn against each other. Our margins are gone and if we do not watch it, we will no longer be a good team. So we find ways to do life in the midst of all this: we ask friends to come over on days that it is hard, we go out for drinks at a bar close to us, or we just visit a batting cage and play together. There is still life in the midst of battle. What a precious gift to have.

Today I thought about the cross. Jesus was never able to reach heaven without the pain of the cross. And He could not suffer the cross without knowing what was beyond the cross, heaven and life for all. There is no way our boy can heal without getting through all the fear, the doubt and pain. And there is no way we will be a family without us going through the tests and the rejection of this hurting boy. We have to let it be okay that we hurt before we get to a better place. And very important is that we do not forget to look beyond our now. We know where we are headed. This boy has a great chance of healing his heart and someday even being able to do relationships to the point he can even care for a wife. He has great desires to one day be married and have 4 children. He is convinced that he will be a great dad. And we are convinced that if he stays with the hard work now, that one day, yes, he will make us into very proud grandparents.

So today Jesus let me see again. He reminded me of the bigger picture. He reminded me that He has picked our home for this boy to heal. He reminded me that the future is worth getting through the pain now. He reminded me of the privilege to be Jesus like. We just have to remember the bigger picture.

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Jun032015

Justice versus Love

I shake. My heart beats heavily and fast. I can’t sit still. I am overcome by this pressure in my chest. When the feelings sets in I know exactly what is going on and the battle is not easy. Justice versus Love, that is what I am up against. That is the battle that I often fight.

There is this right that I feel, the need to punish someone, some how, for not treating me rightly, And I am like that because of my abusive background and there never being any justice about it. But it’s not right. This is MY battle and has nothing to do with our boy. Our boy… because that is where this takes place. It is our boy who has the privilege 😉 to bring this out in me. He can treat me so poorly, in a way I do not deserve. He can ignore me like no other and oh, does that hurt, does that bring about memories of me being ignored for days on end by my family when I was little. Or he lies about something. Or he throws me this really dirty look. Or he ignores a rule we put in place together. Or he refuses to do his chore. That is when these feelings take over my body. But any child needs love the most when he/she deserves it the least. So I have to let go of my justice, in order to love him.

He knows what he deserves and he knows he is not getting that. When I let go of what he deserves, and love him instead, it communicates exactly what he needs to learn. To forgive those who hurt him. To let go. Because it only imprisons him if he doesn’t. He’ll get dark inside. I know what it is like to be in prison and I do not want that for him. So together we will learn to let go of justice and free ourselves. We will learn to love EVERYONE.

Coffee for the Heart is a place where we just see ourselves sitting down for coffee and sharing, accept it is on the internet, never the less it is very real. Go HERE for more stories!

May102015

I am not so different

Our boy and I… we are not so different. We had the most precious conversation today about being scared. Scared of love. I was happy to be able to share a story with him, a story about something that happened just a bit earlier in the day…

Tim and I had discussed mother’s day. I had wanted to take off all pressure. Tim gets anxious about any holiday or special day and I didn’t feel our boy needed any pressure about doing anything. So when I was the first to get up and find a card and flowers I was a little surprised. Tim was quick to follow me. “What are you doing here? You are supposed to be in bed.” “But why, we had said we weren’t doing anything, that is still quite alright with me” I replied. But Tim insisted: “Just leave the kitchen, just go back to bed.” I struggled and continued to make myself some tea and make Tim his coffee and our boy would be served with a wonderful caramel vanilla latte. I realized it was a little silly, here I was spoiling my men on mother’s day, a day my husband now had chosen to spoil me. I couldn’t let go. And I didn’t. I felt the tension about needing to listen to my husband and my own uncomfortable feelings. See… there are times that it is still really hard for me to be loved. I was trying to steal away this opportunity from him, just so I could feel comfortable, just so that I could be in control.

Our boy had another hard week and it caused him to apologized for that today. He said it is hard to control his behavior at times. He said he knows more and more that he is indeed in the right place but… it scares him and so he wants to get away, and difficult behavior is his way.

I asked him if he wanted to hear a story of that morning, of what I did. When I was done confessing to him about my morning and my struggles he was quick to answer: “But that is how I feel, that is what I do!” and for about half an hour we kept sharing back and forth about being scared, about why we are scared and how strange it is we do what we do. I so know this match was made in heaven. We are so right for our boy, he is so right for us, I am so right for him. Not just because of my past, but it certainly is part of God writing this story. I may be a grown up, but some times I just act like our teenage boy.

Oct032014

5 Minute Friday… New

Writing under pressure… It is very simple, on Thursday evening a word prompt is shared by Kate and on Friday we give ourselves 5 minutes to write.

5 minutes!! And without a grammar check or editing we post whatever came to our creative minds…

This week’s word is NEW…

Ready… Set… Go…

This week Jesus met me at the cross, in a new way. Very unexpectedly. Sure my Father had been telling me He was doing a new thing. I was to enter into a new season of healing of which He has been showing me, is going to be different from all other seasons of healing I went through. It is going to be deeper and it is not by my doing. My Father has told me to walk and just show up…

I went to church Tuesday evening, to show up… Jesus had a plan for me. I will spare you the details for now but Jesus took me personally to the cross.

When Jesus hung at the cross and seemed to have died, people wanted to be sure. And so they took a spear and poked it right into his side. He didn’t budge and they knew He was ‘gone’.

When I was crying out all my wounds on Tuesday: father wounds, rejection wounds, incest wounds, you name it wounds… I finally landed at mother wounds. I have never really thought about me having mother wounds because wasn’t it my dad who abused me? And God showed me that I had wounds way before I was ever abused, mother wounds. At some point I was asked where Jesus was when I was being abused. And I said: “He just stood there. He did nothing!” and I sobbed. My hands were pulled out in front of me by the pastor… would I fill my hands with my mother wounds, with my rejection wounds? Would I walk to the cross and stick it right into Jesus’ bleeding heart? Right there, where it belongs. Right there… that is why Jesus died. For my wounds, my aches, my hurts. I am not alone. He has felt it all. He knows. And right there, He shows me He never ‘just stood there and did nothing’. THIS is what He is doing at the cross. And I understood. I felt it. And I will never look the same at the cross. Jesus took me to the cross and let me feel it. My Heavenly Father, although it looked horrible, loved on me in a very sweet way.

STOP!

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Oct012014

What I do…

Tim was away last week. Just a few days. And in the past I would always tell him how I’d miss him. But not this time. This time I noticed how happy I was those days alone. This time I noticed how great it felt to have the bed to myself. This time I didn’t miss the hugs at night. It was a nice alone time. And it reminded me of my single years. Deciding about schedule and when to eat was so easy. I just had me to think about. And it felt like a little break.

But I was also worried. Tim was worried. Because I have been pulling back little by little. No more nakedness in bed. No hugs. Not my hand on his leg while in the car. Not me reaching out to touch him, not even after Tim being away for a few days. It was all different.

And I wake up to what is happening. The intimacy between Tim and me, as husband and wife, goes very deep and my system is going off. There are too many memories of hurt. I want to protect myself. And the way to do that is to get away, physically and now also emotionally.

But this is good. This is very good! My systems are reaching the surface and I am aware. This is not a danger to our marriage… it is a red flag about my wounds.

And in this new season of healing through Living Waters I reach out to my Heavenly Father. I experience myself to be little in this. I am aware that I cannot heal myself and I stick to my Heavenly Father. I press in, and I wait for healing. I wait for Him to do His work. In what way? I don’t know. When? I don’t know. All I am asked is to keep walking and keep showing up.

These days aren’t easy. We are dealing with trauma. But I celebrate that we are well. We both are very committed, we communicate honestly about how this season affects us. We stay connected and we are one. Tim loves me so well by being so very patient. I can tell his commitment. It may be rough now… but we will write this chapter. And we will close this chapter. And write another one…

I love that you are here, and I would certainly love to hear from you. To leave a comment go HERE !

This was also shared at Holley’s Coffee For Your Heart. To read more personal stories or get encouraged, go HERE !