Do Better

When we  know better we do better. Maya Angelou

I have dreams...goals... desires. I want to make a difference.....shine a light....show hope...

For a long time I couldn't.....I hid what happened....I didn't want anyone to know....I ran scared....living in shame....afraid for anyone to look in my eyes....I knew if they did....they'd know the truth. And they'd believe what I knew...that what happened was my fault....that there was something inherently wrong with me for it to even have happened at all. 

I believed those lies for a long time....letting them keep me living less than my best.  At my lowest....when I couldn't hold on anymore.....He touched me....broke through the shame....and amazingly.....began to turn everything around. It didn't come easy. I struggled against the 'truth.' I couldn't accept that it wasn't my fault.  

I don't know why I believed that....but the lie was the cement that kept me down....that kept me running scared...that pushed me close to the line of death not once....but many times. Lies. I trusted in them and they almost killed me.

The squeeze of darkness soured my life....and created a bottomless void of always wanting and never being able to fill its gnawing hunger that constantly growled its emptiness.  I thought it would win....I thought there was no way I could ever get free. The hold it had kept me down....kept me defeated....

But His love made the difference....it cut through the darkness....It won the battle. The things that happened are become dimmer...And His truth is shining brighter. Love made a difference....His love.....and it still does. Love that trumps everything else.....

hunger and love

You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for anybody's sermon on how to behave.  Billie Holiday 

She was an amazing blues singer. A black woman who wowed audiences. Raped at ten and then again in her teens, Billie never dealt with her issues.....never learned she didn't deserve what happened. Her singing....full of passion...full of soul - she poured her pain into every song......connecting with audiences that kept them coming back for more.  

But Billie couldn't put the dope down. It held her a prisoner to the past...even though she used it to forget. It became a doubled edged sword...not doing what she needed. And in the end it brought her down....took her life......killed her.  

Billie Holiday knew.....professionals...preachers telling you how you should act...and live...what you should do.....and if you don't...something wasn't wrong with the message....something was wrong with you. 

I heard that all the time. I was told I didn't want help if I didn't do what 'they' said. But when you're hungry...starving....and your soul is growling to be filled.....not for food....but for a touch of love.....you can't hear nothing. Words become meaningless....empty. And like listening to a dripping faucet....over time they just becomes annoying. 

Touched by love....feeling safe.....being accepted has greater power than any words.  I had a radio interview yesterday. When asked what made the difference in turning my life around - I knew - the touch of His love.....love made a difference....love that waited....love that never forced me to be or do anything. A gentle and accepting love that met me right where I was....in the dark....in the pain....in the shame. 

Love had the power to do what no amount of words could. It was like cortisone for my soul....a healing ointment...that removed the infection, the pain and eventually even the scars.

His love made the difference. It gave me what nothing else did. It became an anchor to hold onto and fight back.

Self-Defense

 

"I don't want my past to become anyone else's future." Elie Wiesel

My fourteen yr. old came home from school....told me she's learning self-defense. The school's teaching the girls how to fight....what to do if they're ever attacked....how to protect themselves....how to get free. 

I listened to my tree-loving kid......my gentle wouldn't hurt a fly child - She went into great detail about some of the techniques she's already learned ....various moves...which body parts to go for......and the instructor's encouragment to not be afraid to bite, kick, scratch and scream.  She spoke fast....her voice excited....animated.... but then she hesitated....her face flushed....her eyes held that hint of shyness... 

I thought of myself at fourteen....fighting to survive....using my instincts..... fueled by fear and hatred that gave me the strength I needed to fight back...

I never want my dgt. to feel what I felt....I never want her to know fear the way I knew it or the hatred or look in someone's eyes and see the evil that can live in a human being.....  

It's freaky Ma, The instructor's gonna jump us.....we have to do whatever we can to get free. Her voice was soft.

You afraid? I asked. 

She climbed on my lap....put her head on my shoulder. Maybe. 

It's okay to be afraid.  I stroked her hair. 

I silently prayed....that no one would ever hurt her for real.  I'm trusting He'll protect her....keep her safe and because I love her and my other daughter....I've finally chosen to tell what happened to me.....to make a difference....in the hope that my past will never become anyone else's future.

I'll do Anything God

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title." Virginia Woolf

I told God I would do anything for Him. I told Him there is nothing I wouldn't do. Nothing at all. He freed me. He broke the hold of all those things that were killing me. I almost died. Not once. Many times. But He wouldn't let me die.

I had a thing for heights. I used to shoot up and then climb to the rooftop of this building. I'd stand on the ledge with my arms out. I believed I could fly. I believed I wouldn't fall. I heard a voice telling me to jump. Telling me it's ok. Telling me I would soar. I wanted to trust that voice. I came so close to believing what it said. There was a cop who followed me. Who always seemed to be there on that rooftop. Many times he pulled me off that ledge. I would have jumped. I could have died. God didn't let me.

I'll do anything God. Anything you want.

Anything except tell the people in my world today how I lived, what I did, how bad things were, the drugs, the cutting, the abuse, the horrible mess I lived. Pride? Shame?

There was a fire. I dropped the match trying to heat up the dope. The flames engulfed the room. I was trapped. I should have died.

I'll do anything God. Anything you want.

The hospital told me they had never seen anyone so thin. I weighed less than eighty pounds. I was cold all the time. Freezing. Even in summer. My electrolytes were out of whack making my legs hurt. They said my heart would stop. It never did. He wouldn't let it.

I'll do anything God. Anything you want.

When I run I have courage. When I run I know He is running with me. I'm not alone. He gives me this incredible strength. He empowers me. When I run and feel His presence I know I can do anything. Will do anything. Even tell.

I owe Him. I want to tell but I'm afaid to. One day, I won't be afraid.

I'll do anything God. I promise. One day. I'll find the courage.

Thank-you

"One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody." Mother Theresa

I used to feel that nobody cared about me. That I didn't matter. What I thought didn't matter, What I wanted didn't matter. Who I was didn't matter.

Even when someone offered love to me I couldn't feel it. It actually hurt so I ran from it. I didn't think I was worthy. I knew I wasn't. I lived my life running, hiding - angry, scared, hating everything about who and what I was.

Then God touched me. Powerfully. Broke through when nothing else could. In a hospital emergency room where I lay under oxygen. I felt His touch. The doctor had said I wouldn't live past the year because of all the damage I had done to my body from the drugs, the eating disorder and the street lifestyle.

But God touched me. He broke the hold the drugs had over me. Yet even though He touched me I still hated everything about myself. I blamed myself for the kidnap, beatings and rape and for all the stuff that happened. I couldn't stop hurting myself. The self loathing ran deep.

Blogging. It's broken the aloneness. I've kept silent for so long. Afraid to tell the awful things that happened. Afraid to speak. So I write. Here I can say it.

I have fought everything alone. Couldn't tell anyone. I didn't want anyone to know because I felt different than everybody else. Stuff that happened didn't seem to be happening to others. I pretended so much that many times I wondered if it happened at all. But all I have to do is look at the scars on my body and close my eyes and see the images in my mind.

I don't feel alone in the fight anymore. Thank-you guys.

Hope

"If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream." Martin Luther King, Jr.

We were about the same age. Both of us stuck on a locked pysch ward. Me - to serve out my sentence for drug possession; her - I don't know. They said she was an attention seeker. She didn't look any different than anyone else, but one morning, she poured lighter fluid over her body and lit a match. Her shrill screams, the smell of burning flesh and the sight of the flames engulfing her terrified me. Once medically stable, they threw her in an isolation room. I didn't get that. Why did they punish her? It was a pretty desperate act just to get attention. Why couldn't they just give her the attention?

They didn't know I had been raped or beaten. They didn't know I had been told so many times I deserved nothing and called horrible names. All they knew is I couldn't stop hurting myself, or shooting dope or throwing up. So they pumped me full of pills or tied me to the bed like an animal. What they did was instill more hate inside me. And all that hate made me hurt myself even more.

You can't force anyone to stop self-destructive behaviour. Stopping comes only from feeling safe, feeling accepted, feeling cared about.

It's like the story of the sun and the wind. They had an arguement to see who was stronger - who could make the man take off his coat. The wind blew and tried to force the coat from the man, but only when the sun shone it's warmth, did the man remove his jacket.

The warmth of God's touch cut through my pain, my hate, my fear. It didn't happen all at once. It took time. Time for me to feel safe. Time for me to trust. First, He broke the hold of the drug addiciton. I stopped shooting dope but I still wouldn't eat and I cut myself all the time. I used to scream at God, You want to kill me? Then go ahead. Do it. I don't care. Do it already! I dare you to kill me. In the gentleness of His love, He overlooked my attitude.

Hope. I want to reach out in gentleness like God did for me. Maybe what I lived can give hope to others who live in the dark.

Hope and Dignity

"I was confused. You cleared my mind. I sold my soul. You bought it back for me and held me up and gave me dignity. You gave me hope when I was at the end and turned my lies back into truth again. You even called me friend." Anne Murray

I am overwhelmed with God's love. He reached out to me and in His gentle way, freed me from the awefulness of living on the street, fighting to survive and using my body as a target for all the rage and hatred I had for the people who hurt me. I often wonder why me. Why did He touch me and let me live? I should have died like so many of the people I knew, - like my friend, Sue. One night, she turned on Anne Murray's song, Snowbird, letting it play over and over while she swallowed a ton of pills. She was dead in the morning, - the song still playing, "But now I feel such emptiness within, for the the thing I want in life's the thing I can't win. Spread your tiny wings and fly away."

Someone once told me, the best revenge is to live my life happy and successful. It's been a fight, a struggle, a war. So many times, I wanted to do what Sue had done, let go, give up, "spread my wings and fly away," but God put a fight in me, a determination to live.

All those beatings, being kidnapped and raped, the crazy, terrifying street life, the drugs, the throwing up, the incarceration in jail, confined in a psych hopsital - somehow God used all that to make me strong. He didn't let me die. He wouldn't let me go even when I begged Him to kill me. He "bought my soul back and gave me dignity." He touched me, broke the chains and set me free, when nothing else worked.

Why me? Why not Sue? I had other friends who took their lives, or accidently died from overdosing or because of being so stoned and doing something weird. I used to climb to the top of buildings and stand on the edge with my arms out not caring that I could have fallen to my death. I thought I was invincible. Other times I just wanted to dare life to let me go.

I owe Him my life. The gratitude I feel makes me want to help people like Sue, to give them hope and let them know, if I can do it, they can too. With God, nothing is impossible. I have discovered, there is no darkness so black, no valley so low, He can not redeem it for his glory.


I am alive today because of Him, because of His touch on my life.

"Love is not a feeling. It's a behaviour." Oprah Winfrey

'I love you,' my father said. Then he beat me and called me filthy names. 'I love you,' my father said. Then he locked me alone in the car for hours in the worst part of town. 'I love you,' my father said. Then he shoved his fist in my face and forced me to eat even when I kept throwing up. 'I love you,' my father said. Then he held me down on the bed.......

'I love you,' the rapist said. Then he punched me so hard, my spleen ruptured. 'I love you,' the rapist said. Then he held me down and did what he wanted. 'I love you,' the rapist said. Then he locked me in a cold dark room and wouldn't let me go.

'I love you,' God said. Then He patiently waited until I was ready to trust Him. 'I love you,' God said. Then He broke the hold of the drug addiction. 'I love you,' God said. Then He calmed my anger and hatred. 'I love you,' God said. Then He healed my heart with His gentle touch. 'I love you,' God said. Then He freed me from the shame and fear.

Just because someone claims they love you, doesn't mean they really do. I think the wires in my head got all mixed up when I was a kid. I thought what happened was normal, that everyone lived on edge, fighting to avoid getting beaten, living like someone in a war zone, in chaos, tension and confusion. I believed whatever happened was because something was wrong with me. I didn't know what was being done was wrong. I didn't know they had no right to do what they did. All I knew was it made me crazy. It made me want to punish myself in ways that nearly killed me. It pushed me over the edge, making me act impulsively, full of anger and not caring what happened.

But then I learned love doesn't hurt. I learned it's patient, kind and forgiving. I learned it's not jealous or full of pride or resentful or rude or demanding of its own way.

I never knew. No one had told me or showed me the truth about love. I figured it out as I went, but I had figured it out all wrong. Then God touched me and He showed me. He brought safe people into my life, but I resisted them, pushing them away, still needing to hide, afraid of getting hurt, not trusting. It took so long. But then I got it.

When love is real, not only does it not hurt, but it's like a balm that feels soothing on the inside and brings amazing healing and relief. I learned love doesn't keep a list of wrongs, so I chose to forgive and move forward. I want to shine so others can feel the touch of love from me. I want my life to reflect the truth of what love really is and find healing and freedom in their lives.