"What is soul? It's like electricity - We don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light up a room" Ray Charles.
She was a woman who touched me...an elderly woman who spent the last few days of her life in a hospital bed... I was moved by her gentleness - her gratitude - her kind spirit. She was a fighter....a different kind than me.....but still a fighter. Her friends came to see me....they told me her story - they spoke with admiration...the same admiration I felt when I sat in her presence.
She had lived in Poland during the war. Her older brother had been thrown in prison. She tried to sneak some home cooked food to him, but was caught and put in prison too. While there, she was beaten and treated cruelly. Finally they released her. The war became worse and conditions in Poland were bad. Parents were frantic wanting their children to be spared. She had been a teacher. She knew the children.
On her own...alone...she took a number of those kids and escaped Poland, climbing over the mountains. She brought them to the United States but they were turned away. They settled in Mexico. She raised them until they were of age. Most eventually went to live in the United States....she herself came to Canada.
To look at her....you would never know she was a fighter. You would never think she had been so brave in the face of brutality...or that she had the courage to bring a group of children across the ocean...to a strange land...where she knew no one - alone....
And she couldn't have known how much she touched my life....made a difference...gave me something - gave me a determination not to waste what He did for me.
I don't want to be afraid to reach out - to make a difference - to take a risk. I don't want to be afraid anymore or live with shame. I've started telling a few close friends pieces of what I've lived. Their reaction is shock - mine is fear that they'll turn away from me. None have so far.
Some days I feel really confident and strong - other times.....I cringe thinking of people knowing the things that happened.
That elderly woman - her past never went away. It followed her in some ways - pulling and tugging inside. She befriended a man - similiar to her older brother. He had problems. He couldn't work. He was like a boy in a man's body. He needed her - but in many ways she needed him. Her friends didn't understand - why would she bother with him? She had the respect of so many - a great woman - a wonderful teacher. I understood.
We're shaped by what we lived....The hurts, the pain, the traumas leave imprints on our heart - in our soul. I don't think they ever completely go away. Remnants linger...they stay affecting us in ways that seem so contrary to who we have become.
I don't want my past to pull me down anymore. I don't want what I lived to keep me from living my life in complete freedom. I don't want to be ashamed of how far I had fallen.....how bad it had been. My friend told me if people know just how bad it was - they'll understand hope and grace. And if they understand - maybe they'll reach for their own freedom.
"Help your brother's boat across and your own will reach the shore" Hindu Proverb
I never thought writing this blog would really affect anyone. I wrote because I needed to write - I needed to tell without being seen - Then that blogger reached out to me, told me how dark her world is - reminded me of that hopeless and dark place that I somehow had survived from - I thought of friends who hadn't survived - friends who took their own lives, too overwhelmed with the pain. And then I asked for prayer for her and the kindness of your response showed me the power of the blog. You guys are the abolute best.
I knew you would pray. I knew you guys would come through and you did. Thank you.
Update: I asked if she would be willing for others from my blog to contact her to offer help or to possibly direct her somewhere in her area for help. She said yes. She lives in Pennsylvania. If anyone wants to contact her please contact my blog and I will give her the info.
"Hunger is not only for a piece of bread, but for love. Homelessness is not only not having a home, but for being rejected and unwanted." Mother Theresa
For years I walked around with a profound sense of homesickness, an inner ache, a desperate yearning to go home. I felt it deep inside my gut and for years, I couldn't shake that twisting knotting in the pit of my stomach. Nothing took it away, - not relationships, not material things, not drugs, - nothing. I think now it was a hunger, a ravenous hunger for love and acceptance.
Everything I had been taught, told me I was nothing, worthless, bad. Images constantly rolled over in my head of my father spitting at me when he was in his rages, calling me names - garbage, retarded, worthless, - picking up furniture and throwing it at me, punching and slapping me and telling me it hurt him more than it hurt me; .....my mother beating me with a stick, teasing me, telling me I was stupid, an idiot, I couldn't talk right, walk right, breath right....I often wondered what was wrong with me that they hated me so much.
I wandered the streets, shooting dope, sometimes three and four times a day. I didn't care. My friend who I shot up kept telling me I wasn't shooting to get high, I was shooting to kill myself. He was right. I believed I had no right to exist.
One day I was in a fire. It was my fault. I accidently dropped the lit match I used to heat up the dope. My dog saved me. She grabbed me with her teeth and pulled me onto the balcony. A cop who had been looking out for me, heard what happened and came to see me at the hospital. He bought me clothes and when I was discharged, rented a place for us to move into together. He tried to help me. He told me over and over he loved me but I couldn't feel it. I didn't understand what he was saying. The amount of self-loathing I had was stronger than his love.
While I was with him, I was pulled into the rapist's house. He held me there for six months. He told me he loved me but he wouldn't let me go. And he hurt me. He hurt me really badly. Somehow I survived. I don't know how but I did. I never told anyone what happened or where I had been. I thought I deserved it. I thought it was my fault.
Then God touched me; cut through the pain, broke the chains holding me so tight. He took away the drug addiction but not the deep ache inside. That didn't go away. I couldn't let people get close. They would see what I knew, - they would see how worthless I was.
God never gave up on me. His love was so gentle. Some days I didn't care if He killed me. On those days when I felt wild, out of control, - when I ripped razor blades down my arms, or punched my head to make the memories stop, or held my head over the toilet throwing up over and over and over because I didn't believe I had the right to eat or live, - He was there, beside me, waiting. He never let me go. He waited. He stayed. Some days, I begged Him to kill me, to let me go but He didn't. He waited patiently. He waited until I was ready.
I live with gratitude, - gratitude that God didn't listen to me, that He let me live, that somehow He freed me.
I owe my life to Him. He broke through the emptiness and the pain and helped me to feel His love. I feel it. I feel it all the time. That feeling of homesickness is gone. That sense I'm worthless, garbage, - gone.
I want to help other people find freedom. I want them to know what I found out, that there is hope and there is freedom and God's love can break through anything and redeem it. Most of my friends have no idea what I lived. I don't want them to know but something inside me is compelling me to tell, - I think it's my love for God, my gratitude to Him. I need to tell.
