Not Alone Anymore

"We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we would cease to grow....." Leo F. Buscaglia
All that time, living on the streets, fighting to survive....alone....
Lonliness hurts. It hurts so bad. That pain - in your gut - constantly there - reminding you no one  cares  - driving your behaviour - forcing you to seek relief in things that create more hurt, more pain. Lonliness - it never left - its intense hold - its powerful grip - gnawing away inside...

Lonliness that causes a pain so intense - the only relief you can think of is death. I remember that pain...those years - an emptiness so deep....a gut wrenching despair - connected to no one - feeling utterly worthless - not good enough. No one to care if I ate, or slept, or was sick or cold or scared....
Lonliness....It hurt so bad - I wanted relief - I wanted it to end - that agonizing pain - to just go away. 

Lonliness - is a disease. It eats away at you - steals your life - leaves you feeling hopeless - always craving - desperate to be free of it.



When God touched me....He slowly filled that empty hole in my soul - that deep lonliness. He gave me friends, family - who cared...who believed in me....who challenged me to live my best life....But I fought them - pushed them away - It was so weird - what I wanted for so long, the thing I yearned for hurt more than the pain of not having it. 
     I had always dreamed it would feel so good but instead I felt this awful pain assoicated with people caring about me  - I put up walls....lots of walls. For a long time I 'knew' I wasn't worthy of their love, their care, their kindness. I thought if they really knew me they wouldn't stay - so I left and kept leaving.  
One day God whispered - Stay. Don't go. Push past the pain.  
Why did it have to hurt so much? I wanted to be belong so bad and yet I couldn't accept it for a long time. Even now , sometimes - I have to fight - to not pull away....to stay present.....To let people get close  - to let them stay.  
     I wonder how many people are really lonely - who know how to put on a front - a facade - know how to look good, but go home feeling lonely - empty - aching for someone to really care about them.......to be connected in a way that makes their life meaningful - filling the emptiness with excessive shopping, popping medications, working until they want to drop.......

     I never want to forget where I was.....how much it hurt.....I want my arm to always be extended....reaching out.....to make a difference and help others feel connected.

Life

"Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look at the stars." Henry Van Dyke

I'm glad God let me live. I'm glad He didn't let me die.

And I'm glad I'm not crippled, or sick or physically a mess because of all the things I did to my body. He let me live. And He gives me this amazing joy inside that makes me feel like I can fly.

Many times I wanted to take my own life. I tried. I popped tons of pills, overdosed shooting up, walked in front of cars, stood on the ledges of buildings, became so thin my heart could have stopped - Yet He let me live.

I shook my fist at Him, daring Him to kill me - but He wouldn't. I tempted life - ended up in crazy and dangerous situations where others could have killed me - He didn't let them.

He ran with me even when I didn't know Him. He fought for me when I was determined to live opposite to what He wanted. He saw something in me I couldn't see. I guess He knew I would live for Him if I ever let Him free me.

I keep wanting to ask why me when so many of my friends died. I won't ever know why, but I promise I will be whatever He wants. I'll do whatever He asks even if I'm afraid. I love Him. He touched me. He freed me. He broke chains that held me really tight - chains that were choking life from me.

I couldn't feel anyone's love. I couldn't accept kindness from anyone. I knew I didn't deserve it. I deserved nothing. When someone said they loved me I didn't believe them. I didn't know what they meant. I didn't trust them. In my mind, I believed I had no right to exit.

Somehow though, God broke through that. Somehow He manged to show me love that was so amazing it broke through the barrier of shame and did what nothing else could -

I'm really glad He didn't let me die. I'm really glad I know Him. I'm really glad I belong to Him.I want my life to count. I want it to count for Him.

Reason To Tell

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked: If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But the good Samaritan reversed the question: If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" Martin Luther King, Jr.

I've decided to tell the truth of what happened, - all of it. Although I still sometimes wonder if it happened or if I am making something more of it than it really was - But the pictures in my head are vivid and clear. Pictures of living on the street, crouched in dark corners shooting up, trapped and held in a house for six months and raped, punched until my spleen ruptured and .......

The scars are still there. Vi sable scars that tell me it really did happen.

The shame I carried for so long, the shame that silenced me, kept me quiet - unable to talk, unable to tell - that shame is losing it's power.

I think maybe my story can help someone overcome their demons. Maybe, it can help even one person find freedom and peace.

For years I said nothing. I wanted to forget, except I never really forgot. The flashbacks, the panic attacks, the need to hurt myself.....all reminders of what took place.

When I started writing last year, I never imagined I would want to show anyone what I wrote. Now I can't imagine not.

A few months ago, I met a writer. She read the first three chapters of the book I'm writing. She said, "you need to tell what happened. Your story needs to be told." Now she's editing the whole thing. And God amazingly led me to someone else. Someone who has become a close friend, someone who has never gone through what I did but who keeps telling me my story needs to be told.

I want to tell. I struggle thinking about everyone in my life knowing the awful details but my desire to help give hope to someone in a situation I was in, compels me to pray, "God use what I lived. Give me courage to tell."

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.