tRutH shared...with permission

GratiTuesday: Forgiveness

i give real advice

mile191 said... (fri. dec. 11)
These words grip me. I understand those feelings all too well. Wanting a better life for my children than I ever had. Walking on egg shells. They are running on them...away from me. I am my own terrorist. Self exploding. Wanting to live to die. I will think of you. We are not alone. Keep writing. Mile


i wrote this?

what a treasure to stumble upon.
yet, I feel this. We are never alone....here healing together. Hear together, listening.

Sometimes we want to die, but truth...we just want the past, the memories, the nightmares, to die.

We will outlive them.

Bless you, SuRvivOrs, one and all. Bless us <3

help wanted

i slept!

it is really exciting enough to exclamation point!!

i probably don't have to explain, but survivors often find themselves wrecked with body memories and night terror when experiencing what i felt with yesterdays situation.

so i am thrilled to say i slept.

yes, steve E. my friend :) see comments (: has been with me reading since the beginning, and thus he and many other friends here have heard me and have held my hurts with me in private places of their hearts. because you have heard me you have held me and i am healing.

i know that prayer was huge for me last night. as i prayed and kept my prayers focused on her hurts, this woman who opened up to me. i prayed for her and i felt i was also praying for many of you who stop by here, and whose places of healing and hope i tread.

i also felt a prayer for the child in me still trying to heal. i felt that i was her grown-up praying for a healing peace for her, for me. and somehow in the night i got that.

i am LDS. morman. also i enjoy Buddha and tao of pooh, and other taoisms, anything peaceful which bears witness of His peace and comfort as is available to me. i am a 12 stepper and find help and hopes there. but last night i turned my thoughts to St. Anthony.

my Great Great Great Grandmother Sarah was catholic, before joining the Mormon religion over in Ireland. yep, fiery irish catholic turned mormon. i feel her blood run thick through me. her stubborn blood. lol

St. Anthony's Feast Day is June 13, however his watchful peace can be invoked anytime. The Catholic feel that it is important to emulate this servant of God in our love helping others. He gave sermons of Christ eight centuries ago and his sermons were so inspiring that they spread throughout France and Italy for 10 years until his death.

St. Anthony of Padua (1195 - 1231), patron of the poor. People prayed to ask for help particularly to find lost or stolen items.

This is where my devotion comes in. I have a pendant and I wear it very often. My prayer for my lost, my stolen; childhood and innocence.

See, even yesterday, as I stood, apparently my frozen fear looked more like a pillar of strength to my husband. Yet, I was able to listen, and to look in her eyes, and see her own strength. She did need someone to listen to her, and I did. I didn't solve or even try to comfort, sadly. Only saying I was so sorry that she went through all that. She replied to me that she felt strong and found that she was able to handle a lot more than she ever thought. It was awful but she somehow felt protected from the destruction of it. I told her that I could see that strength in her and she seemed really empowered. She also felt that and knew that it was He who gives us all blessing that was giving her comfort. Yesterday I forgot that part. I forgot how I was able to see that in her and that I felt it too. He does that for us. They do; Our Father and Jesus Christ.

As I went to sleep last night I read some of St. Anthony's prayer. I left my pendant on. I prayed to my Heavenly Father. I slept.

St. Anthony was a member of the religious order founded by St. Frances of Assisi. He was canonized as a saint by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, calling him Ark of the Covenant. St. Anthony was known as the "hammer of heretics" for his devotion to faith.

i hope to be such a heretic for what i hope to stand strong for/against. may i have such faith.

my pendant portrays one of the miracles attributed to St. Anthony. It is that of him holding the Christ Child, as protector of the baby Jesus. The protector of Christ, who is protector of all, who is our protector, my protector. to me this is so beautiful.

This vision of St. Anthony as Christs' protector was one that he humbly asked not to be pronounced until after his death. It was not his vision, but that of others. They and he kept it private, in secret, not to be revealed in St. Anthony's lifetime. He was that awesome.

The St. Anthony prayer that I love is one that talks about him being a perfect imitator of Jesus. He followed Christ's ways and tried in all ways to be like Him. The prayer pleads for the special power of restoring lost things. For this I do not think of my childhood as much as my innocence.

may I be strong enough, i pray, to overcome the challenges of my childhood and to be blessed with a peaceful innocence.

The prayer actually says "at least restore to me peace and tranquility of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss."

Then goes on to say "to this favor I ask another of you: that I may always remain in possession of the true good that is God. Le me rather lose all things than lose God, my supreme good. Let me never suffer the loss of my greatest treasure, eternal life with God. Amen"


anyhow, i do love the ideal of St. Anthony, as an example of the life of Christ, and of the peace knowing that even Christ needed someone to watch over Him. I like to think that I would have offered to watch over Him too. Knowing that in reality all I can do is offer love and listen, it is and will never be mine to solve and resolve. ...and yes, that is primarily what we should do for each other here in this life, hear in our healing places.

I also love the truth that the power of God is to restore all things that are lost to us temporarily. We will be made whole, His grace is sufficient.



thanks for being here to hear me. :)

i thought i was better than this

pun not intended. i really did.

i thought i was well enough to be able to help people. to listen. to hear.

why is this breaking me so much?

this week i have been pondering all the E. Smart is doing to move forward. getting married, community efforts for children abused. speaking out and helping with abductions. she seems to have such a strength. somewhere here i wrote about what she was quoted saying and i knew that it was because of her faith and her family. maybe that is it....my faith lacks. idk, but i am happy for her.

this week i was thinking that it is my turn to help, maybe today was a test. maybe it was to show me if i can or can not help others heal. all i could say today was "i am so sorry for what happened to you. you seem to have such a strength." i said that.

i really meant it.

where is my strength?

B. said that to me today as the tears fell, he said, finally, "i am sorry for what happened to you" i cried worse.

i needed to hear that.

maybe i am not ready to help anyone else. i wanted to be ready.

maybe my inner child is still too broken.

maybe i am still too shattered.

i sit in a chair, weeping, still in unbelief.

my prayer is for her, this woman. may she heal and be blessed to keep up her strength. she seemed so empowered. i was happy for her.

while i was listening i felt frozen. i felt fear. i felt like it was all happening right there. to her, to me. and my children, my sons were sitting not to far from me. i wanted to scream for them to run. i didn't want them to hear what i was hearing. i saw my B. he looked at me. my mind pleaded for him to help me. please. he prompted it was time to go and turned to walk away. i felt stunned. all i could say was "please get the boys and take them" save them. i couldn't save myself.

i just stood there.

she needed someone to hear her, and i did.

i thought i was better than this.

i thought i could help others.

maybe i am not ready.

B. heard me. he said to me tonight that he heard my voice in his head say "i need your help"

but he turned to walk away. why?

i don't understand.

will anyone save me.

ever.

i know i am not that little girl. i am her grown - up

it is up to me to rescue her now.

i thought i was better.

i thought i was better than this.

today: triggers

this day, this sabbath. someone asked me how i am really doing. ...

how am i doing? really???

i suppose okay. i finally lost a little bit of grip on the rope of life, dangling over the edge, gazing below at the jagged rocks, knowing full well i can just let go and He will be there to help me fall. and really REALLY ...all will be well.

i haven't written for a while. i had a great post for January...beginnings, anew. fresh outlook, choosing happiness, and joy, because that is just it: joy is a choice. i wanted to talk about all the wonderful possibilities i was feeling ...and then life swooped in and i missed that ChaNcE to write while i had this bit of pondering, a positive pondering, even while juggling l i f e!

you would have LOVED it! and i am sorry i missed that moment. it is fuzzy but still somewhat fresh in my heart.

we found out that the growth had cancer. this time, out of a bakers dozen growths and surgeries, this one, the one i was healing from in December, had the c-word cells. my doctor was so positive that it was all going to be okay. a few days before Christmas he told me. it was my scheduled appointment.

i went alone.

it was okay. really.

i didn't feel panic, always thought i would. if it ever happened to me.

if anything i felt the compassion of a doctor that didn't overreact. sure he told me that i would be back to work the next day, after surgery in December, and we all know that was not reality. it sucked. i tried to go back to work, i work from home, a seriously spoiled stay at home mother who loves her job, but day after surgery to wake up to work and be expected to work as if i hadn't had c-word cut out of me the day before....it was rough.

anyhow, he said that i just needed to wait til February and test again. we did, and all is well. they got it early and the surrounding tissue looks healthy and LUCKY. blessed, that's the word i am focused on.

anyhow, no panic. still hanging in there, toughing it out. although truly counting blessings while hanging over the jagged rocks. and very thankful. i sound like a dichotomy.

i did find out this month that i have a hernia. that, interestingly, the hernia, is the pain i have been in probably always, or at least most of the last 20 years. which has led them to find the tumors and question why they are hurting me so much. these types of tumors usually don't hurt. well, the pain, led me to the discovery of the growths, and the removal and the keeping me from a serious type of c-word. so i am still in pain, and each pain i count my blessings.


today, this physical pain is also reflective of something deeper. today someone told me about a terrible violent act of rape that happened to her this week. she told me in such detail that i flinch again. that body memory that had been gone for so long. as she told me i stood there, safely in the foyer of church, with an unreal reel of an old movie playing in my head, where me, a young girl, lived years of the same act that she was grieving. hostage, my memory, her experience, in an instant was re-lived.

i hate that i can be so healthy for so long and it can all come crashing in, shattering me.



it is my anniversary today. my husband naturally wants to lovingly hug me and i can't even be touched. i have wept most of the afternoon; while washing salad, while shredding meat, while preparing desert and setting the table...19 years, happy anniversary dear. you would understand if you had ever been raped.