On not being a coward anymore

The first song has been in my mind most of the evening. What about the Love? Where is it when we condemn those who sin just like we do but who used to have to live in shadows, kept hidden from our society?
  We know what it feels like, as God has been taken out of so much. Yet right now we don't have to hide, we have that freedom still (though it is threatened), and we are just as lost as they are. Our hypocrisy is right there for all to see, our hatred, just because you can now see them being supported. We are digging a deeper hole that very well could lead to us being forced into hiding (like in other countries), as the world sees us more and more for our despise and not for our Love. No wonder we are being persecuted here in America. No wonder people are fighting to remove anything that has to do with God from schools and businesses. We've made a mess of things and now God is being removed from the public. We know what it means to fight for a basic right, and we've forgotten that so many in other countries have it much worse when it comes to being a Christian. So when we see someone fighting for the same thing, to be allowed out of the shadows, out of the basement of society, why are we kicking them back into hiding? If they see our love, they won't be as likely to join those trying to take Christianity out of America. If you want to bring morals and values back to our country, you are not going to succeed until you go among those who have threatened it and use God's love to guide them onto a better track.
  Didn't we go through this last generation? Did we forget already how wrong they were?
   I used to think like other Christians did, that these people really can cure themselves - until I noticed tendencies in the preschools my mom worked in, with their parents going "no, you want to play with the cars and not the dolls. (or the other way around.) I followed them as they grew and the feelings never changed, but their pain grew worse because they knew what was coming - being kicked out of clubs, kicked out of youth group, some were kicked out of their own homes.  I have had too many friends, as well as current and former students, who have had those who mean the most in their lives turn their back on them when that support is needed the most. They cry out because they cannot help how they are. They've tried to be how their families expected them to be. Some have prayed for years to be "fixed." These are people, hurting, people like you and me. But we have Hope. We are to be light, welcome them into it, show them the Love of our Lord Jesus.  Does it mean you have to accept their way of life? No! It just means you accept them as a person who wants to not have to hide. A person who hurts and needs God's love and to know that God accepts them - they are just like us... broken. You might not be able to change who they are, but you can change where they are going now and after death. And bit by bit we can bring America back.
   There is so much "boycott this because of an image, write to x because of it." If life was being lost (abortion) or we are losing a vital right, sure I am going to speak up!  If you don't like the content of a commercial, mute it and walk away. An ad in a magazine? You can turn the page. Denying your spouse or child something to help them because the main company has one of those ads? It comes across as petty.
   I understand fully what some of the fuss is about, but honestly don't get the constant whining over the rest of it. I just see people who have been trampled on and who now are grouping up to be lifted. Of course, there are extremists who are purposely finding businesses to sue. There are extremists on "our side" too (Westboro comes to mind.) What there needs to be is more of God's love. It takes strength to provide it, to not look down.  It takes wisdom to look through the Bible and see what no longer has to exist, to see what Christ wanted of us, to not take a single line of a verse and use it without seeing the whole picture.
I expect a shorter "friends" list after this post, but I have been getting aggravated by what I've seen by so many other Christians here and I got tired of hiding how I feel. I got tired of being a coward and feeling ashamed every time I was hanging around my bisexual best friend. I lean on Christ every day to get me through. "I Need Thee Every Hour," that song is my mantra. I prayed about this post, thought long about it, asked God to put in my heart what to say. His answer was "What About the Love" and oh did we have a conversation about this while I was sewing. Wrote this hours before it was posted, going over it with Owen, walking off and coming back to it. What you read is basically His answers to my questions.
#loveoneanother, #AllSinIsEqual, #realChristians, #LoveisaVerb, #LoveWins

On Shadows and Shades

You saw it all over the place in the past months. People going back and forth on #pullingbacktheshades versus those who really cannot see 50 Shades of Grey for what it is - a book glorifying relationship violence and a controversial "lifestyle." I read a lot of these posts and their comments, shared a few, prayed a lot for the hearts of women and men to be protected if they did read the book or saw the movie. I heard of people coming out of the film almost in shock at the violence. Honestly, if it wasn't a rich person doing those acts, would people still be praising the story?

Time to get a bit personal. Eleven years ago I went through a divorce. I had been married for 3.5 years to a man I had been a relationship with for two years before that. While I knew he had bad traits and that I was "settling" and thinking he could improve, I was very... very wrong. Within 9 months he had me lying to everyone about what happened in that house, finances, with friends, all of it. He was a master of manipulation and knew just how to get me to return to him when I'd try to back away. When his "brother" moved in, I was already under the strain of the verbal and emotional abuse. He brought drugs into the house and I nearly lost my job and teaching license over it. Not that I could do anything about it, as he was already angry because I had been on antibiotics (making birth control less effective), he had assaulted me in a drug and alcohol filled moment, and I had become pregnant. Thankfully, I miscarried two weeks after we found out.  When I stood up for myself and spoke back to him about the drugs, I spent three days locked in a room. My best friend flew out to Colorado right afterward and spent eight days pointing out all he was saying and doing. The blinders came off on day three. I left him four days after she went back to NJ.But it left me with flashbacks, nightmares of what he had done to me, the feeling that I had failed because I couldn't "fix" him- all of it...even though I had fledgling independence now. I submerged myself into music and books... unhealthy books at that. A year later, we moved back to the east coast. I was living in a camper on my brothers' property and had started through the Chronicles of Narnia and then the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. When I returned to my fantasy series, something snapped in my mind. I started to feel horrible, like my mind had been run through a mud puddle. I couldn't get scenes out of my head. Right then and there, I put the books down and never picked them back up again.

Fast forward to now. Much as I want to avoid the topic, the storm surrounding the release of the movie was in overdrive. Battle lines had been drawn for the minds and souls of women and men. It is kind of scary that, out here by UVA, we are in the middle of a storm over rape and the mistreatment of young women... yet there they are filling their minds with the most unhealthy concepts. I read one article where the woman went through the book, a woman with a story like mine, and found 50 scenes of abuse - all before she made it midway through the second book. She posted the sentences and surroundings. Just that article was enough to start the flashbacks over again. The scenes she posted burned into my mind and went on repeat. Reading the comments to her article, hundreds of women felt the same way.

It seeps into everything, you know? Everything. I am a gamer and I work very very hard to keep my guildmates safe. They chose me to be their leader. They entrust me with the stories and boundaries and I do all I can to not betray them. But this kind of evil runs far and wide.  Let me set the stage: A young woman in a complicated relationship and a complex friendship has a visitor to where she lives. This visitor is a former instructor from when she was at a university. She trusts this woman, has listened to her in the past and knows the instructor cares about her. However, as they talk and the young woman tells her elder about her situation, the elder starts to make comments about darker ways to take control. She asks if sexually explicit actions have ever been taken, then says it is a shame and she was missing out on so much. The young woman isn't even sexually active with the two people she is discussing - but that doesn't seem to matter. The elder feels she needs to learn how to be more of a leader, to be more dominant and she knows just the way to do so. She encourages the young woman to stay near her for a time and "learn."  Do you see where this is going? Right there, over the weekend, concepts which were in that book (bdsm) was spewed across digital text inside the safe environment I had worked so hard to build. Those two who were in this complex situation saw it, were in bits of the conversation, and we were shocked. Nothing is sacred. I had to dig in my heels, put the story on pause, and verbally make my point very very clear that this was forbidden. Oh, I was accused of so much... especially of not being "tolerant" or "open-minded." My guildmates were in shock over the whole thing. One became angry at me for salvaging the scene by using something the person said, in a different context, as a way to divert the conversation. Me? It did the same as before, just those concepts the elder brought forward to my young woman, the violence to "teach how to be dominant" burned into my mind. I shuddered.

How can we, Christian or not, keep ourselves - and those we hold dear - from abuse, being stalked, coerced to do what we don't want to if we keep glorifying it? How do you clear your mind after being exposed to something that makes you want to vomit? How can you undo damage after it has invaded a safe place you worked so hard to build? It is very hard, as I am learning.

#pullingbacktheshades, #roleplaysafety, #shadesofabuse,

On the Long "Season"

It has been a long month, considering we had such a "short" time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Amazing what just a few days can do right? No. It was long and somewhat painful.

Each year, since I was a teenager, there has been some mental struggle during Christmas. That reality of early Christians ignoring the blatantly obvious calendar of events of just a few hundred year prior and doing what was "cool." They bent to the will of what was popular or what would turn the most heads at the time. Ancient social media at work you might say. The choice to take a series of "pagan" holidays and twist them a bit to make them into the day chosen to celebrate Christ's birth. Did you know that I look for when the Jewish high holidays start and wish Him a Happy Birthday?

Anyways, what goes around comes around. For a time, it worked. Those holidays blended as word grew of Christianized versions of the trees and other beloved items. For hundreds and hundreds of years, Christmas was just that - the celebration of when Christ was supposedly born, and so so many just went along with it. But now look at what has happened? Santa Claus, his original history buried under a fairy tale arrives, and parents wince. We put ourselves in debt for months to come so the "giving season" can teach our children about getting. Me, me, me! Fights at the stores for items people want for themselves and not for others. Items for families who have so much, while those with nothing sit in the shadows and cry out. Out of guilt, some with throw a bone of a jacket or food, but rarely with their heart. They turn their backs until the next winter when the consumerism catches up to them again and one corner feels a little twinge once more.

Christ is left by the wayside until Christmas Eve when thousands pack into churches for their twice a year fix. It eases more of the guilt for all the things they bought, people they ignored, logic thrown by a case of the "wants."
Christmas has once again returned to its pagan roots.

We let it happen. We allowed ourselves to be dragged in by our wealth, for even us who are struggling financially still have more than over 90% of the world. We are free to choose a TV sale on Thanksgiving day over being truly thankful, and it drags on from there.
I heard a woman in Target say she was tired of Christmastime. Well, we allowed the stores to put up decorations in October and drag the "season" out. We go from Halloween to Christmas and ignore being thankful in the middle...

It bothers me, even as I fight being part of it, even as I look to what I can give to those in need and what I can make instead of buy. I have a long way to go, but each year brings progress in breaking free from the cycle.

This year I was in NJ before Christmas instead of after. While there, with a new Christmas CD in the player (a rare treat) I heard lyrics that smacked me upside my head and left me in tears every time I drove from one relatives house to the next. Christmas used to be so beautiful here. Mornings with my parents, afternoons with moms side of the family - all in one place- then evenings with dads side of the family - also all in one place. Fireplaces, hams, kids taking turns opening presents and all being thankful. I watched videos this year of everyone opening everything at once and thankfulness being lost in the hollering back and forth. In seconds it was over. I remember it taking us hours to get through it all. Slow, beautiful, nothing huge or super expensive, joy on faces, lots of hugs and laughter and sharing. We've lost it.... and many times this week I cried over it. Can we, as a family and as a country, get back what we've done? Can we undo this mess? Can we get back to the heart of Christmas - even if it really isn't anywhere close to the proper day. Can we see it once again as the day chosen to celebrate the ultimate gift coming down to be a infant born in squalor? Will we ever be a people who give to those who need it all the time, instead of just when a holiday hints that it is what we should do?
I don't know... but it weighs on my heart and I hope yours too. Come, make the change with me.

Candles in the window, 

Shadows painting the ceiling,

Gazing at the fire glow, 

Feeling that gingerbread feeling,

Precious moments, special people,

Happy faces, I can see

Somewhere in my memory, 

Christmas joys all around me,

Living in my memory, 

All of the music, all of the magic

All of the family, here with me

On Forgiveness (Part 2)

There is something strange about my childhood. From around age six until age ten, I have practically no memories at all. From ten until twelve, they are scattered. My brain woke up three days shy of my twelfth birthday. The day my grandmother died.

He had been around for a couple of years by then, but there are only shadows of him sitting at a Thanksgiving table or at the Nintendo. But my mind vividly remembers the second night of my grandmoms viewing. He stayed behind at the house with me and we built with my new Lego set. We started to talk and connections were made.

Fast forward a couple of years and there are memories of sitting on a desk or bed and hours upon hours of talking and listening. I did a lot of the listening side. It lead to a lot of learning too. Music was shared, lyrics learned, logic skills tested to the brink, all of those memories were there. A lot were good and I yearned for more time talking to him. There were bad ones too. He had a temper and I sometimes got in the way. However, over time I learned how to diffuse the emotional bomb... I learned diplomacy between him and his grandparents.

A couple of years after that and there are a trio of upper teenagers sitting at a table playing blackjack and a middle teenage girl learning really quickly how to keep a straight face when crude jokes fly. There were walks outside and hours talking at the side of a old pickup truck. There were secrets, sometimes trouble with the other cousins, more music and a lot of hugs. I mediated between him and other family members sometimes. But we always had laughter.

Then he asked the biggest favor of my life. Would I stand in the middle for his daughter. Would I promise to be there for her. She hadn't even been born yet and it was the night before his wedding. We were on the couch and tears had just been shed. I was only fifteen, but I knew exactly what he was asking. And I have spent the last 20 years doing just that. But it tore us apart...

Far apart.

I advocated for her and what was right for her, spoiled her, listened to her, and disagreed with just about every member of the family over her at one point or another. He and I argued. He acted in ways I despised. One day the line was crossed one too many times and I severed contact. For the first time since memory, I wanted nothing at all to do with him. And it lasted... for four years. It was a burden too, because of his daughter, mother and grandmother. However, it kept going.

But time scabs over wounds, and if you don't pick at it, those wounds heal. It was December, and I just crossed the bridge into NJ and stopped to call his grandmother to say I was an hour out. He picked up the phone. A few words were exchanged and I hung up. He called back a few minutes later, saying we needed to talk. So, I pulled the car over and we did. And the next day I went to where he was living and visited again. But communication didn't continue past that. Then, just a few weeks ago, I was in NJ again. He was at his grandmothers doorstep minutes after I arrived and we visited three different times. Forgiveness, on both sides, really happened. I was there, on the bed again, talking and listening - just like old times. It felt good, real good. The weight was lifted. No, it won't ever be the same... but for now, it is a start in the right direction.

Forgiveness. One word with such power.

On Finding Freedom in Our Stories - an (in)courage post

It has been a crazy two months and more has happened than a simple blog post can express. I am sorely behind on putting my thoughts into words, but here is an attempt...

May arrived and, along with it, more pain. There was physical pain from an elbow which refused to respond to therapy and bracing. It ended up needing surgery, which happened at the end of the month.There was also pain from a shoulder torn up over years of sublocations and the warning of needing another procedure. There was emotional pain over seeing a husband struggle through depression caused by brain damage. Yearnings and trials with helping him recover and barely seeing any progress. Mental pain from the above and knowing there are people longing for me to finish my second novel, but the words just refuse to come. Becoming a co-leader of a (in)Courage group wasn't going so well. The women were not responding much to posts and the other leader was in her own struggles and couldn't help as much. I felt like a failure. It all was overwhelming.

In the midst of the pain, though, there was a hint of light. I had met a woman named Shirley. She believes in the Lord, prays to Him, reads His word and knows much of it. But there is a sad twist in that belief, that "religion" which pulls away from faith. However, we decided to learn each others common ground. We took a Bible study from her religion and used my Bible to go through the scriptures related to it. Each Wednesday afternoon we dug into our hearts and started to tell our stories. She loves my garden and is fascinated with how I try to manage my genetic condition. She has an autoimmune issue and her new doctor was having her try some of the things I've done for years. Me? I was loving having someone next to me that I could talk to and share with. She is so compassionate and I can see she has a heart for people a mile wide. She brought friends over sometimes and Community was starting to be built here at the house. The same place I sometimes feel trapped. I know we will soon get to a point where we collide. Some things her religion follows is far fetched and those I grew up around, the conservative Christian community, call it a cult. Until then, I rejoice in our similarities and will forever love that bit of freedom we have in telling our stories every Wednesday.

Another light was much bigger and it came with my surgery. I had asked the other (in)courage leaders to pray for my surgery and recovery. The post mentioned my Ehlers-Danlos and a woman stepped forward the next day. Jenni was in the midst of getting her daughter diagnosed with the same condition and it was also believed that she herself has vascular EDS. We bonded instantly and she was quick to show me a online support group for those with EDS and related conditions. Through her and the new group, I learned more about my condition in a week than in the past four years! Through our stories I heard of easy home therapies which I started immediately and found great success. Recovery from surgery was easier and the wound healed properly, because I learned from that groups leaders how to properly care for it. Jenni and I found freedom in our stories. We now have our own little group with her, I and another wonderful woman whose son seems to have EDS too.

Freedom happens when we step out. This is what I have learned in the last two months. I pushed myself to try community again. Prayed for doors to open so God could push me into what I had been digging my heals on. Now, I am feeling the urge to take the next step... to try to find a church again. This scares me more than anything. Since the start of adulthood, my experiences in a church setting have been mainly negatives ones. There will be a lot I will need to look past so that a bit more light and a bit more community can be found. Perhaps more freedom while sharing our stories will be the end result. We shall see.

#(in)courage, #community #freedominstory, #Ehlers-Danlos, #EDS,

On Encouragement... an (in)courage post

It was a handful of years ago when I stumbled upon a blog of a woman who had just gone through burying her newborn. I was in the grieving process, as we had been finding out that having a child was improbable. It wasn't just my husbands genetically linked metabolic disorder we were now factoring in. I had been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos and an autoimmune condition. I read as she went through the process, learned from the comments of others, and had a better understanding of what I was feeling.

It was around that same time that the woman, Angie Smith, started to talk about (in)courage. I was curious. My own blog was just getting started and I quickly became fascinated by these other women bloggers. I signed up for the weekly email, but quickly found a set of “favorites” which I checked up on near daily. Their willingness to open their lives to the rest of us was a salve in my own broken world: the good, bad, ugly, beautiful, amazing, mundane, hurt and healing. It seemed that nothing was held back. Through those posts I learned more about the heart, the community, and the little things which makes this world so wonderful. This place for women, a place where we can be safe and learn from each other – cling to each other, was needed.

However, I shied away when the first Facebook group sessions started. Community has burned me time and time again. The thought of stepping out when I had just been rejected by former co-workers was too much. Being a hermit was good, wasn't it? Besides, I had a growing group of online gamers to relate to... But they didn't understand the hurt. They couldn't know my husband was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and I was on the verge of disability. They were not women who could open up and spill out the pain without being rejected. So I thought it over as a couple of sessions went by.

It was my first novel being published which drew me into these Facebook groups, a writing one. On a whim, I joined the chronic illness one too. The writing one had me bookmarking, printing, trying for contests and learning so much! A few went from being just in the group to being on my friends list and, even though the group did not continue with (in)courage, we still keep in touch. Oh look... a bit of that scary community.

And then this past session started, and I saw a group called “Wives without Children.” By now I was in the end of that mourning process and joined because I was curious about where others were and how they perceived the loss. Quickly, it became “home.” I was encouraged, just as I was helping those younger than myself to understand what they were feeling. At the same time, I joined “Refuge in the Storm” and it turned to my safehouse. We were a small group, but we understood each other very well. Gods grace surrounded us and I knew this is where I would stay.

So, what is the point of all of this? We all are hurting, we all need encouragement, we all need a place to shelter, to learn but feel safe at the same time. We all need community, to be wrapped in a hug (or in this case a virtual hug). (in)courage is the most amazing online community for women. The Facebook groups do not require a lot of time, but are a wonderful place to belong. That word right there, just jabbed at me... belong. Yes, finally, a community where I belong. You really should pull up a chair and come on in too. Registration for the summer sessions start today and there are 70 different groups now! From military wives to parenting with special needs children, to empty nesters to single moms, to those waiting for marriage to writers and to those chronically ill and so much more!

Come on over at: http://www.incourage.me/community/incourager-groups or just hang with the crew at incourage.me 

#incourager #incourage #onlinecommunity #forwomenonly

On Peace

Peace is:
Sitting on the porch
Fingers running through fur
Warm dog by my side

Peace is:
Laying on the grass
Blue sky above me
Green surrounding me

Peace is:
Dirt under my fingernails
Seeds full of hope
Promise in a small sprout

Peace is:
Music full of inspiration playing
Songs of the wild birds as they watch
Sounds of the hidden insects

Peace is:
Knowing in my heart
Standing there in nature
We were not an accident

Peace is:
Arms stretched out
Voice singing
Heart lifted

(from a lover of all nature)