The Alabaster Jar January 29, 2008

Its been said God
that you put all my tears in your bottle……
that you catch each one gently in your hand,
careful not to let one drop,
whether with my groaning I drench my couch with my tears,
or the ones that silently fall…..

You whisper into my spirit,
you hear my prayers,
the hushed ones, the pleading ones, the outcry and the railings…..
And as I lay my head upon your chest, spent from the tears that flow,
I hear your heart beating for me and I know,
…..I just know.

You my Father have seen my tears
and You have promised to me your child
that my heart…..
our hearts….. you will heal,
the broken, the wounded,
the crushed in spirit and the beaten,
the bruised and battered
the lonely,
and the oppressed…..

And so my Lord, just like the woman who came to you
with her alabaster jar,
I come and kneel before you
washing your feet with my tears and with my hair I gently wipe them….
letting my tears cleanse your feet…. and my soul…..kissing your feet…..worshipping you,
and with my alabaster jar of fragrant oil
I anoint my Saviors feet

The fragrance permeating the room
as it bathes my soul
and as I worship
you take delight in the offering given…..

You take my face in your hands
and gaze into my eyes…..
Although I am afraid of what I will see there
I take the risk, the chance….and…..

I am broken once more

…..for in Your eyes I see
no condemnation, no disapproval,
no judgments, no displeasure

And I know that you see…..
you really see….
into my soul…

And your love….your compassion, your touch,
your kindness, your gentleness
envelops me like a warm blanket…..

and I walk away

changed…

forgiven

and

healed…

my Jesus, my Jesus….

I am free……

(copywrited)

Me and the Man in the Moon January 29, 2008

copyrighted used with permission

A little girl in the back of a car,

in a safe, mechanical womb.

Look out the window and see him follow,

he’s the man in the moon.

        

Tell him your story; watch him hear,

as the car travels round the bend.

He follows along, casting a glow,

you might even think him your friend.

       

A dark Southern night, crickets call,

a heron glides through the sky.

The moon and the stars say that you’re real,

your heart weeps a small, silent cry.

      

The dragonfly’s real, as he hovers beside;

See his gossamer wings?

The nightingale’s call says he’s real.

There’s substance in all of these things.

      

But you’re not so certain about yourself.

Are you real or a fairytale dream?

A wisp of a thought wrapped and hidden away,

in a place that’s so still and serene.

      

Time passes by and you seem to be lost,

others have hurt you, I know.

You wait for so long in your silent tomb,

that the silence itself seems to grow.

     

Little girl, left behind and alone,

unseen where you’re hidden away;

little girl, it’s safe there inside the warm cave,

so that’s where you need to stay.

      

Time passes by, time stands so still,

you become one with the warm, earthen walls.

The warmth and the dark hide you within,

not even the lone heron calls.

        

Jellyfish wounds threaten your soul,

see how the scars slowly go?

You’re alright and you matter much,

though these things you don’t quite yet know.

      

Cry all your tears and then dry your sweet eyes,

hope rises with the moon. 

The warm Southern sky whispers to you,

you’re going to be free soon.

Yes, you’re going to be free soon.

       

The moon casts a glow, lighting the way,

the woods invite you to dare.

The mountains echo a song from above,

that the world needs you to share.

       

You’re so far away, as if long forgotten,

But, we’re coming back for you soon.

We haven’t forgotten, yes, we’re here for you now,

me, and the man in the moon.

            

D’vorah bat Avi ‘ad

The Things we do for Pain January 27, 2008

We get drunk to numb the pain.  We get high to forget the pain.  But when we sober up the pain is there waiting for us.  We eat compusively to cover up the pain.  We throw up and eat more because when we stop the pain is still there.  We push the pain away.  We deny it.  We belittle it and fool ourselves away from feeling it.  We feel nothing.  We are empty.  We are numb.  We slice and cut our flesh to focus the pain.  We pick, bruise, and bite ourselves.  We pull out our hair.  We spend money.  We shop.  We gamble.  We go into debt to push away the pain.  We hide from love to protect our hearts from suffering more pain.  We accept less, we expect less, we settle for less to assuage the pain.  We look for love, we long for acceptance, we seek after glory because we fear the pain.  We fear that if we for one moment give our hearts a voice we will be lost in it.  We will be overtaken in the waves and we will lose our very soul. 

We have forgotten our Savior.  We have forgotten that He has promised to hold us up and guide us through.  We must believe that we can feel and not get lost.  That He is faithful to love and faithful to strengthen and that in the end He will wipe away every tear from our eyes.    

Where was God in the middle of my shame? January 26, 2008

Continuing on from the post Why Me….. after I received the gift of the figurine and the card my friend gave me it made me take a long, honest look at myself and allowed me to begin to grieve all that I’d lost as a child and teenager.

Where was God in the middle of my shame? For years I would not ask that question, partly because I was afraid of the answer, and partly because I was not willing to look into the hidden parts of my childhood.
The hidden parts of a little girl whose mind and body was assaulted and whose soul violated.
The hidden parts that a woman kept hidden behind huge walls of self-contempt and shame.

In the months to follow my pain and anguish began to overwhelm me as I sank deeper into depression. As I watched my husband and friends stand by me wanting to help but unable to reach me, and as my daughters wondered why their mom couldn’t smile anymore, I knew I needed help.
I called my Pastor at the time and asked to see him. That day in his office and in the months to follow all the band-aids came off.
I learned that my depression was a mask covering up the real struggles of my soul. A mask becomes a band-aid; it covers up the hurt but brings no real healing. Band-aids trap our hurt behind protective coverings rather than allowing the light of exposure to start the healing process. My wounds needed to be exposed to the healing touch of Jesus Christ.
My journey involved bringing my wounded heart before God. A heart that was full of rage overwhelmed with doubt, bloodied and bruised, rebellious, stained and lonely.
The path involved the risk of putting into words the condition of my inner being and placing those words before God for His response.
You see I thought that when I became a Christian at the age of 21 God had saved me from that day on. And so I cut off all the stuff that had happened to me before that time. But I came to understand that God is omnipotent and omnipresent. When He heals us He’s not just healing us from the day we accept Him and only from that day forward; He’s healing us from our past up till today as well.
He heals our yesterdays as if they were today, because there is no yesterday for Him.

So I took the risk and asked God, “Why me? How could you let this happen to me?”
It was then in my Pastor’s office, in prayer, that God gave me a vision. In my minds eye I saw myself as a little girl being molested. And then I saw Jesus, standing there with tears pooling in His eyes…. I turned away, ashamed…. How could a Holy God look upon me like this…? How could He look upon the ugliness and humiliation I was enduring? But as I dared to look once again at His face I saw something that to this day I will never forget…..I saw something I’d never seen before…. Indignation…..His righteous anger aroused by the injustice, the wrongness, and the evil of what was happening to me. He wasn’t angry with me but at the evil that was happening. It was a Holy indignation and a Holy compassion mixed together.

And then the vision was gone…..and I wept…. no one had ever given me the gift of such a beautiful compassion, no one had ever sorrowed over the evil perpetrated against me, it wasn’t pity- it was love. His love penetrated my heart that day and began to heal my broken, fragmented heart.

I came to understand that God had given all mankind the freedom to choose His way or satan’s way. We are not robots programmed to respond only one way, but we are human, each with a will and free to make our own choices.
Some, for whatever reason would choose evil over good. Very simply I had been the victim of someone else’s wrong choice.
Eventually I recovered enough to stop screaming, “why” and begin to gently ask, “who are you, Lord?” In time I came to see God as a compassionate Father who grieved with me and who hated the rape and abuse even more than I did. Ultimately I was able to see that God is who He says He is, and that He does love me.That God accepts me, not just the woman I am today but the little girl I was at every age.
Although I cannot always understand God’s ways…..I can trust Him. I cannot expect to always be spared pain and suffering, but I can go to Him in the midst of it and find His love and comfort.

It was through the pain and hell of abuse and rape that I found His love, felt His arms around me and saw Him face to face. Through Jesus I found my healing.

Pushed To the Sidelines January 25, 2008

Marginalize: to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group.
What comes to your mind when you think of the word marginalize?

“What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always a member of a class and not as an individual person.”- Dorothy L. Sayers
“To have one’s individuality completely ignored is like being pushed quite out of life. Like being blown out as one blows out a light.” Evelyn Scott

As I begin my story today, I invite you to take a moment and allow your mind to wander through the passages of your past. Down through the shadowy passageways we identify as our history. As you ponder your past, let me ask you if a specific situation or person comes to mind that made you feel “lesser” than you are? Has anyone in life pushed you to the sidelines?

I was 8 years old and it was my birthday. I was quite a shy, little girl but this was my day, my birthday. I felt special. There was a party in my honor.
I had invited several of my girlfriends from school to my birthday party. Because we lived on a farm and my birthday was in winter, tobogganing was the game of choice. We spent hours tobogganing down our hill. Sounds of laughter could be heard as we all raced down the hill, it was a perfect day for sledding.The perfect birthday party.
Then came the time to go inside and have birthday cake and open presents. My little group of friends and I trotted into the house, mitts and toques flying in every direction once we were in the door. Anticipation of cake and ice cream foremost on our minds. Pretty packages with ribbons awaited me to be opened.

Giggles and chatter filled the warm kitchen. My uncle could be a playful sort of man when he was in the right mood, and today was one of those days. It was my birthday after all, so this fun side of him felt like a gift to me, it added to the celebration. I was happy and beaming.
He began playing and joking with us and soon had all the girls in a circle-playing ring around the rosy. I stood on the sideline for only a moment watching and laughing before I decided to innocently join in the game by taking the hand of a friend on one side and the hand of another on the other side of me.

And then unexpectedly everything stopped, the atmosphere changed when my uncle halted the game. He looked me right in the eye and said,” get out of the circle”. I stood frozen for a moment wondering if I’d heard the words correctly, maybe he was still joking, maybe…just maybe since there was so much laughter and silliness going on seconds before. But when I saw the look in his eyes I knew I’d heard correctly. I obediently stepped back, dropping the hands of my friends, and stood outside the circle. There were a few moments of awkward, uncomfortable silence before the laughter and game resumed.

But there I stood on the sidelines watching.  I felt as if a heavy blanket had fallen over me. I felt such humiliation and shame. My own birthday party and I became the outcast, pushed to the side, marginalized. I would never forget the look of utter despising in my uncle’s eyes, and I would never know what I’d done to deserve the condemnation.
Being only 8 years old I could only assume it was because I was “me”. Was it because I wasn’t pretty enough? Smart enough? Witty enough? Nice enough? Could it be because I really wasn’t wanted or didn’t belong? I was never given an answer so as young girl I decided it was because of all the very reasons I just listed.
The game soon ended and it was time to sit around the table and have hotdogs, cake and ice cream.  I remember being quite subdued when we sat around the table.

My heart took another deathblow that day.  I smiled politely as was expected of me, not quite entering into the chatter of my girlfriends. Opening my presents and politely thanking everyone but never allowing the gifts to truly touch my soul or to find joy in the remaining festivities and fun. The smile never quite reaching my eyes. I just wanted everyone to go home so I could go and cry into my pillow. But I knew better than to show sadness or pain because if I did then I would only get yelled at or worse after the party. So I pretended.

From that day on I became an expert at being what ever was expected of me, being whomever they wanted me to be. It didn’t matter that I felt dead inside, what mattered was appearances.

I knew the unspoken rules of the family: be blind, be quiet, be numb, be careful, and be good. These rules were not written out and put on the refrigerator door these were unwritten rules. Rules that taught me to be perfect. The trouble is once you learn the rules; they are hard to forget. Even after you leave your childhood family, they stay with you, these rules are engraved in your mind.

Just like blowing out my birthday candles, in one fell swoop, in one breath, my joy had been blown away as I was pushed to the sidelines…. marginalized……my individuality ignored…. pushed out of life by the very one who should have been protecting me, cheering me on, inviting me.

It took me years to accept that I did indeed belong….that I do belong, that I have value, that I am worthwhile, that I am not too much or not enough. I had to take my wound to my Heavenly Father and ask Him to heal me….to affirm me, cherish me and love me. I had to learn to trust Him…believing that He wouldn’t suddenly stop and push me aside.

Friends, I invite you, if you have ever felt “marginalized” to pray this prayer today…. May you know and believe that our Father God longs to lift each of His beautiful daughters into His strong arms of protection…..He will never push you aside. When we come to Him with deep concerns He never silences us. When we risk telling Him our most immediate thoughts and fears He does not patronize or brush us aside…. because He is God and not man. It is in God that we ultimately find our true worth…..

God of the Night”
“God of flowing skirts and tender eyes, you fill the dark places of my life with power and compassion. In your presence I am a child, naked and vulnerable. Yet you find me, and your strong hands lift me into your presence. You are as large and indecipherable as the night, yet as near and touchable as a mother’s hand. When you lift me, I am suspended in the midst of that night; but your eyes as well as your hands hold me, and my fear is contained in your tender compassion. As the stars twinkle with delight, your love clothes my nakedness with joy. God, you are so enormous and so full of power. Once I thought that your grasp might destroy me and that your voice would be like thunder. Yet you stoop to earth and open yourself to my presence. You speak in tones that I can hear and hold me safely in your presence. God of the night, I praise you.”
The Reverend Elizabeth T. Wade

The Love Shield January 22, 2008

My mom has a love shield.  It’s the most intricate contraption you could ever imagine.  I think about her spending her life sitting in a corner, surrounded by her narcissism and her happy self-messages, adding convoluted contrivances to her love shield.  With its whirring gears and rotating levers, her love shield is designed to deflect all forms of true Love.  It is amazingly effective.  Her love shield has finely tuned filters that keep out all but a few messages.  The only messages allowed in say ‘you are right, as usual’, ‘you always know what’s best’, and ‘people know how good you are’.  These messages sound nice, but they’re not true Love.  These messages aren’t what she needs, but what she needs she cannot hear.  When faced with true Love, I’ve seen Mom lie, storm out, hang up, and run away.  I’ve watched her literally put her fingers in her ears and yell, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!  I’M NOT LISTENING!!”

            I know this because I Love my mother.  In my imagination I walk over to my mom and pick her up like a small child.  I hold her in my arms and smooth her hair.  I promise her that everything is going to be alright, that I will take care of her.  In my waking dream, I see her for who she is and she sees, really sees me.  I hold out my heart full of true Love to her and she takes it.  My Love makes her strong and God puts his arms around us, one arm around her shoulder and one arm around mine.  He looks down at us, draws us close and smiles.

            Now that I know about love shields, I see them everywhere.  Babies are born without love shields, but few adults lack them.  The woman who talks too long and too fast has a love shield.  She keeps her listeners so lost along the path of her words that they are too confused to understand her message and make a true connection.  The man who works too much and comes home grumpy has a love shield.  More than anything, he fears that if he gives his family the chance to really know him, to really be with him, they might Love him.  I see teenagers carrying love shields.  Some even literally cover their hair, their clothes and their bodies with spikes.  Like barbed wire atop a security fence, the spikes say, “Keep Out!  Fear me.  Hate me.  Even laugh at me.  But whatever you do, don’t Love me!”

            I have my own love shield.  I drag it along after me like Linus’ security blanket.  Although it’s smaller and less effective than my mother’s, it’s there for me when I need it.  I use my love shield when I hear a true compliment and my head turns it into a lie.  I use it when I hear true, loving correction and my heart closes up too fast to let it in.  I use it when I read, or even memorize passages of Scripture that my spirit is not yet ready to understand.  You see, God is the most effective Love thrower of all.  He bombards me daily with true, straight, unbroken arrows of Love.  Sometimes my arm grows tired of holding up my shield.  I slip, and one of God’s arrows gets in.  I read something I’ve read a hundred times and suddenly get it.  Someone says something I’ve heard before and it miraculously makes sense.  I sing the same old song and the words unexpectedly jump off the page at me with a whole new meaning.  That’s God’s Love getting through.

            Because I am a practical person, I realize that I’ll probably have my love shield until I die.  But I am actively working to destroy it.  My hope is that by the time I leave this life my love shield will be so chipped, so abused, so cracked and so small that it lies neglected in a corner covered with dust.  I’ll gladly leave my love shield behind me here on earth.  I won’t need it anymore.

Walking with God January 20, 2008

When I was a little girl one of my favorite Bible stories was the one about Enoch.  There’s not much really written about him, no more than a line or two.  But those scant phrases lit a fire in my imagination that never went out.  Enoch walked with God and he was no more because God took him.  Imagine.  To have a relationship with your Creator such that the Inventor of the universe would bend the rules of life and death to be with you.  To set off one day and just never come back.  I’ve wondered often about it.  What was so Special about Enoch? — how did he get so good at praying? – what was his spiritual secret?  

I’m starting to realize that I’ve had the story all wrong.  It’s not a story about a special man, but a story about a special God.  A God who loves to be with us.  A God who makes Himself accessible — makes it easy even, to find Him and to share our lives with Him.

I’ve been learning to walk with God.  To listen for His voice.  Here’s how it looks for me.  I quiet my thoughts.  The usual clutter that skips around in my brain:  what bills need to be paid? how am I going to get that project done at work?  I think we’re almost out of milk — I let that settle down without feeding it.  And then I’m still.  I ask God to come and I wait for Him.

When my mind wanders off again as it inevitably does I pull it back and I try again.  I’m often distracted during this time with self-destructive thoughts and negative habits.  Refusing those cravings brings to light the pain that was hiding underneath them.  I let myself feel it.

God often comes for me in a feeling deep in my stomach.  A warmth and a feeling of peace radiates through me.  I talk.  I listen.  I draw closer.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.  How do you walk with God?

How to Tell January 17, 2008

My mom was careful to hurt me in ways that did not show.  During those years we attended church three times a week.  We sat on our pew with clean clothes, neatly combed hair, and Sunday morning smiles.  Mom was an enthusiastic Sunday school teacher.  She was eccentric, but accepted.I was surprised when one day she made a mistake.  She hurt me in a way that was as plain as the nose on my face.  One day, in a fit of rage, she pinned me down and rubbed all the skin off my nose and cheeks.  The wound was large and the wound was obvious.  They could Tell.The long looks I took in the mirror removed any lingering doubt.  Someone would notice.  Someone would ask.  That knowledge filled me with an indescribably twisted mixture of hope and terror.We went to church as usual and of course we pretended my wound wasn’t there.  And like the emperor’s new clothes, when we pretended, everyone else did too.  Everyone pretended except for my youth minister.  I’ll call him John.John pestered me about my nose.  He ignored all my brush-offs and dodged all my lies.  He told me it didn’t look like I fell.  He told me bumping into a door couldn’t possibly do that.  He told me he wanted to know.  He wanted the truth.  He begged me to tell him.So for the first time in my life, I Told.  I Told everything.  John inhaled with a short, swift breath.  Then he was quiet for a long time.  A look of curiosity flashed across his face, then confusion, and finally he smiled.”Good”, he said.  “You probably deserved it!” When John walked away that day I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.  I Believed him.  More than two decades passed before I ever Told again.

Prayer blocks January 14, 2008

Why is it so hard to pray?

The typical excuses apply.  He already knows.  Why bother Him?  He’s too busy.  I’m too busy.  But for wounded hearts there’s something more.  Our struggle with intimacy also (or maybe especially) applies to our relationships with God.  When someone we trust violates our trust we initiate measures to protect ourselves.  Accusations take root deep within us.  Accusations against other people, against ourselves, against God.  Peace dissolves.  We prepare for the worst.  Our prayers, if we pray at all are cynical lists of demands and complaints.  Fodder for a large, impersonal ’suggestion box’ in the sky.

Yet kept alive within our hearts a courageous voice cries out for something more.  To share ourselves without fear.  To know.  To be known.  To emerge from the complicated system of devices we’ve invented for the purposes of relating and interacting.  To be ourselves and not to be alone.

Why Me? January 11, 2008

Why Me?

This perhaps is one of the most common questions we face and ask when we begin dealing with sexual abuse. How did he/she select me? Did I convey a vulnerability to him/her? Did I appear to want/need his/her attention? Was I unknowingly seductive?

Before we explore this further let me make one statement and fact- Nobody, absolutely nobody has the right to sexually abuse a child. It doesn’t matter how your actions were “perceived” by the adult. Nobody has the right to sexually abuse or molest a child, even if the perpetrator was able to manipulate you into consenting. It is wrong and criminal for an adult to do so.

But the question remains….how and why did the perpetrator select you? Most abuse does not happen at the hands of a stranger but most often the abuse is done by someone whom the child already knows and probably trusts.
It is most likely that the abuser gave a great deal of thought to his actions and probably set up the circumstances before touching or approaching you. Here are some possible reasons why he selected you.

-Some perpetrators will use anyone/anything:
Quoting John P. Splinter: Some men are willing to use any person for their own sexual gratification-even children. This person has serious personality dysfunctions and compulsions that drive him to acts that are immoral, damaging, and criminal. If you were a sexual abuse victim, your rights were denied in a manner that was against the law. You were violated by a male driven by compulsive, deviant behavior. Do you believe this? Or are you still defending your abuser as someone who couldn’t help themselves?

-You were a child: Perpetrators do not generally look for or seek out adult women of power and status, rather they usually look for women or children who have less power than they do.

- The abuser was able to isolate you: The perpetrator was able to coerce (force, persuade, manipulate, threaten, intimidate etc) you into remaining silent and not telling on him. Or maybe he knew that nobody would come to your rescue because you were unprotected.

-You were unprotected by informed adults: Perpetrators are able to spot children who are vulnerable, defenseless, unprotected and deprived or needy. When he tunes into this he becomes alert like a predator. If your parents are in some way absent he knows he can separate you from their support. Its very common that the lack of connection or support that you didn’t have as a child set you up. And he most likely saw your susceptibility and vulnerability as you being available to him so that he could abuse you. But you must understand that even though you may have been a child that was in need of emotional connection you did not seduce him. You did not ask for the abuse and you are not responsible for the abuse.
Like a young lamb, you were separated out of the herd by an accomplished predator, you were isolated from help and then abused. As John P. Splinter says: “ The fact that perpetrators, because of their own needs and desires, were able to “read” and isolate victims does not mean that their victims were sexually open to them. Victims are children and most perpetrators are adults.”

- Children are taught to be compliant: Quoting John P. Splinter: “ little girls are usually taught to be compliant and to obey adults. Little girls are not supposed to stand up and fight. Instead, they are supposed to be protected. In fact, within this culture little girls are frequently given less latitude for overt disobedience of adults than are little boys.”

I chose to share some of these things in hope that you will be able to see why you are not responsible for the abuse. You must realize that in no way did you seduce the abuser. I hope this gives you a better glimpse into the kind of child who is often selected by adult sex offenders. He was a criminal. Even if he was your father, at that moment when he chose to abuse you, violate and molest you, he was a criminal. Whoever he may have been that abused you – he took advantage of a weaker person…..he used you for his twisted purposes.
Remember that it doesn’t really matter how he chose you, the selection process is not your issue. Its his.
As a victim you are not responsible for the adult/perpetrator who robs and steals your innocence & self-esteem.

I will stop for now and later continue on with the next why question …..why did God let this happen and where was He?