Psalm 18:14
The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit.
The most difficult part of this week has been for me,
the opening up of parts of my heart and becoming transparent.
I didn’t plan on sharing about ‘me’ or my journey.
The Lord kept pressing and as a flashlight in a darkened room,
he brought close to me the words to share.
Illuminating them so I could see them for what they were.
A story.
Maybe to help someone.
Maybe to help me.
Candid words, openly sharing secrets that have been stored so deeply.
Not all secrets can be hidden forever.
Not all secrets can be shared, nor should they be.
When our dad left, our world was changed by one decision.
How does one deal with a dad who just walks away?
Abandonment was one of the first ‘real deep’ wounds given to our hearts.
Little children do not know what to do with it.
So they internalize that somehow; maybe if I had not been so bad, maybe if I had more value or worth, or been more funny or cute.
He would have stayed.
No, the reality as it has been explained to me in recovery and counselors offices.
It wasn’t about the children.
It rarely is.
Adults make choices that children have to live with.
We were 5, 7 and 9. Forced to be responsible for ourselves.
Little children who should have been playing carefree.
Now had burdens to carry.
The years progressed into more burdens. More weight.
In my 20’s and 30’s my body broke down after carrying inside, so much for so long.
My illness was mostly realizing the weight of our lives as children growing up,
in a crazy jumbled world.
My heart was not fine, and my body was breaking down
from deep grief never addressed.
I did not know yet, how the truth was crushing my spirit.
The doctors thought I had lupus a serious auto immune disease.
I would go into shock.
I had massive body pain.
I became depressed. I became very ill.
I felt like I was falling into a deep hole.
Full of darkness and hollow spaces.
It was frightening.
I even had meningitis. Tests after tests, wore me down.
During all this I had my own children to care for.
Life kept moving forward and the Lord kept challenging me.
The body remembers way before the mind does.
Memories began to flood me.
Like a dam full of tumultuous water, the power of it knocked me down.
I couldn’t stop it and I was down for many years.
As I began to rise, slowly and steadily, with the help of a marvelous counselor.
I saw purpose through the pain.
I didn’t question. I just trusted.
The sickness was a spiritual one. A heart hurt by a deep grief.
A very deep pain in my heart, that God could not heal, until it was seen by me and addressed.
I had to say it for what it was and allow Him to restore me.
God is a God of restoration and healing.
He brought beauty from the ashes, and joy from my mourning.
As I mentioned before, our dad is still alive and living with our mother.
I asked my counselor one time, “What impact will it be for me, when he is gone forever?” and he said to me with tears in his eyes, “You will miss what you never had, and can never have for those years are gone. You were not protected by your parents and that is a huge loss for any child”. I am not parent bashing. I am just saying the truth for what it was.
I have tightly guarded my heart for years not knowing it was a scriptural concept.
There was a purpose for that.
The Lord was protecting me.
So that the core of who I was, would not be destroyed in the process of all the pain put upon us.
God is a God who restores and brings wholeness and purpose to those who follow him.
So we can have a future and a hope.
Psalm 4:29 Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.
I hope you find this encouraging.
My desire has not been to talk about my ‘life’ so much, that I cannot minister or give hope to someone else.
The Lord through this process said to me “in order for them to be helped, they must know you have walked the road yourself”.
As I see it, it is something for us to think about.
We don’t appreciate the high places until we acknowledge and understand the low places we have been.
God bless you in your journey as you move forward with transparency and courage.
Let us encourage each other always.
