From Orphan to Adopted....

I blogged yesterday about how I was down the last week or so... so I was coming on here to do my blog hop for the week and something told me that first I need to do my post for last week.... I can not link this one since I am a week behind but I felt the need to share this one... I will link up the next one for this week....

"We roam through life lost, looking for a love and identity that no human, no job, no amount of money could ever provide.  Our Papa in heaven is the only One who can provide us with the love and, ultimately, the identity we have been created for - a child of God."

Holy crap whoever wrote that has been in my head... I've said before that I am not made for this world.  I get that, I know that, but it doesn't stop me from longing for things that I know I will not find here... So I was reading the Limitless Life by Derwin Gray for my Proverbs 31 online bible study and in chapter 4 he talks about going from Orphan to Adopted... I'm not an orphan, my mom is still alive, but I do have "Daddy issues" and in that chapter he talks about when we allow daddy wounds to limit our lives, we become anonymous people.  Boy do I feel anonymous... When we are not connected to God our FATHER, we do not know who we are - we feel orphaned - and lose the capacity to discover our uniqueness.  I did not always feel anonymous... I remember when I felt alive, I felt like I was beginning to discover exactly why God wanted me here... I've always struggled with what in the world He wanted to use me for.  But at one point when I was plugged in and reading my bible I felt like I was so close to getting answers and then I just plummeted... that is the best way I know how to put it... I have overcome a lot, I have overcome being abused daily, I have overcome being a drug addict, I have overcome sexual abuse when I was a child, but for all of those things I have overcome there is so much more I have not even touched.... when I say I plummeted I did not get back into drugs I want to make that very clear.  I have been in a very deep depression for well over a year, I have not overcome that.  I have not overcome being out of a church family where I was involved.  I have not overcome feeling helpless and hopeless, or feeling unworthy... I am back to a darkness where I am asking again, "God WHY AM I HERE"  what in the world could you possibly want me to do for You?  How can I find the answers now that I am so far away from Him... How do I get the Jesus loves me message to play continuously and stop replaying my past... In this chapter Derwin Gray says that Orphans Feel Abandoned... I feel that way.  My father abandoned me... I blame myself for that... I was a bad kid, he didn't want to see that so he started working as a private contractor over seas in war torn countries... I'll never forget the time he came home from Bosnia and met me for lunch.. at that time I was living with my oldest kids father and I was newly pregnant with my first baby.  When I met my dad for lunch that day I had a face covered in bruises and a black eye that you could not ignore.  But my dad ignored it.  We had lunch and he left me at the train station to go back to my baby's father.  I knew it was my fault for being so horrible... but I felt abandoned.  After my dad was killed in Irag about 8 years later my brother told me in the heat of a family argument that my dad never loved me... I still think about that all these years and I still feel abandoned.  But now when I feel abandoned I feel like my dad abandoned my whole family and I feel like that is my fault.  I feel like an orphan.

In this chapter he also gives us the keys to embracing a new label "Adopted"... I think that key 2 is the hardest for me... Key 2: Accept and Imitate the Forgiveness of God... that is actually pretty easy for me to forgive others.  My kids fathers, I have forgiven them for the hurts that they have done to me and to my babies, my grandfather I have forgiven for the abuse, my brother I have forgiven for the hurtful words to me and my kids, my other brother I have forgiven for leaving us way to early... I have a problem forgiving myself... I don't know how to forgive myself... I do not know how to forgive myself for leaving my babies, I have not forgiven myself for causing my mom so much pain, I do not know how to forgive myself for causing my brothers to hate me and for not being the one that was taken from my parents instead of my brother, I do not know how to forgive myself for causing my dad to want to be away from us and ultimately causing him to be killed in Iraq, I do not know how to forgive myself for feeling like we abandoned my daddy in Iraq, I do not know how to forgive myself for continuing on this downward spiral...

I want to learn to forgive myself because I am stuck in this cycle of thinking how can God forgive me and now after reading this chapter I know God is thinking, How can I NOT forgive a person like you?  You are exactly who I sent MY precious Son to die for... I am still stuck in the prison cell because I cant forgive myself but I don't know how to forgive me...