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...

Feeling very raw

Some days I just feel very raw... very open but not the I'm an open book way, more like someone has pulled a scab off of a very fresh wound and it is now open... I suffer from anxiety in the worst way in case you hadn't figured that much out already... Anyways this last week I have felt very raw.  I'm still not in a church home.  I still am in the process of moving from my mom's house and that is an emotional roller coaster in and of itself.  I am unhappy with my job.  Everything just seemed to pull off the scab a little more each day.  I'm still here and I'm still doing the Limitless Life study I just did not have the energy to blog last week... So I just want whoever is out there reading to know I'm still here I'm just having a week where I am not up to being.  This week is a little better.  I'm still not happy with the position I'm in at work, I work customer service and I have done this since I was 18 at all kinds of different companies, I LOVE the company I work for but I would like to do something more than answer the phone... I'm loving the feeling I have of having my own place even though I have a boyfriend and a roommate just knowing that me and my girls have our own is a huge thing for me... and the roommate is very temporary... me and my mom are at least speaking now... I'm still riding the roller coaster of emotions and I can not promise what tomorrow or even this afternoon is going to do to me but right now I'm OK.

Wow...

My friend posted on her blog yesterday and it hit me like a ton of bricks... she said EXACTLY what was in my head and on my heart... she expressed my feelings for me in a way that I didnt even know that is what I wanted to say...

What do you think you know about me when you look at me like that?
Can you tell how tired I really am? And that I'm tired mentally, emotionally and spiritually, so my body now hurts from the inside out?
Can you see the stains from where people have touched me without my consent?
Can you see me flinch when you go to touch me? Not all touches are good and my body remembers them well.
Do you know where some of the scars actually came from?
Would you believe me if I told you?
And what does that make me?
Am I damaged goods?
Can you see that I am angry because I am scared? I don't know if I can trust you or even myself at this point.
I'm so tired.
What do you want from me? I don't have a lot to give.
Would you understand or pity me if you knew all of this about me? I don't need or want your pity. I'm doing okay and getting better every day.
If I sleep, will I wake up? Do I even want to?
Please don't touch my shell. It's very fragile and will break if you're not careful.
Why do you even care?
Am I worth the trouble?
Would you walk away because I'm too much to handle?

How she knew what my heart was feeling is beyond me but thank you for reading my heart and allowing me to express what it needed to say... check her out she is wise beyond her years!

My Story...

When I was 16 I ran away from home... I did not run away from the best home environment but I ran away from a home where I was loved.  I had been getting in trouble for a while.. I got in with a gang when I started high school.  I thought I was the baddest girl and honestly in my school where I was from I probably was one of the baddest... When I was 17 I met my first 2 kids father... I moved in with him and found out pretty quickly I was not as bad as I thought I was.  He was much badder.  He beat me daily.... hit me with bottles, gave me concussions, broke my jaw twice, gave me black eyes so bad they were swollen shut.  The reasons varied... I always did something wrong.  No one ever told me to come home so I didn't... I had two children with him... luckily I was smart enough to not want them in that environment and sent them to live with my mom and dad... I went home for a little while but he always found me and convinced me to go back... at that time he was my addiction.  He was my addiction for 6 years.  I still have problems from the beatings... my jaw clicks sometimes, I have debilitating migraines, I have memory problems, I have nightmares... I got free from that addiction when he went to prison for drugs.  That is when I met my 2nd baby's father.  The abuse was the same... he also cheated on me.  So did the first one but he at least tried to hide it... not the second one he just cheated.  When I caught him he got mad at me and hurt me.  He was my addiction.  I could not bring myself to leave him... I wanted to be good enough for him.  He made sure I knew that I wasn't.  He introduced me to cocaine.  It helped me escape from all of the pain... That was my new addiction... but I was still addicted to him.  My baby brother was killed in a car accident.  That crippled me.  I wanted to trade places with him.  I still do.  When I found my baby's father cheating on me again I freed myself from him.  I was still addicted to the cocaine... That helped me escape all of the pain.  My daddy went back to work for a private contracting firm.  He worked in Iraq.  My kids went to stay with my mom... I kept telling myself it was because she was so upset about my brother and they would help her feel better... honestly it is because I was not the mom that they needed me to be at that time... I felt like a failure... I still do.  I've never told anyone that before. 3 years later my mom called me in the middle of the night.  My daddy was killed by a car bomb in Iraq.  My daddy who I struggled my whole life to please.  My daddy who did not like me and I still questioned whether he loved me.  My daddy who met me for dinner on one of his leaves and saw me with my eye swollen shut and bruises up my face and said nothing about it... I would never had the opportunity to apologize for failing in his eyes... I would never be able to apologize that he lost his precious son instead of his pathetic daughter... My addiction to cocaine grew and now it was cocaine and pills.  I should not be alive with the amount I was putting in my body on a daily basis.  I maintained a job... I was doing drugs in the bathroom every 30 min but I kept the job... finally I was ready to be free of the drug addiction.  I was tired of being away from my kids and I knew that being away from my kids was one of the biggest pains I was trying to cover up with the drugs.  I packed up and moved home with my mom and kids.  I got myself clean.  I freed myself from that addiction.  I found church again and that became an addiction.  That addiction grew until the church broke up.  Now I find myself free from the addiction of drugs, from the addiction of abuse... but I'm still an addict.  I am not free yet.  I still have the addiction of pleasing people.  I still have the addiction of the labels I have put on myself.  I have the addiction of needing to prove my worth and myself to others.  I am addicted to being the best I can at work.  I have the addicts mind set still.  I need to free myself from that.  I am an ongoing story... truthfully this story is just an outline.  My story is so much deeper than this blog post... I just feel like my story is too long to post in one sitting... I think I will work on it for future posts because I do think I need to free myself of the story.  I've kept alot of this story inside me because it is painful to admit but maybe if I admit it I can finally be free of the addiction of my past... Today that is my addiction and I hope that at the end of this bible study I can say I'm FREE of that too...

Ready Set Go... or not

What a weekend.  I have been having so many emotions and feelings lately.  I know that I am NOT where I want to be or need to be in life but I am working on that.  This weekend I realized how disapointing I have been to my mom.  I hate that realization.  She was so proud of me at one time.  Then slowly I started to slip backwards.  The worst part is she blames my boyfriend and that is not fair.  I stopped going to church.  I stopped doing what I was supposed to do money wise.  I started going crazy a little bit.  I had a mini break down.  But because some of these things started when she met him she blames him....  Yes that makes for a super depressing weekend.  I am on my way to getting back on track though.  I am getting my own apartment for me and my girls.  I am getting caught up as quickly as I can on my bills. I am starting church again.  This online bible study is going to be a big help I think.  Let's see how it goes!

Community

So I have decided to take on another online bible study with Proverbs 31 ministries... I LOVE this website and the online bible studies that they do... and this one seemed perfect for me where I am right now!  It is called Limitless Life and the reason that I decided to do this one is because right on the cover of the book it says, "You Are More Than Your Past When God Holds Your Future"... 


Needless to say I'm more than ready to start this one.  So today I received an email talking about the normal blog hop that they do with these bible studies and talking about community.  Just the other day I was talking about home and church and when they said in the email that this online bible study is like our own little community I started thinking about how church is like my own little community.  When I was involved and everyone was together it was a big community.  Then I left the community and then I came back and the community had changed.  How normal is that though... I mean you grow up in one community and when you go away to college, or move away from home, or just go away for the summer more often than not when you come back some aspect of that community has changed.  Not all changes are big or even bad but change is inevitable... I went back to church last Sunday.  I went to the small church, they meet right next door to the building I grew up going to... it was weird to walk into that building instead of the one I was so familiar with... but when I walked in the love I felt was still the same.  The welcoming was familiar.  I felt at HOME... I did not visit the other church yet... I'm not sure why but I want to go back to the small church on Sunday again and I think I will continue to go... I would like to get involved again if that is possible. I would like to find my place in the new, smaller community.  As for this online bible study I also hope to find my place... I realize that this community is much bigger and wider and spans places I've never seen but I would like to think I can find a place to fit in there too... to me community means that you fit together and you interact... I need interaction even if just through a blog post :)  I guess that is all for now... If you are reading this and have not heard of Proverbs31.org or done any of their bible studies I encourage you to check them out... 

Feelings just keep coming out of me

I'm feeling very depressed lately, and alone, and scared... I'm not alone and I'm not sure why I feel that way... I'm hurting everyone around me... myself included honestly.  I just do not know how to get up this time.  I dont have anyone I can really turn to and say HELP ME... I just keep getting up every day and going through the motions of the day but some days, like today, it all seems like too much.  I would be much better at home, in the dark, in my bed.  I know my posts are making people sad and I'm sorry.  If you stop reading I totally understand.  But this is the only release I have for all of the feelings I have... I know I am not alone.  I have a boyfriend...  but I am not sure that it is going anywhere... I have my kids... but there is still this loneliness that I can not shake.  I'm in over my head.  I am so far in debt because I try to buy things thinking it will make me feel better... nope still feel awful and actually feel worse because then I think about how far in debt I am... I am trying to save money to move me and my girls into an apartment and prove to everyone, myself included, that I can do it... but I can barely put one foot in front of the other forget having a smile on my face!... 
Life is a messy thing... my life I have messed up and I'm not sure if I can fix it