Past forgotten

I honestly have a difficult time remembering.  It takes an intentional quieting of my mind and being still in the moment for God to unravel the mystery of my past.  Probably the reason I'm challenged in slowing down and just being still.  My hope is for a renewal of my mind to take place as I delve into the sea of memories that seem to be from another world.  A washing and purifying as the waters flood my mind.  I've been writing about some memories that I'm not sure I've completely dealt with and am having a very difficult time putting it out there.  They are painful and suddenly a raw open wound.  I'll write for a few minutes and then have to break away for hours.  How is it, the reminder of this pain can surface like a tsunami?  It's devastating me.  I've functioned "just fine" for years keeping it buried and hidden.  It's been reopened a few times, but it seems it's only hardened and calloused a deep scar.  Some kind of guarding of my heart has placed a shell around me and as it's crumbling I'm feeling naked and exposed.  Praying that Grace like rain pours down on me and cleanses my wounds for a healing that will be complete.

For years I had been doing my best to move forward, and leave the past far behind me.  When my parents died before they were fifty, I'd realized how our days are fleeting.  There was a two year period after they passed that I couldn't remember anything, a temporary amnesia that never restored.  But in time I was lifted from my sorrow and loss and reminded that I need to live.  There is no way to grab hold of time and slow down, it's impossible to get time back.  We can only live in the gift of the present, remember the past, and look forward to tomorrow.   It's easy for me to find thanks in my circumstances of today, for I feel blessed to simply be alive. Setting goals and believing for a future that's hopeful is plain to see, for it's the truth I've come to believe.  But unfortunately when it comes to remembering the past, my mind acts more like an overstuffed messy closet than anything.  Unable to access the memory bank gracefully, they've been shoved in with the door slammed, the whole unorganized mess comes spilling out.  Patiently pulling myself back from doing, and surrendering to just being is the space that I find grace.  Allowing God to slowly open the door for me, like a gentleman, and gently coax the memories out.  He will not give me more than I can handle, so as I ready myself for what's ahead, I've found peace.  What becomes exposed in me, will simply be an unraveling and clean up of one hot mess.  My life is not perfect, but I'm not striving for perfection, simply seeking peace deep within.  

The following is a piece I wrote after a life-threatening illness crashed my health over a year ago.  I share it with you as a reminder for myself to move forward and also share it with hope that it might inspire you to do the same.

True transformation comes from Atonement.  Atonement means to repair, make amends, reconcile.  The blood Jesus shed for you has cleasned you and continues to cleanse you.  You have been carrying around burdens from your past and present.  Not only your own stuff, but the burdens of those around you.  Give it to Him and pray a dome of protection around you, that Jesus and His angels shall be your shield, your filter.  Allow all goodness and love from Him and others to saturate and envelope you, he is your shield and will protect you from all the negative energy that may be thrown your way.  The sickness, sins, frustrations, worry, ill-feelings you have, hand them over to Jesus.  Don't hold onto them any longer.  They will only drain you of your precious life.  God has already taken care of it, so why do you continue to carry it.  At the end of your days do you plan to stand before God holding your arms full of garbage and covered in filth saying, " I didn't know what to do with it, I thought it was for me to carry."  Realize something-He died for YOU, and has shown you that He repaired death and was brought to new life everlasting.  He did this for YOU.  He already suffered for YOU.  Give your life to Him to repair.  Hand it over to Him DAILY.  He washes you clean.  He purifies you.  He repairs that which is broken.  He fill you up with goodness, light, love, hope and LIFE.  Know that these things you've carried for far too long are not yours to carry any longer.  They served their purpose... for you to learn from.  You can be thankful for each situation, every circumstance, all the people who caused you hurt or pain.  Forgive, Be thankful, and LET GO.  The past has made history, you need only to learn from it and move forward.  God will use it for His Glory.  Don't waste your days studying your own history book.  Hiding from your past will only lead you into deeper darkness, expose it to the light and be set free.  Stand strong- full of His Glory in Freedom Today.  Lean into tomorrow having HOPE for your future.  Ask Christ to take from you that which is holding you back from His plan for your life.  Seek His face, be prayerful, be intimately in His word, JUST BE with Him.

Peter 1:3-9  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In His great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Remembering Dad

It's father's day today. My daughter and I woke up on this unusually cool Sunday morning to make daddy his favorite, blueberry crepes.  She also made daddy a necklace in Boise State colors, and a sweet crafted card for her daddy.  My husband prefers to be pampered on a day like today. So we did a little foot soak and massage for him, coaxing my daughter to wait on him.  Getting him a glass of water, baking him cookies and then serving them to him with a cold glass of milk.  As I sit here and witness a beautiful relationship between my daughter and her father, I can't help but remember my dad. It's been 15 years since I've seen him.

My dad a welder, navy seal, musician. He did 5 or more tours in Vietnam, I never knew exactly what his life was. He didn't talk all that much to me. Maybe he thought his stories would scare me too much. The life I lived in his presence certainly scared me plenty, for he had a lot of demons. His child-hood was as a single child adopted by an older couple, who had died before I was born. From my understanding he was adopted from a dutch community in Washington. I've sometimes thought of searching for his biological family. In his younger years his life was tainted with abusive adults that did things to him that made him what he was as an adult, a monster.  The maddening cycle of abuse that reigned in our family. 

I was the stupid, good-for-nothing, lazy, always in the way, get-out-of-my-face, shut-up, kid. I remember having a strong desire to please him though.  I'd try and clean the house the best I knew how, or cut down weeds in the front yard hoping he'd take a notice of me.  I'd wait to take his boots off at the end of his long day of work.  I'd hope maybe I could sit on his lap and feel the warmth of a father's love.  Maybe he would love me if I was good enough.  Unfortunately my time as a young girl with my father wasn't something I try and remember.  

He was angry, bitter, deceitful, abusive... I attempted at the age of 7 to bring the darkness in him to light. With my mother standing there, I let my voice be heard. I spoke out loud in an attempt to put the abuse that was taking place in my family to an end, my dad grabbed me and threw me down on the couch so fast my head spun. He continued to beat me as my mother tried fighting him off. He reached with one hand for the shot-gun hanging on the wall while his knee pinned me down and the other hand fought mom off.  Seconds later I was staring down the end of a long barrel shot-gun with my dad holding the trigger shouting,”if you ever say anything or yell for help to anyone I will kill YOU." My mother was threatened with her life as well.  Time stood still, my voice was stolen from me. My ability to ask for help was broken, and I no longer felt I could trust anyone.  The relationship that could have and should have been the closest I'd ever have was shattered, I couldn't get any closer to my mother, for I feared for her life.  

This memory had surfaced recently, as I quietly asked God, why? I hadn't realized that the answer I was seeking would be a memory that was so painful. It was so deeply embedded in my mind that it crippled me without knowing the root cause. In my adult life I couldn't understand why an overwhelming fear would bubble over if I had to ask anyone for help even with the smallest things, somehow I felt my life would be over.  I couldn't understand why I had such difficulty trusting people in my life, or developing close trusting relationships with other women.  Now the truth was being revealed, an unraveling of confusion and terror.  I understand my dad didn't want his evil deeds to be exposed, so he crushed the light out of me. I may have well died that day for all I knew. From that day on all my energy was spent hiding from the pain.

I can't remember how old I was when the police officer came and pulled me out of class.  I was scared out of my mind when he started questioning me.  I couldn't give him any answers, it was as though my mouth was sealed closed.  My father eventually went to prison, he was in for a short-time...  I had wished it were longer.  When he came home, he declared Christmas as a pagan holiday and had some weird religion he brought back with him.  He read the bible from front to back while imprisoned.  I wasn't impressed.  In the time he was gone from home, I had developed an extreme disrespect and hate for him.

Much of my childhood is lost in darkness of memory, floating somewhere in the deep.  The good memories seem to fade with the bad.  I keep praying that God reveals the goodness of my childhood to me, but I'm still waiting.  I know my mother loved me dearly,  my brother had to remind me of that.  God used him to bring light to the fact that she would hold my hand anytime she could.  Kind of a silent pact that nothing could separate her love from me. 

My mother became very ill after years of suffering.  She developed breast cancer when I was 15.  I saw the warrior in my mother come out during this 5 year battle.  Jesus came into her life to heal her deep wounds.  I couldn't understand how she could be so forgiving, how she could be so strong.  I'd rub her feet and sit with her, "mom how do you deal with the pain?"  She would answer, "this is nothing compared to what Christ Jesus suffered for me on the cross."  I couldn't understand.  It made no sense to me, I began to fall further from God as my mother attempted to draw us nearer.  Those words about Jesus always ringing through my mind.  She became a saint, a witness to God's glory.  I was afraid for her... I was afraid for me.  She was the "glue" that held us all together.  If she left us, what would remain?

I witnessed her death.  It was my first experience with the divine, there were just a few of us in the hospital room with her that night.  She had held on much longer than the doctors said she would.  My brothers read scriptures over her as she requested with a soft whisper.  She had spoke to the pastor and prayed that her children would find God. We sang to her from the hymnal borrowed from the church.  What child is this? We sang as she breathed her last and softly closed her eyes as one tear drifted down her cheek.  There was such a light that I was certain we had sang the angels down for her.  God had taken her home.

Now what?  I was so angry with God.  If she loved God so much, and He loved her, how could He do this to her?  How could he take her from us?  

The anger simmered in me for a couple of years as I witnessed my dad move on with another woman.  Move her into the house within a few months as she packed up mom's stuff and placed it in the back yard under a tarp.  This new woman of his had a young daughter who would climb up into his lap with laughter.  He would kiss her forehead and smile.  I couldn't watch...  It's everything I ever desired, but never received.  If he was capable of this, why couldn't he love me?  Little did I know that dad realized what love was the day he had to let her go in the hospital.  Nobody knew he had a little over a year to experience love, for death was knocking on his door.  

I got married 3 months after mom died.  Dad walked me down the aisle to give me away.  The most incredible sunset blessed my day and I knew that Mom was there watching over us.  Dad convinced the photographer to take several pictures of him and I.  He said I would appreciate them one day.  For our daddy/daughter dance at the reception he had a surprise for me, he had a recording of a song my mother sang, Could I have this Dance: by Anne Murray.  I'm certain I had tears in my eyes, as did he through the entire dance.  We had a few brief encounters of drawing nearer to one another, building trust.  God was working on us both.  It wasn't easy but I was beginning to see the new light in my father's eyes.  Doing my best to see past the pain, so was he.

It was a little over a week after my one year anniversary that my Grandma died, shortly after Dad fell ill with a fever of 104, it lasted days before he finally went to the hospital.  They ordered a colonoscopy and could only probe a few inches into his colon.  It was blocked by a tumor the size of a football that had mastatisized to his liver and lung.  The doctors were certain that this cancer was developing for well over a decade. They took out a third of his colon and diagnosed him terminal with stage 4 cancer.  He chose to undergo alternative treatment in Mexico and requested I go with him to help him through the 1 month treatment.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  Why'd he ask me?

I know my lil sis was there with me and dad.  She was only 15 or 16 at the time.  I went more for her than I did for dad. My lil sister at the age of 3 became my best friend, she was someone I could talk to without any reprieve with no fear that something I would say would get me killed. My sister was young enough she wouldn't have known anything about what I was exposed to, at least I didn't think so. Sadly I'm sure I shoved my pain on her too many times because I could.  So here we were in a little town just north of Tijuana staying in an R.V. taking the daily trip across the border with dad, visiting a few places around San Diego.  Dad took us to a few familiar spots of his.  He had been stationed there in the Navy and gave us an incredible history lesson.  Took us to a beautiful look out point above San Diego, and a car museum.  We visited the beach and a few shops.  It was turning out to be a surprisingly good trip.  Dad was in a lot of pain though.  I'd spend a lot of time nursing his pain, waiting on him, and meeting his needs.  I was rubbing tiger balm pain relief on his back when he began to weep.  I thought I might have been rubbing to hard.  He stopped me... In that moment something happened that I never thought possible.  He began speaking words of forgiveness and blessings into my life.  "Delainy, I am so very sorry for what I put you through.  You have become a beautiful young lady with such a loving heart, I am so very proud of you."  I was stunned as he spoke these words into my life.  Not only had grace wrapped around my father and I, but something greater took place in my life.  The hesitation to give my life to the heavenly father broke free.  The blessing that my dad spoke into my life not only reconciled our relationship, it reconciled my relationship with our heavenly Father. 

On the fourth of July my dad was in the hospital, he only had a few days remaining.  I wanted for him to be able to see the fireworks from the hospital, so my husband and I scoped out a place that we could view them.  He was just happy to have family there with him.  I wasn't as oblivious to death this time, I knew it was inevitable.  Learning I can't take one moment for granted, I just held my dad as we watched the fireworks.  I had concluded that I could embrace my dad regardless of the past.  We could live for the day, and I know I will see him again one day. Thank you Daddy for going out with a bang, it changed my life.  You showed me the way to find myself in the arms of the heavenly father.  I love you and miss you!  

Never hesitate to tell someone you love them, even if the past is painful.  Love heals, love never fails.

Ephesians 6:2-3 Honor your father and mother" (this is the first commandment with a promise) "that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land."

To Blog or not to Blog?

To Blog or not to Blog?  That is the question.  I am no Shakespearean, and I've not been a blog follower.  I don't even know what the purpose is for blogging, but it's what has been on my heart for quite sometime to pursue.
Do I really want others reading this.  Knowing the deeper parts of my life's experience?  Is this a safe place to open up my heart? Why am I doing this?  The answer to these questions come from peace in the deepest part of my being, a place that can never be exposed to anything that could harm me.  This place I've learned to trust for direction and comfort.  When everything inside directs a pursuit of something even at the risk of ridicule or attack, there is a delay. An inevitable battle inside to come to an agreement.  I've had to come to a place of surrender where I can function in Grace, from Grace, through Grace.
I believe writing this blog will be a part of my healing. I've been through a process of demolition in my physical body, followed by continuing restoration.  Through this period of time I've experienced a transformation in my mind and spirit.  A realization that I am much more than a physical being.  When you lose your ability to perform or do anything, all that remains is humility.  Now I'm at a crossroad.  I could either remain crippled in weakness and inability, or take a leap of faith stepping back into the world, becoming vulnerable once again.  There is this pause, a moment of choice... Do I remain in brokenness and retreat once again in isolation, or do I step back out in this world where there is far too much expectation to perform or strive for perfection?  Honestly this hesitation creates a bit of fear.  In my winter season of rest I found it very comforting to be released from the bondage in this slavery of strife. If I step out, will I fall back into my doubt? My doubt is rooted in fear.  Fear that I would never mount up to anything, never be good enough, and not acceptable.  But I realize that my life is not purposed in doing. Living from Grace, being present to the moment, no more striving or worrying about tomorrow, no more dwelling on the past... This is that deeper place which has a wide open space of FREEDOM, where peace always remains.  This is where I choose to remain... In this space of possibilities where I can flow and function with more strength, and endurance with a solid mind.  I realize this world will attempt to draw me from this peace, but my hope is to be an encouragement for others to find it for themselves. Placing myself on a stand to let the greater light shine.  If you know me, you know that this is not my character.  I'm not one that seeks attention, or putting myself out there.  But this isn't for me, it's for the one who has opened my heart, broke down the walls around me, and set me free so that the light within me could shine for His Glory.
This river of life and peace that flows through me, I pray flows through the tips of my fingers as I enter into the new journey of blogging.  Whoever reads, my hope is for it to inspire you to seek this greater peace, for there is a tremendous overflowing joy that permeates your entire being when you find it.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.