Five Minute Friday-Path

So Friday has arrived again, with another chance to participate in the Five Minute Friday's brought to the blogging world by The Gypsy Mama, click on the link for more information or to participate.

PATH

START:

She finds herself, again, standing at a fork in the road.  Two clear paths lay before her.  Instinctively she steps to the right.  The path on the right is beautiful.  It is so bright, full of life, she can smell the sweet scent of many flowers, hear the songs of the birds. In contrast, the path to the left is dark, it smells of rotting wood and decay.  She can see many obstacles to maneuver just at the beginning of the path alone!  It is cluttered with fallen leaves, broken tree limbs, and large boulders.  She isn't even sure she wore the right shoes to take that path.  It is a clear and easy choice for her, the path to the right is obviously where she needs to go, into the beauty, the certainty, the clarity of the known.

As she begins to step onto the path on the right, she hears a voice beside her.  

"I don't think that path is the right path for you at this time."  

Looking around she sees nobody.  She shrugs and takes another step forward, this time though more hesitant.

The voice speaks again, "I ask you to trust me, that path is not what it appears to be."  This time she doesn't need to look around, she instinctively knows whose voice that is.

"But God she whispers, the other path, it's dark, it's dangerous, it's definitely hard.  I am so tired, I just want to get home and rest. My energy is depleted and I have a lot on my plate.  I really don't have time, that path will certainly take much longer.  Look at my feet, I am in sandals, I can't possibly get over those rocks in these."

'My precious, you are at a point where you need to Trust, not in what you see, but in Me.  I realize what it looks like,  I understand your fear.  But if you Trust in me,  I will guide every step you take through the unknown, I will not let you stumble, I will not let you fall."  

"Oh Father.  I just don't know if I can do it!"  she exclaimed

"Ultimately the path you choose is up to you, I have given you free will, but if you will Trust me, I promise you, that in the end, the path to the left will be worth the effort, despite what you see.  I can't promise that for you if you chose the path to the right. "  The Lord stepped into the darkened path on the left and reached out his hand.

With a deep breath, she pushed down all her anxiety, shoved away all her fear and took His hand into her own and stepped into the dark and bumpy path to the left.  

STOP:

I have spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks contemplating the course and road I stumbled through the last two years.  Wow, it has only just been a little over 2 years since the upheaval of my life, such a short time in reality, but so long in experience.

A little over 2 years ago, my marriage was a mess, my life was a chaotic turmoil of misery and frustration.  I was not happy.  Everyday was filled with some type of contention, some massive mountain to overcome, some spirit crushing instance.  I was miserable, in spirit, in heart, to be around.  My husband was drinking constantly and his drinking was making him mean and hateful.  I wanted so badly out of this situation, but he wouldn't leave.  He loved the "control" he thought he possessed over the children and I.  He loved ruling over us, "I am a grown man, I can do what I want and the Lord says you have to deal with it and obey me."  He loved to twist the bible and use is against me to justify his sinful ways. He craved the misery, I craved peace.  He loved to remind me that the law would prevent me from removing him.

I can remember one particular night in April of that year, it was a school night, the kids were trying to sleep and he was going to get drunk, he had a "bad day" somebody "mad him mad" he headed down to the basement and cranked the radio as loud as it would go, screaming and hooting, hollering and singing, stumbling his way upstairs to wake the kids to "hang out".  The kids all had school in the morning and were crying and miserable.  As I tried to interfere and usher my kids back up stairs to the quietest part of the house, he began to throw the insults at me, let's be honest, it was abuse, verbal and damaging.  After I finally got the kids back to bed and settled I headed downstairs, my hope was to reason with him, as I reached the landing to the basement, I could hear him on the phone, bashing me to his ex.  I remember crumbling to the floor and crying literally, to God to save the children and I from this awful existence, from the hatred, contempt, disrespect and misery that had become every waking minute.  I prayed for my spouse to have an "awakening", to leave for anything to happen that would just stop the roller coaster that had become my life.

Just a few days later, God answered that prayer.  He didn't answer it the way I would have chosen and his answer created so much more confusion in my already confused mind that it took 2 years to realize that the circumstance he used was the right one.  It took time to clear the hate, the anger, the pain and the resentment that had built up in my mind as fact and reality to be removed and cleared, before I would see that what happened, though painful and confusing was God in control.  It would take that amount of time before I stopped wrestling for control and let God lead, as I prayed for him to do on so many occasions.

It took almost two years for me to accept that I was not a failure, that I had a right to happiness, though my spouse continued to live in misery.  It took me almost 2 years to accept that not all marriages are blessed by God and the dissolution of a marriage such as mine wasn't  failure, it was instead a saving grace.  I want to say that I wish I had realized this sooner, but I know that I needed to walk down the path that I did.   I need to come to the realizations the way I have, I needed to get where I am through the trials that led me here.  Though the process was painful at time, uncomfortable at others and humiliating throughout, I am thankful for what I have been through.  

While I was scrambling to save myself and my children, while we were drowning and others stood by watching, I learned so much about myself.  I knew after what my first husband had put me through I was a strong woman.  But through the abuse of my second marriage, I had forgotten how strong I was.  This particular journey not only reminded me how strong I was, it increased my strength.  I was also renewed.  I was renewed in myself, in my beliefs, my strength and in my relationship with God.  Though I felt like I was withering and dying, I was growing, I was changing, I was becoming who I was destined to be. 

I will forever be changed by the journey I was on, I will carry some scars and a piece of me will always be just a little broken. Not for a marriage that needed to end, bur for the larger family that was destroyed. For the children that suffered, for the  Brothers and Sisters that may never see or speak to each other again.  For the children that I loved and lost.   

The story isn't over, a new chapter is simply being written.  I don't know what tomorrow holds, where I will go next, but I know that God is in control, he always was, though I didn't see it.  For the first time in years, I am content, comfortable and at peace with where my life is right now.  I am confidant that God is in control and I am excited for the next chapter to be written. 

RH-Forgiveness

Dear RH-

The time has come for me to forgive you.  I don't want to and I am not doing this for you, I must forgive you for me, for my future for my life.  I have thought often of the ten years to which you tormented my family and honestly, wished nothing but horrible things for you, but in the end I realized, your torment of me came from your own insecurities in your self.  

You did not manipulate my husband because you are secure within yourself.  You didn't use your daughter to control him because you hated me.  You didn't call him in the middle of the night and prey on his weaknesses because of what I did and you didn't spend ten years trying to get him in your bed because you love him or want him.   You did those things to try to convince yourself you were the better person.  But in the end, did getting him in your bed make you feel good about yourself?  What did you win really?  You may have gotten him for a night, but he always left you and came back home.

When I really break down and think logically about all the things you did, how can I not forgive you?  You are broken, shattered and jealous, you are insecure and feel inadequate.  You place your worth in the ability to manipulate men, not just the man who chose me and not you.

You have spent your adulthood seeking relationships that will never be truly yours.  You seek and involve yourself and your daughter only in the lives of married men, men who when they leave you, you can blame their wives and not yourself.

Your desire to prove something to yourself with my husband over the life of our marriage hurt me tremendously and it hurt my children and your daughter too.  I also believe it hurt you.  There was a time when I would think of how you invited me into your life, "for the sake of the children" all while seducing my husband behind my back and I wanted to hurt you for that.  But I have come to realize, I can't hurt you more than you hurt yourself on a daily basis.  

You spent years telling the world I was a monster to your daughter, but I wasn't, and you know it.  The fact that I loved her and she loved me only heightened your insecurity and feelings of worthlessness and failure.  I wish you had been happy that someone else loved, supported and protected your daughter also.  But you couldn't see that.  She is my children's sister and an amazing child, but your insecurities led you to believe that she could love me more.  

When she came to me in tears in the summer of 2009 and told me that she couldn't keep coming to our home because you would grill her for days and weeks about everything her father and I did and it in effect made her miserable,  it mad me so incredibly angry.  You were torturing her, making her choose between peace at home(your home) and her other family.  All I could do was hold her and weep with her.  All I could do was love her for her honesty and strength and pray that your insecurity would not do long term, permanent damage to her or the other kids. Your actions made me feel helpless, so I did all I  could do, I respected her need for peace and let her go.  I will always hold her in my heart and her confirmations of love and appreciation to me for never putting her in the middle.  I will hold her words of comfort to me in reassurance that never once had she been unhappy or miserable in my home, with me or with my family, despite what you try to convince everyone of.  I will always remember her thanking me for never being 'one of those step-moms', but welcoming her with open arms, supporting her, loving her and involving her in the lives of her 'other family'.

It's incredibly sad when your insecurities affect that life of your child to such a degree that she has to hide waves to her siblings so you don't see.  I fear that she will someday hate you for what you have done and I pray that she won't be damaged by the example that you have lead.  It's not too late though you know.  To heal what has been damaged, to heal what has been broken.  It is never to late for that.

I have come to realize that all your brokenness, hatred and insecurity propelled you to do what you did and I can't help but forgive you for that now.  I feel sorry for you, for the little girl within you that had dreams that I am sure didn't include multiple adulteress affairs or jealousy or ruin.  It breaks my heart to think that for all that I hated of you, you hated yourself that much more.  Nobody should live with the amount of insecurity and hate it appears you live with.

I hope someday, for your sake, that you will learn the art of forgiveness yourself.  That you will set yourself free from the emotional baggage that you carry daily, for the fear within yourself that motivates you to hurt others.  I hope that someday, despite all the mean things you have done, to so many, but mostly to yourself, you will realize that you too are worthy of love, good love, honest love, pure love.  Love from a man that is not married, from a man that can give to you freely.  I would start with forgiving yourself for B.  

I hope you are able to open your eyes and your heart to honesty and face the fact that you and my husband were not meant to be, that together you are both more toxic than you are apart.  I hope you realize what you two did, no longer has any affect on me or control of me.  I honestly pity you both.  

When you can begin the act of forgiving, you will be able to release the strongholds of jealousy, anxiety, illness, resentment, insecurity and alcoholism that control your life.  You will set yourself free and you will enjoy the life that God has planned for you.  

I will pray for you to be able to forgive those that have hurt you and yourself.  I will pray for you to  be able to heal from whatever event initially set you on the path you are on.  I will pray for you to find a relationship with good people who only want the best for you.  I will pray for your soul and that the enemy releases you and that you will eventually be set free from the toxicity that consumes you and the strongholds that bind you.

Good Luck to you RH, may you seek to find favor with the Lord.


I FORGIVE YOU!

Dear Father,

Tonight I lift to you RH.  You know the mountains she faces, the trials and tribulations of her life far better than I do.  I know she is a woman that hurts and has an incredible amount of pain, and that love has been far reaching from her life.  I know by her actions that she is angry, confused, insecure and  haunted.  I ask that you place your loving arms around her this day and set her free from the pain that encompasses her.  Where she needs to forgive, help her, where she needs to break free from strongholds, encourage her, where she needs to heal, heal her, where she needs guidance, guide her.  She is your child God, built in an image of you, help her know the plans you have for her are good.  If there is no Godly woman in  her life, place one there, someone whom she can rely on, learn from and grow with.  Someone that can help her find you.  I trust in Your protection and arms, she can be set free from what has held her back and fulfill the calling you have for her.

~In Jesus Name

Amen

Lately my heart has been incredibly heavy.  I have bent God's ear a lot over the last few weeks as to where this heavy heart has come from and how I can move beyond it.  Over and over I have been directed towards the word Forgiveness and verses on forgiveness.  There is an obvious theme here, you think?  

So as I sat earlier today, with my increasingly heavy heart, I closed my eyes and listened to the Spirit within.  Was I holding out on forgiving people that have hurt or wronged me?  I remember saying I forgave them, but in my heart of hearts, I knew that I was still harboring hurt, still holding a grudge for torment or pain inflicted at their hands, whether it was hateful remarks or something far more serious.  I realized I was.  I was harboring an incredible amount of pain, revenge, resentment, anger, hostility, insecurity, hatred and so much other stuff towards several people in my past that  have hurt me.  I have also come to realize that if I don't let go, don't free myself  from those negative emotions that bind me and have literally held me back, I will never be able to move forward. 

In the spirit of being honest, it's a huge list of people I have to forgive!  HUGE, overwhelming, but for my life, for my being, for my future and my soul, it's time.  I imagine this journey in forgiveness may open up some wounds that have scabbed over, but I believe once I finish, God will permanently heal the wounds and remove the scars.  I will be healed and whole.  I will be able to live the life God has intended for me, I am excited, I am scared.  I am ready.

Matthew 6:14-15 NIV

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

5 minute Friday: See

Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.

~Jonathon Swift

Topic:  SEE

START:

I have learned through this life that being honest with my self truly rooted in the art of seeing what I don't want to see within myself and the others in my life.

For many years, I was able to avoid seeing what made me unhappy or uncomfortable, to wear those rose colored glasses if you will, and avoid what I didn't like or want to face. 

But recently I have been pulled out of my comfort zone by other events in my life and forced to look at myself through clear eyes, to see my world and myself as they truly are.

I have come to face the insecurity, to see the fear for what it is.  I have come to see the faults and shortcomings in personalities of my family, and love them for it.

Though the process of removing the blinders and seeing everything in the cold harsh light of reality has not always been painless, it has certainly been healing.  

I have learned to see that those flaws within myself are not so horrible, they are human and through them I can grow.  I have learned to see that the world is maybe, just a little beautiful for it's imperfectedness (okay so that might not be a word, but I like it) and that I am to the core a person worthy of loving and being seen by others. 

STOP:

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