I moved back home! I arrived less than a week ago, and started working two different accounts for one employer, on Monday. I was excited to work. I've been off of work for the last two months, and I missed it. Zech started school, and I could see how happy he was to be home and with friends and family that he knew. I was happy to see him full of joy, love, peace, and happiness.
During this time of adjustment, with more to come, I'm sure, I'm glad I have a God who loves me enough to listen, and to speak. He is teaching me more about being His child and letting Him be my Father. Some things I am learning:
Everyday is a NEW day...a new beginning in which I am blessed to be aware of the choices I have in front of me. Not everyone is aware of the choices they have. I have been praying more, reading the Bible more, in an effort to stay connected and led by my Lord, Jesus Christ. I can always tell the difference in my attitude and approach on everyday problems when I pray and read the Bible. When I read and pray, my focus is placed on the important things, and I am no longer caught up in the emotions and problems of my life. I am focused on doing what is right to please my God, on the real issues at heart, and what my role in them needs to be. I'm not here to make it all about me. I understand now that my life is short, that God put me on earth for a purpose, and that purpose isn't one big thing I do in my life. The purpose, in The Grand Plan of Things (God's plan) is be more like Him, less like me. It changes the little choices I make all day long.
There are two ways to see God (for those who believe): As your savior, or as your Lord and Savior. He has saved you. Having a savior is a wonderful thing, but when I started coming to Him to lead me, I let Him have authority over myself, my spirit, who I am, and everything I do. Basically, my life. I let Him become my master. He's a loving master, one who knows exactly who I am, who isn't judging me, but walking with me, assuring me everything will be okay. He's not simply telling me what to do for the sake of it. He loves us, and so out of love comes the willingness to forgive, to lead, to show you the way, through Him. That keeps me going everyday, knowing I don't have to worry, and I don't have to give up. He is walking with me every step of the way. I don't have to "figure out" what the right thing is, because when I pray, and I listen, He lets me know. He gives me peace that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Be Patient. I Move Slowly!
I want to cry today. I want to acknowledge everything I'm letting go of, all that was lost, and the position I am in now that enables me to have opportunities I wouldn't have otherwise had. I want to spend my day letting go, and not meeting any other goals. Letting go is something I am slow at. I'm also an impatient person. So naturally, I need to gain patience.
Although it's been two months since I arrived in Texas, it is only now starting to sink in how terrified I've been the last few months of my life. I'm not the type of person that gets everything quickly, not when it comes to change, and the details that come with change. As I said, it's been two months, and now that I'm over missing home (even though I'm still going back, which I will touch on later) it's starting to bother me when I see, hear, or talk about what happened. I guess you could say it's still too soon for me to remember what happened without still experiencing some of the emotions that went along with it.
I have a son for goodness sake, how did I not see this? Did I see some aspects of it and not listen to myself when I could have? Oh, yes, it was totally preventable. If we're going to place responsibility on any one's shoulders, I don't have a problem with the shoulders being mine, and me taking all the blame. I don't care about that. I'll be more than happy to say I screwed up, admitting I was wrong is the easiest part for me. Admitting I was scared? Not so easy. Admitting all the things that went through my mind? Not easy. Knowing that my son has been through all of this, and I can't take it back, THAT is hard. Try not beating yourself up over that one.
Admitting that I'm lonely and I still think about the man I left? That, of all things, is incredibly hard. I miss seeing his face sometimes. I miss all the good things about him. It doesn't mean I'm changing my mind. It doesn't mean I love him. It means he was the first person, as a companion, I had allowed myself to have since my son was born. I didn't know what it was like until I met him. It was wonderful, to have an adult as a companion, instead of only my son. I loved it. We had good times, me and him. Whatever his issues are, he was still a person. He still had good things about his personality that I liked. We still made each other laugh incredibly hard. That will always be my favorite part.
Except, well, with this man, he didn't want me to have a life if he wasn't in every second of it. Do I hate him? No. Do I feel anger when I think of all he did in retaliation to me shutting him out of my life? Yes. It was wrong for him to break in my house, to throw rocks through my windows, to have his friends watch my house, send me threatening messages via fake accounts on social networks; it was wrong that I had to put up with him down the street from my mother's house, waiting to see if I would show up. I had a personal protection order against him. He was never arrested. Do I blame the police department. No. Am I upset that they couldn't do more by law? Of course. I have a son to protect. Why wouldn't I have been upset?
This is the other side of the man who made me laugh, who loved plants, who was unique in his ideas and who had a creativity that could only be respected. This was the other side of him? Well, that's still sinking in. I know that some things were part of a facade he put on to manipulate me. That hurts. It hurts because all I wanted to do was love him, have him love me in return, and settle down like other people do. It hurts because he knew (and I know this because we'd talked about it before) that I could never hurt him out of the need for revenge. I don't believe in it. It makes perfect sense to me that if it doesn't work out between two people, let go and wish them the best, because that's what love is. It's what love does.
To this day, I still don't wish anything but the best for him. I want him to be the best he can be, because I did love him. However, I still love myself. I love my son. I want what's best for us. God wants that. And I left him because he wasn't what was best for us, which means we weren't best for him either. If anything, at least I had the guts to leave him with dignity, without trying to hurt him anymore than necessary, because it was the right thing to do for everyone. I will always feel that way.
Although it's been two months since I arrived in Texas, it is only now starting to sink in how terrified I've been the last few months of my life. I'm not the type of person that gets everything quickly, not when it comes to change, and the details that come with change. As I said, it's been two months, and now that I'm over missing home (even though I'm still going back, which I will touch on later) it's starting to bother me when I see, hear, or talk about what happened. I guess you could say it's still too soon for me to remember what happened without still experiencing some of the emotions that went along with it.
I have a son for goodness sake, how did I not see this? Did I see some aspects of it and not listen to myself when I could have? Oh, yes, it was totally preventable. If we're going to place responsibility on any one's shoulders, I don't have a problem with the shoulders being mine, and me taking all the blame. I don't care about that. I'll be more than happy to say I screwed up, admitting I was wrong is the easiest part for me. Admitting I was scared? Not so easy. Admitting all the things that went through my mind? Not easy. Knowing that my son has been through all of this, and I can't take it back, THAT is hard. Try not beating yourself up over that one.
Admitting that I'm lonely and I still think about the man I left? That, of all things, is incredibly hard. I miss seeing his face sometimes. I miss all the good things about him. It doesn't mean I'm changing my mind. It doesn't mean I love him. It means he was the first person, as a companion, I had allowed myself to have since my son was born. I didn't know what it was like until I met him. It was wonderful, to have an adult as a companion, instead of only my son. I loved it. We had good times, me and him. Whatever his issues are, he was still a person. He still had good things about his personality that I liked. We still made each other laugh incredibly hard. That will always be my favorite part.
Except, well, with this man, he didn't want me to have a life if he wasn't in every second of it. Do I hate him? No. Do I feel anger when I think of all he did in retaliation to me shutting him out of my life? Yes. It was wrong for him to break in my house, to throw rocks through my windows, to have his friends watch my house, send me threatening messages via fake accounts on social networks; it was wrong that I had to put up with him down the street from my mother's house, waiting to see if I would show up. I had a personal protection order against him. He was never arrested. Do I blame the police department. No. Am I upset that they couldn't do more by law? Of course. I have a son to protect. Why wouldn't I have been upset?
This is the other side of the man who made me laugh, who loved plants, who was unique in his ideas and who had a creativity that could only be respected. This was the other side of him? Well, that's still sinking in. I know that some things were part of a facade he put on to manipulate me. That hurts. It hurts because all I wanted to do was love him, have him love me in return, and settle down like other people do. It hurts because he knew (and I know this because we'd talked about it before) that I could never hurt him out of the need for revenge. I don't believe in it. It makes perfect sense to me that if it doesn't work out between two people, let go and wish them the best, because that's what love is. It's what love does.
To this day, I still don't wish anything but the best for him. I want him to be the best he can be, because I did love him. However, I still love myself. I love my son. I want what's best for us. God wants that. And I left him because he wasn't what was best for us, which means we weren't best for him either. If anything, at least I had the guts to leave him with dignity, without trying to hurt him anymore than necessary, because it was the right thing to do for everyone. I will always feel that way.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Friends
I have to say I have some really great friends. With everything in life, there are two sides to it. My friends have great qualities, and sometimes, they drive me nuts, too. I'm not saying I don't appreciate their presence in my life, because I do. My friends are some of the best people you'll ever meet. They will give the last of anything they have to anyone. They encourage me, lift me up, listen when needed. Some of them are the type that will tell you to your face exactly what you don't want to hear, are direct, and won't hesitate to tell you the truth.
A few of my friends, I've noticed, don't give to themselves what they so generously offer to everyone else in their lives. As much as they believe in everyone else, they seem to lack the same belief in themselves. They're not the first people that I've noticed with this habit. Sure, everyone gets down sometimes, and needs to be lifted back up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they ought to be perfect. However, if you believe in me, then it hurts when you don't believe in yourself. So what type of friend am I? What do I give back to my friends?
I tell them the truth. I tell them that they can do whatever it is they need to do, but they have to be willing to do whatever it takes. From previous experience, I've always appreciated the people who were direct, honest, blunt, and straight to the point with me. I may not have liked it at the time, but I needed to hear what they said, even if I wasn't happy about it at the time, or for awhile after that. So I understand that at times friends need you to be comforting, and simply listen to their complaints, and why they're unhappy or discouraged--we all need to have someone to vent to. If you come to me and you complain about the same thing you were complaining about ten years ago, I'm going to tell you what I would want anyone else to tell me: If you do the same thing over and over again, you'll get the same result repeatedly. If you are expecting something different, you're going to be unhappy. If you want something to change, do something different, and CHANGE YOUR MIND about something you've been doing.
Change is scary. I'll be the first person to tell you I hate it when things change. I like my comfort zones. But the lesson I've learned repeatedly is that something new requires faith, faith in God. Believing in yourself. Faith that everything will work out, even if you have no clue what will happen next. It requires that you remember that even if this doesn't work, it isn't the end of anything.
Recently, the U.S.A. remembered the 10th anniversary of 9/11. In the middle of feeling a ton of fear, I thought of those people who have moved on, and I thought to myself, if they can do it, so can I. They lost so much in so little time, and they are strong. I've had to be strong before, and I can do it again. I'm not alone. We often feel alone, but in reality we never really are. There is God, and I remember Him being my closest friend during the hardest times of my life. So I can't give up.
I told my friend that I care about him, and I believe in him. I told him that there's no way he can tell me how he believes in what I can overcome, without applying it to his own life. That's not right. And I told him I care about him enough to tell him the truth, even if he doesn't like or agree with what I say. At least he'll know I'm honest with him, which is my first priority. You know who I am by what I share with you, by my own actions. If you don't know who I am, how can we be friends? This is what I believe in, that we believe in one another, we believe in ourselves, and we believe in Jesus Christ, because He is our Savior. If I can't share that with you, when it's such a deep part of who I am, then how can we be great friends?
A few of my friends, I've noticed, don't give to themselves what they so generously offer to everyone else in their lives. As much as they believe in everyone else, they seem to lack the same belief in themselves. They're not the first people that I've noticed with this habit. Sure, everyone gets down sometimes, and needs to be lifted back up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they ought to be perfect. However, if you believe in me, then it hurts when you don't believe in yourself. So what type of friend am I? What do I give back to my friends?
I tell them the truth. I tell them that they can do whatever it is they need to do, but they have to be willing to do whatever it takes. From previous experience, I've always appreciated the people who were direct, honest, blunt, and straight to the point with me. I may not have liked it at the time, but I needed to hear what they said, even if I wasn't happy about it at the time, or for awhile after that. So I understand that at times friends need you to be comforting, and simply listen to their complaints, and why they're unhappy or discouraged--we all need to have someone to vent to. If you come to me and you complain about the same thing you were complaining about ten years ago, I'm going to tell you what I would want anyone else to tell me: If you do the same thing over and over again, you'll get the same result repeatedly. If you are expecting something different, you're going to be unhappy. If you want something to change, do something different, and CHANGE YOUR MIND about something you've been doing.
Change is scary. I'll be the first person to tell you I hate it when things change. I like my comfort zones. But the lesson I've learned repeatedly is that something new requires faith, faith in God. Believing in yourself. Faith that everything will work out, even if you have no clue what will happen next. It requires that you remember that even if this doesn't work, it isn't the end of anything.
Recently, the U.S.A. remembered the 10th anniversary of 9/11. In the middle of feeling a ton of fear, I thought of those people who have moved on, and I thought to myself, if they can do it, so can I. They lost so much in so little time, and they are strong. I've had to be strong before, and I can do it again. I'm not alone. We often feel alone, but in reality we never really are. There is God, and I remember Him being my closest friend during the hardest times of my life. So I can't give up.
I told my friend that I care about him, and I believe in him. I told him that there's no way he can tell me how he believes in what I can overcome, without applying it to his own life. That's not right. And I told him I care about him enough to tell him the truth, even if he doesn't like or agree with what I say. At least he'll know I'm honest with him, which is my first priority. You know who I am by what I share with you, by my own actions. If you don't know who I am, how can we be friends? This is what I believe in, that we believe in one another, we believe in ourselves, and we believe in Jesus Christ, because He is our Savior. If I can't share that with you, when it's such a deep part of who I am, then how can we be great friends?
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