Ruby: Pieces and Parts

I have about 5500  words written of Ruby's story.  It has lots of gaps and areas that need filling, but here is a little taste of what I have.

...Chapter…

Waking before dawn after a fitful night of sleep Ruby quietly dressed in the dark.  She was careful not to wake her roommates  as she slipped her journal from the drawer and went to find a quiet spot  where she could write and think.  She chose a comfortable chair that faced a large window in the lounge, sat down, pulled her feet up underneath her, and opened her journal.  She looked at the blank page before her unsure of what to write.  She raised her eyes to the dark window.  Her dim reflection looked back at her.  She didn’t see a battle ready warrior, she saw a frightened child, one who knew how to hide much better than she knew how to be seen and one who knew even less on how to fight the scratching and clawing she felt within her. She sighed at the dirty sad little girl that stared back at her.  It was she that had to die here.  It was she who held all the hurts and the sadness.  Ruby, put pen to paper.

November 2

I see you little girl.  I see you every time I look in the mirror or see my reflection.  I see your sad eyes, the way they hurt, and the fear within them.  I don’t want to see you anymore.  I can’t. You are ruining my life, you are keeping me from wanting to live.  All I can hear are your cries at night and all I can feel is your terror.  I don't know how to heal you and free you from the prison that you have built up within me.  I am here to rid myself of you.  I am so tired of hurting and not knowing how to stop it.  I don’t want to die.  I don’t.  But I don’t want to live with you anymore either.  It is you who I want to die.  But to kill you is to kill me.  I hate that you are a part of me.  I hate that you weren’t strong enough to protect yourself, to protect me, and now I live with your weakness and your oozing scars. You bring me shame.  You make me dirty.  When I look at you all I see is dirt.  I want you gone, but you have locked yourself up within me, behind a door I don’t know how to open.  A door I am afraid to open, because you locked all the monsters up in there with you.  I hear those monsters scratching at the door; scratch, scratch, scratching.  To open that door is to let all of you out and if I let you out I won’t know how to be me.  I will be you, lost in the memories I don’t want to remember, the emotions, the terror.  You with all your anger and your sadness will be loosed along with the monsters and I will be suffocated in the process.  I can feel it even as I write.  I can feel the splintering wood of that door you reside behind.  Pieces of you and them leaking through.  

Ruby stopped writing and closed her eyes.  The emotions that were rising up inside of her were threatening to take over.   She slowed her breathing, froze all movements and began to calm her racing heart.  She imagined a white nothingness surrounding her.  No corners for things to hide in, just white light that surrounded her until she disappeared within it.  The only sound was her breathing.  She emptied herself of all emotions, all thought, and buried herself in the white of her mind.  It stopped the rising flood…..for now.  She opened her eyes and looked out the window and let her mind go to that day not too long ago, the day that brought her to end up here.

She had gone looking for help, looking for someone to tell her that she was going to be okay.   She had asked what she should do if death’s call became too loud for her to ignore, where should she go, who could she call?  She knew that hospitals were supposed to be safe, but experience had told her that they weren’t.  Death would be better than being left sitting in a hallway alone with people staring.  Death would be better than being told you were wasting their time with your hurting.  The person she had asked told her that there were no guarantees of being treated well and with respect and practically begged Ruby to seek counseling.  The speaker had no idea how hard it was for her to put word on top of word when eyes were watching or how her heart sank with each passing moment.  She had gone there searching for a hero and for rescue, but instead she had found neither, only honest answers that left her feeling worse than when she had come.  She appreciated the honesty, but she needed more. She needed a refuge from herself, but instead left that meeting feeling more lonely, hurt, and desperate than she had ever felt before.

After she left the building she walked over to the rail that overlooked the ground several stories below. Holding the rail tightly in her hands she stared at the concrete, trees, and shrubs, it seemed as if they were speaking to her: “Jump into our arms,” they whispered, “we can bring you help.  We can silence the ache.”  Tears fell from her eyes as she gripped the rail tighter and stepped closer to it.  She had been so tempted to join them, to land in their prickly arms.  As she was about to begin her climb she saw a man below who stood looking up at her.  When their eyes met, he saw into her and she was truly seen, past the typical mirror looking back and into the window of her.  It was enough to quiet the whispers and she walked away that day and back into her life.

Ruby looked out the window where the sky was turning from black to gray and went back to her writing.

It was you he saw at the rail that day little girl, it was you that had me standing there. It is you who leaves me feeling weak and needy.  I need help killing you.  I am sure that I will be told that I can’t kill you, that I need to learn how to blend you and I - the me I would be without you - together, so that I can become one whole person instead of two separate beings.

 Dawn was approaching.  She watched as the light revealed the beauty on the other side of the window.  Beauty that had been hidden in the dark shadows of night.  The sun crept over the manicured lawns, walking paths, pond, and fountains.  There was a large oak tree that stood tall and ancient.  It had stood its ground long before any of these buildings.  It had watched many nights come and go and still stood waiting for the dawn of each new day.  

……………………………Chapter…………………………

  

Warm water washed over her body as she stood underneath the shower head.  She stood there watching the dirt swirl down the drain and disappear. No matter how hard she stared at the drain her memories wouldn’t mix with the dirt, they just kept swirling through her mind, and as the last bit of dirt swirled away her ability to avoid the emotions that went with the memories went down the drain with it.  The emotions washed over her and she sank down into the bathtub.  Every negative emotion that one could feel pelted her along with the water: sadness, anger, fear, terror, heartache, loneliness, want, hurt, pain, and more.  She could not hold them down any longer.  She had held them for far too long.  The voice in her head emulated that of Dr. Robins, “Can you name them?  You cannot fight nor embrace that which doesn’t have a name. Giving them a name gives you the power, not them.  Find your power, Ruby.  Name them.”

Ruby rubbed the snot, tears, and water from her face and pushed the hair out of her eyes, a spark of fight beginning to gleam in them.

“FEAR”  she whispered. “I am taking my power back. I acknowledge you, but you will no longer control me and make me run.” She thought of the motivational poster she had seen on a wall. “No longer will I try to Forget Everything And Run. I will allow myself to Feel Everything And Rise.”

As she went through the list of emotions coursing through her and naming each of them her voice and the belief in the words she was saying became stronger causing their hold on her to grow weaker.  

Then she rose. 

If her experience under the willow tree had been the death of who she had been then this was her resurrection—a baptism— a parting of her old ways of merely surviving into a rising up to a new life of thriving.  She was ready to name the reality of what her past had been.  Ready to name it and fight what needed fighting and to embrace what needed embracing.  When Ruby turned the water on that evening she was a casualty of the war that raged within her.  Now as she turned the water off she was emerging as a warrior ready to battle.

Ruby Revisited

I spent a little more time with Ruby, polishing up what was there and adding some more details in.   If you missed the first version of this chapter she is a character I am creating who may someday turn into a novel. She is somewhat autobiographical and somewhat not.  Factual fiction is what I like to call it, but my friend tells me that it is really called autobiographical fiction.  Whatever it is called this is the start of Ruby's story.  This is nowhere near a final draft, but it is a little more telling into who she is and where she is than the earlier version.

………………Chapter One…………………

Ruby walked out onto the front steps and breathed in deeply.  She watched as her breath formed a cloud in the crisp fall air.  The leaves all around her were dying.  She took in their bold colors.  It was a beautiful death she thought.  A bright yellow leaf fluttered past her in the wind and landed in a puddle.  She hoped her death of sorts would be as graceful.  

She took in another deep breath and stepped into her new life, suitcase in hand.  A bright yellow cab drove her to her new home.   As the cab pulled up to the curb she opened the door and saw the reflection of yellow from the midst of the watery sidewalk.  The symbolism between the cab and the leaf from earlier was not lost on her.  It was her own fluttering in the wind, this ride to her future, and now she was near her end; the end of who she was and the way she had learned to be.  

She wanted to jump back into the cab and be driven away to anywhere but here, but she knew that this death was necessary.  Just as in nature there has to be a death before new growth can occur and if there was one thing she needed more than anything else it was new growth.  New life.  A resurrection.  The old had to die so that new could come and she was ready.  At least that is what she told herself.

Once settled into her new room, Ruby pulled out her journal.  

November 1

The leaves are all dying.  It seems a fitting farewell.  I am terrified of this next chapter, this shedding that I will be doing, because I know that just like the trees I will be laying myself bare.  There will be nothing left in which to hide myself behind.  

I will be exposed and left naked.  

I must remember that I chose this.  I chose to come here. This process is necessary.  I can do this.  I am ready and I am terrified.

A knock came on the door. Ruby closed her journal and placed it in her drawer underneath the underwear.  

“Ruby?”

“Yes, I am coming.”

Ruby opened the door to a plump, short, middle aged woman with graying hair.  Her name tag said“Beverley”.  She was cheerful and kind as she showed Ruby around the complex on the way to the first session with the person that would be her one-on-one therapist.

“This here, is the dining room.  Meal times are posted on the door.  If you need a snack between meals they always have a basket of fruit and some other odds and ends in the lounge along with bottles of water.”  

Past the dining room was the lounge with all the amenities Beverley had described plus some.  From there they went to the front desk where she showed Ruby the signing in and out process for leaving the building.  For the first 72 hours Ruby would need to be escorted from building to building and after that she could earn the ability to go unescorted, but she would still need to sign in and out every time she left.

The grounds were lovely.  Ruby saw many places that she would want to just sit and take in the beauty once she proved she wasn’t a flight or suicide risk.  After a short tour they reached their destination.  It was an old ornate building.  “This originally was a college that was founded in the early 1900’s.” Beverley told her as she led her through the doors. “I just love all of the old architecture myself.”  Ruby, smiled her agreement and then felt her stomach turn to knots as she walked through the large glass door and inside.  Standing before them was the woman who would be the crux and crucible of her time here.

The woman extended her hand as she said, “Hello Ruby!  I am Dr. Mary Robins, it is nice to meet you.  Are you ready for your first session?” 

Ruby gave a nod as she shook the hand before her.  Dr. Robins was well dressed and much younger than Ruby had expected, much prettier too. 

Ruby turned to Beverley, “Thank you for showing me around.”

“You are more than welcome!  I won’t be here when you are done, so I hope you have a good night.  See you tomorrow.” And with that she turned and walked away leaving Ruby with the Doctor and a pit in her stomach.  

“My office is this way” said Dr. Robins leading the way.  As Ruby followed her down the hallway she noticed her shoes and how much she liked them.  They were stylish, yet sensible.  If cute shoes were any indicator of a person’s personality she figured she was going to like this woman just fine.

Entering the room Ruby took inventory of her surroundings.  There was a couch, two armchairs, a desk, and a couple of bookcases.  One of the chairs was very definitely meant for  the Doctor, the couch was closest to that chair and the other chair was at the other end of the couch, opposite the Dr’s.  The bookshelves were lined with books and some personal photos.  The walls were painted a cheery shade of tan with a touch of deep burgundy brown.  It was the perfect amount of color to give the room a homey feel and make you forget you were at an institution.  There was a large mirror behind the couch. Ruby caught a glimpse of herself just long enough to regret it.  She may have been good at hiding behind her put together exterior for others, but she could never hide herself from her own reflection and the truth she saw looking back at her.  Yes, those eyes of hers may have been a mirror for others to see what it was they wanted to see, but for her they were always a window and she never liked what she saw inside of them. She made a mental note to avoid looking there in the future.  

The door shut behind her and she quickly had to decide where she should sit.  If she sat in the chair farthest away she would seem stand offish. That would not be a good impression.  The spot closest to Dr. Robins seemed too familiar and vulnerable.  The middle of the couch would have to do.  It would be safe, but not distant.  

Once seated the real panic began to set in.  What was she doing here?  What had she done?  This was too much, she was in way over her head!  What had she been thinking?  She closed her eyes, slid her hands underneath her legs, and took a deep breath, then another.  

“Calm down, you can do this.” She told herself, “Today will be simple, she is just going to ask you simple questions.  The hard work will come later, today you will be fine.”

Ruby opened her eyes and let them move from the sight of her own feet over to the pair of cute shoes and then up to Dr. Robins eyes.  Her face was kind and her eyes held a gentle wisdom.  

“Why don’t I start by telling you a little bit about myself first and see if you have any questions for me.” said the therapist.

She talked of her educational background, work history, and therapeutic style. Ruby took note of every aspect  of the doctor while she listened.  The quality of the clothes she wore, the manicured fingernails, the rather large wedding set on her hand.  The lack of wrinkles and gray hair probably meant she didn’t have any children yet, unless she dyed her grays away.  To Ruby she looked like a brown haired therapist Barbie doll, perfectly styled and professional. 

Interrupting Ruby’s mental inventory the Dr. asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”  

In her own mind she said, “About a thousand!”, but she had no idea what the boundaries or the protocol was of things to ask.  She didn’t want to accidentally overstep and then feel the embarrassment and pain of the possible reprimand and awkwardness that would follow.  “Only one.” is what she said out loud. “What made you choose this line of work?  I have heard most people become therapists, because they are trying to find a way to fix themselves.”  She knew the question was rather pointed,  but the purpose was to level the ground a little.  Ruby knew why she was messed up, but she wanted to know how human her therapist was as well.  She needed to hear something that made her a little closer to human, well her kind of a human, imperfect. She needed to know that this woman sitting by her would be able to handle the vile creature she was beneath the surface.  Maybe even be able to empathize.

“Well, that is an interesting question.” Dr. Robins took a moment to formulate her answer.  “I watched some of my family members struggle with psychological needs who were really helped through therapy and I always grew up knowing that is what I wanted to do.”

That answer was less than satisfying. 

“Now, why don’t you tell me about you?”  She asked as she picked up a pen and readied herself to write in the notebook that sat in her lap.

“What would you like to know?” 

“Whatever it is you think is important to tell me.” Dr. Robins said as she looked at her expectantly.

That question was too broad, too general.  She had no idea what she was supposed to find important. She was here to be brave and talk and she had no idea what to say, so she said the first safe and relevant thing that came to mind.

“Well, I am sitting here, so that should tell you something.”

“What should that tell me?”

“That I am broken.  A little crazy, maybe.  And weak for needing to even sit here.”

“Okay, let’s break that statement down a bit more.  What is it that made you broken?”

Ruby pondered this for a moment before answering . “Life?  Yes, life.  And maybe God.”

“So, if those two things made you broken, what parts of you did they break specifically and how?”

These questions were quickly moving out of the safe zone and into uncomfortable territory, but she made herself answer anyway. “Life broke my will to want to continue living most days.  It broke my trust.  Life and God both broke my sense of worth.  Life has become this thing that I just have to get through until I can finally die.  Although, there are moments of happiness, but there is always something lurking in the shadows, just waiting to catch me, bring me down.” Here she had to pause.  Here is where the words got tougher to get out and over her lips.  “God, well, He created me.” She stopped looking at eyes and stared at the floor.  “He created me knowing full well what life was going to give me and He created me anyway.  He created me in order to be broken, to be used.”  On the word ‘broken’ hot tears burned at the corners of her eyes, “COME ON!” She thought.  “What the Hell happened to my simple?  My ease into the hard stuff slowly?” Her toes pushed down into her shoes like talons gripping for stability.

“What happened to break your trust and steal your joy? How were you used?”

Those questions went too far.  Before the words could even form an answer in her mind the terror came bubbling up.  A nauseating pit grew deep in her belly and a sharp clawing  feeling scratched at her chest.  Just the thought of speaking the reasons out loud had her nails digging into the bottom of her legs.  She shook her head “No”.  She wasn’t going to answer that. She couldn’t. 

Dr. Robins saw her reaction to the question and wrote down a couple of notes while giving Ruby time to form an answer that never came.  

“It is okay, we can come back to that later.  Why don’t you tell me what you are feeling right now.”

“It is hard to put into words.” Just trying to put emotion into word was difficult.  Any words she could find to say felt like a betrayal of trust, a secret that wasn’t supposed to be shared.  How does one describe what feels like your insides are being devoured whole when each word to come out of your mouth is equivalent to taking a bite out of your own chest leaving you bloody and raw.  She sat blinking and breathing trying to separate herself from the feelings so that she could answer. “Panic.  Sheer terror. Torture.” She eventually eked out.

“Those are strong feelings. I would like you to take a few moments to just breathe and then when you are ready you can tell me what makes you say you might be crazy?”

There was much that Ruby could say on that, but not right now, not after all of her internal alarms had been set off.  All she wanted to do right now was to close her eyes and make everything around her be gone.  She wanted to  stand up and leave. Neither of those were an option though. She had come here to battle, to defeat the demons that clawed at her thoughts, but she felt as though she was already losing …failing.  Talking had always been hard for her.  Writing was the safer option, but a pen can only slay so much.  

She looked down at her feet as she spoke slowly, intently. “Sane people don’t beg God to kill them. Sane people don’t need to check themselves into mental institutions.  And before you ask, that is what makes me weak.  Being here makes me weak, because I can’t figure out how to continue living on my own.  I need someone else to help me and that makes me weak.  Needing help makes me vulnerable.  In my life vulnerability is never safe.  Vulnerability IS weakness.”

Dr. Robins looked at Ruby intently, “I don’t see weakness when I look  at you.” Ruby looked up into her eyes as she listened.  “It took a lot of courage for you to come here.  It is very brave to admit you need help and then to find someone that can give you that help.  Weakness is nowhere in this room.” She paused for a moment to let the words settle into Ruby’s mind before she asked, “How would you describe this desire within you to both want to live and  to die?”

Ruby didn’t even have to think about this one, she already knew the answer. Her whole life she had been living the answer to this question. “It is a war.”

The young Doctor tilted her head slightly and thought for a moment.  “Let me ask you this question; how many wars do you know of that are won by a single soldier?  You don't  have to answer that.  In fact I don’t want you to answer it.  As we leave here I would like you to think about this, if wars are won by an army, wouldn’t it make sense that a strong soldier would gather other soldiers to help win the battle?”

Ruby let that soak in for the rest of the evening.  

The House

THE HOUSE

There once was an architect who built a beautiful little house.  The design was flawless and there was no lack in the attention to detail that was put into this house.  The architect saw the house he had created and was pleased.

After a few years some people saw the house and decided to vandalize it.  They tore off the shutters and picked the locks.  They came into the house and did much damage, breaking things and destroying what the architect had designed.  

As the years went by and storms came and went the winds and the rains began to rot the little house from the inside out. It was no longer protected by the architect’s design, because the vandals had ignored its value and used it for their own purposes. 

The little house no longer cared who came inside. Anyone was welcome, because the company was better than the loneliness .

Some of the people who came tried to fix the broken parts.  They put up wall paper over the mold and damages and painted the outside to hide the rotting boards.  

The little house looked better, but inside it was still rotting away behind the fresh paint and pretty papers.  

The architect saw the little house and the damages that had been done to his creation and what others had done to try and cover them.  

He was saddened that his perfect little house was no longer the way he had designed it to be.

He began sending people to the house to pull down the wall paper that hid the mold and to scrape away the paint that covered the rot.

The house thought it was being demolished.  

More people came and stripped the house down.  Tearing out more than the house thought was possible to be removed and still be left standing.

The demolition hurt.  

Standing exposed for all to see felt worse than the rotting had.  The house wished it had never been built.

Slowly though as the old was removed and the new was brought in the house began to feel strong again.  

As the builders built the architect designed.  His original design had been perfect, but this house had seen a lot and stood through a lot of storms, the house needed a fresh design, new ways to protect it from future vandals and to stand as a beacon to others that had been vandalized.  Yes, this house would serve a new purpose.  

The vandals had sought only to destroy what the architect made.

Others thought only to cover the damages, not to repair them.

But the architect knew his home and knew what it needed and what it could do.

The repairs took a long time.  

There were times that no one worked so that what had already been done had time to set. If the time hadn’t been allowed the house would not be as strong and any new work would be built on a weak foundation.

The little house only knew what was happening as it happened, it did not see the architects design. There were days when the house thought it would never be completed.

Finally one day all the work was finished.  The house sat tall and strong.  It learned who to let in and who to keep out and if anyone picked the locks it knew that the architect would come and repair it.

The house had gone from being broken and vulnerable to the storms to now being a refuge during them.  

God's unfailing love

table top doodle

Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; YOUR faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.

Psalm 36:5

I am the Light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

John 8:12

See what kind of love the FATHER has given to us that we should be called the children of God.

1 John 3:1

When you go through DEEP waters, I will be with you.  When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will NOT drown.

Isaiah 43:2a

If I take to the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there YOUR hand shall lead me, and YOUR right hand shall hold me. 

Psalm 139:9-10

Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him!

Matthew 6:8

GOD holds me head and shoulders above ALL who try to pull me down.  I'm headed for HIS place to offer anthems of praise that will raise the roof!

Psalm 27:6

Strength, Faithful, Seen, Valued, Love, Unending, True, Hope, Lifted, Shine, Open, Adopted, Protected, Accepted, Grace, Promise, Faith, Joy, Raised, Treasured, Honored, Trust, Special

A day at Smilow

The kids were off to school and I was off to my appointment.

I stepped into the truck and started on my hour long drive to get there.  The rain was beginning to come down, the day outside looked dreary, but I felt like a little ray of sunshine as I bopped along to the music on the radio.

I had done all my homework leading up to this visit.  I had used my Google PhD well and I was ready with my notes and questions.

I knew I was going to need radioactive iodine treatment, but I didn't know the plan of before or during.

There are different methods of preparing for the treatment, ways to get your body ready and wanting to suck up that iodine.  One way is to stop taking your hormone replacement for a month prior to treatment. Another way is to get a series of shots.  Going off of the medication can leave your body aching, weight gaining, and depressed.  Been there, done that, prefer not to go back.  I was going in prepared to state my case for the shots.

During treatment you become radioactive.  You cannot be around other people.  You have to use a different bathroom, are supposed to use disposable dishes, be in a room by yourself, etc.  With seven children, the youngest a momma's boy to the extreme, this would be impossible to do at home.  A hotel stay expensive, plus you are exposing the hotel workers and other guests to your radioactive self.  I was set to present my case for hospitalization.

I was driving, dancing, and ready.  I took my exit and followed the signs to Smilow Cancer Hospital, turned into the parking garage built for small cars and felt like a Little People car on a Hot Wheels track.  It is tight in there.  Our 12 passenger van would have no luck, which means I get to use my hubbies big (yet still smaller than the van) truck.  I think the truck has about a 2 inch clearance from some parts of the roof.

Like this, but surround the track in
dark gray foreboding concrete.

isn't she cute?

I went in.
Stood in line to get my beautiful plastic bracelet.
Filled out paperwork. (current symptoms, circle the ones that apply.  Weight loss....circle....add in, "not that I am complaining!")
Get called back to the processing vitals room.  (Stand on scale down 11 pounds since last visit. Yip! Yip!)
Wait in waiting room.
Go back to be seen.
Visit with the nurse.
Have same conversation with the attending.

Then the attending starts talking about what comes next and the options that are out there.

Doctor comes in.
She starts answering all of my unasked questions with the answers I wanted.  7 kids at home, hospitalization it is.  Thyrogen shots are a lot nicer than a month of yuck, so shots it is.  I didn't even need to say a word about what I wanted, because it was being handed to me on a silver platter stainless steel medical tray.

I was told that Nurse Brian would be calling me to set up all the dates and let me know when I needed to start my low iodine diet and what to avoid, etc.

Then it was off to the lab.

I showed the beautiful woman with the flawless brown skin my pretty bracelet and checked in.  She asked me if I had a port or needed it drawn from my arm.

Arm.

The question took me by surprise.  It was asked as though it was commonplace, as if I had just ordered ice cream and they wanted to know if I wanted chocolate or vanilla.  I guess being a cancer hospital that to them it is common, but it isn't to me. It is kind of strange to feel so good and be in a place with so much sickness that the sick has become normal, commonplace.  ( I think there is a deeper world application here.)

Get called back.
Get poked.
Go home, in the rain, driving my little people truck around the hot wheels curves, dancing, ready for what lies ahead and very thankful.

My Heart doesn't operate in the scientific: The operating table

This is the third installment of  this series.       My heart Part One     My heart Part Two

"You went in for an operation, but you got up off of the table before it was done."

That is what he had said to me, my pastor, at our meeting.  I wasn't sure I agreed.  If I had gone in for an operation it felt like I had chosen the wrong hospital. That weekend had very definitely left me torn wide open and had left me in need of some sutures at the very least.

I went home and I bled.  I didn't know where to find a doctor to close me up.  I sent a letter to my old counselor in Washington asking for some direction.  I also started looking online for help; reading articles and buying books.  I was desperately trying to find the right sutures to stop the bleeding.

I found this book and ordered it off of Amazon.  When it came I read 100 pages of it that first night.  I was holding in my hands what may as well have been titled "Understanding Karmen", because it was 400 pages of everything I had ever felt, thought, acted on, and didn't feel.  I was not some crazy, bad, mis-created person.  I was a violated person left damaged by the violation.  Everything I think, feel, and don't feel is common!

I always knew that to some extent, but to see it written down in black in white was freeing.  It was like finally having a diagnosis for my emotional ailment.

With the exception of the pre-pubescent abuse that I suffered at the hands of my friends father I never had clear memories of what had happened to me.  I always knew something had happened because of who I was, but without the memories to go along with it part of me felt as though I was making more out of it than needed to be made.

Sometimes, before a wound can be healed you have to open it up and get the infection out.

The weekend retreat had opened up that wound deep, and now that I look back I hadn't gone to the wrong hospital, that weekend was just the first step to prepare me for the surgery that I needed.  The infection had to be removed before the healing could take place.  And that infection continued to ooze out as I have written about in the last two posts.   Oozing validations that something most definitely had happened to me in my childhood that were justifying the diagnosis I held in my hands.

As comforting as that was I was still left bleeding and oozing. The infected memories were frightening and I was not in control of what seeped out of the wound or when.

In His complete mercy, God gave me a name, a diagnosis, for that black slimy blob I was holding in my hand; that cancerous slime called childhood sexual abuse.  But His mercy did not stop there.  He also gave me a diagnosis to hold in my other hand, papillary carcinoma of the thyroid.  It may not be the diagnosis to answer the three+ years of medical mysteries that I have gone through, but it was a validation that listening to my body is important.  (The story of how this diagnosis came about verges on the miraculous, but it will have to wait for another day).  I had decided that my body was just a big fat liar who liked to create pain and mayhem and this diagnosis let me know that at least sometimes my body was telling the truth.

He was answering my angry prayer from the few months before.  He was letting me hold the answers in my hands to show me that when He healed me it would not be from my own overwhelming defectiveness.  He was giving me reasons, tangible ones, and He was continuing to say, "Trust me."

(To be cont.)

My heart doesn't operate in the scientific: Bucking against the fence posts

*This is the second installation of this series.  My heart Part one.

I am going to travel backwards for a moment.  To share with you something I wrote but never posted.  This was written after I had gone in for my neck issues, but prior to getting any kind of diagnosis.

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11/19/13

Our Pastors have been preaching a lot on healing.

A lot.

Our once a month Sunday night service was all about healing last night.

I went to church wanting to hide in a corner.  I was contemplating where would be the best "hiding" spot in the sanctuary where I would be the least visible.  I felt like a caged animal being poked with sticks.  Honestly, I didn't even really want to go in.  I thought about just sitting in my van for the whole service. ( I go on my own when we have Sunday night services).

I made myself go in though.  And I made myself sit in my normal spot;  middle section, second row back, second seat in from the right.  I was freezing, so I wrapped my grandpa sweater around me tight and kept my arms folded tight to my chest.  I probably looked pretty frangry (freezing and angry).

Before we started singing the pastor talked about how he really felt that Jesus was going to heal people and that if we needed a healing to be sure and ask for it.  He also said that wherever we were that we needed to meet with Jesus.  If that meant dancing, dance.  If it meant crying, cry.  If it meant laying face down on the floor in prayer, then lay down.

So I stood there being frangry.  I told Jesus, "I am here and I am really angry.  And Lord, no one had better come and try and heal me tonight, because I don't want it."

I realized that this is an odd thing to tell the Lord, especially for someone who has said she is on a healing road.  So I explained to the Lord and to myself, mostly to myself, because Jesus, He already knows what I mean and who I am.

"God, I don't want you to heal me before they find out what it is.  I want to be able to say 'SEE, SEE, that is what has been causing the hurts, that is what is causing the pain!  I am NOT making it up, it is real and it is THERE!'"  And I had an instantaneous image.  In my mind I was holding up a blackened slimy blob in one hand and the cause of the physical hurts in the other and I realized that for both my physical and emotional hurts and pains that I wanted to be able to pinpoint, name, and see that there was a cause, a reason for them.  A tangible thing to hold and to say, "See this thing, it is real, it is REAL!  This has been the cause and I am not defective.  I am really okay and this whole time this slimy black blob has been to blame for the emotional and the medical whatever it is for the *physical.*"  If healing comes before I can root that out then I will always feel defective.  I will always feel as though God merely healed me from my own overwhelming defectiveness.

************************************************************

Now go from here to Encounter weekend that first weekend of February.  When I came home I wrote my feelings from the weekend out in my journal.  This is what I had to say about part of the weekend.

************************************************************

I drew this and wrote out these scriptures
after writing out my letter.

Friday night I had felt like a caged animal.  The very first assignment was to write a love letter to Jesus of all things.  

Hello!  Can we just jump into my intimacy issues right off the bat?  Yeah, great.  I told him I wanted to be the wild horse bucking against the fence posts, wanting the security of the fence, but the freedom to still buck.  I told him that I did not want to be close to Him.  He understood the why's.  I didn't have to state them out.  I told him that I could never buck like the wild horse though, because I had already been broken and told that any wild left in me was bad.  It wasn't much of a love letter, but it was my heart at the moment.

************************************************************************

I didn't even really know where those feelings were coming from as I wrote them, they were just there.  I still don't fully understand that wild horse analogy that I was feeling.  I have an inkling that it has something to do with memories that had yet to come out, and those that still have yet to come.  

I finished up the events of the weekend by saying, "I feel war torn and battered.  I don't feel abandoned, but maybe a bit betrayed.  Morning came and joy wasn't waiting."

I have  spoken  of how I went and saw my pastor after this weekend happened.  I didn't speak about what he said to me during that meeting.  (This is the man whose ear is so close to God's lips that I can see the whispers of His voice reflected in his eyes.  As with anyone I don't just blindly follow, but because of how this man lives his life and who he is, because of who God is, I have learned to listen.)  This man told me at our meeting that I just needed to take time and give everything to God, sit down and have it out with Him.  He said that God had a healing for me.  He told me that he could see me with a smile so big and my heart so free and filled with so much joy that my kids and husband would not recognize me, because I would be different than who they had always known.  I would be/feel light.  He told me that I would be the catalyst to move my family into great things.  He also told me that it was no small wonder that I was here in this place (literal location) that God had purposed to put me here for this very reason. He warned that I should not take that lightly and that opportunities like this one don't last forever.  

I was incredibly discouraged when I left, because didn't he know that I did not know HOW to do those things?  I hoped for his vision of my future, but I saw no way that it was going to happen.  Joy? JOY?! Beaming, BEAMING, out of me?!?  Doesn't he know that I am  the girl who doesn't know joy?  He might as well have asked the lame to walk, the blind to see, or the captives to go free.  And now that I write that out, that is exactly what he was asking. Only I felt as though he were asking me to figure out how to go about doing that.  But it was never the lame, the blind, or the captives who saved themselves was it?

(to be cont.) 

*I have been told that this cancer is most likely not the cause of the previous physical ailments and that they are probably not related to one another.
**linking up with faith barista/white space even though the prompt is Easter and I don't speak to that directly this is the story in continuation of my personal Easter story of stones being rolled away.

My heart doesn't operate in the scientific

This is the first post of a four post series. Please read the rest of the story by clicking on the "cont." at the bottom of the page.

*Warning: This could be a trigger for those who have been abused.*

I wrote back in early February how Jesus whispered  words to my heart after a particularly difficult weekend.  Here are just a few of those words.

 I know you are frustrated and scared.

 I know this weekend brought up hurts you thought had finished hurting.

 I also know it brought up much fear, because it loosed up hazy 

realizations of memories you don't want to remember, 

things you don't want to know. 

You are so afraid of finding out what has been hiding behind that door 

with all its scratching noises, but I am bigger than that door, baby,

 and anything that lies behind it.

That door had been jarred open that weekend and scared is where I was.  I went on later to write how God was revealing more of what lay behind that door to me in dreams.  That door and all that lay behind it left me in a state of emotional turmoil.  I never knew when I would slip from present day into the emotions of the girl who was trapped in time behind that door with the memories.  I could be washing dishes as an adult in the now and turn and be child sobbing, scared, and hurting.  

It was during this time that I discovered I had thyroid cancer. 

I was never scared of the physical cancer. ( I have always been scared of the emotional "cancer" that lurks behind that damned door.)

The testing for the cancer, surprisingly to me, brought out more of what hid behind that door and that completely terrified me.

As I laid on the exam table during a biopsy of lymph nodes in my central neck my throat was being pressed on and suddenly I was in two places at once.  My body was surrounded by doctors but my mind was in a dark room, a man's hands around my throat, I could feel myself starting to lose consciousness in the world my mind inhabited.  I was panicking.  All I could do was desperately pray for Jesus to save me from my mind and the memory that had slipped out from behind that door.  

I wanted to sob, ask the doctor to stop and curl myself into a huddled ball, but I knew that I couldn't do that. I held myself together as my breath quickened and my lip quivered.  After enduring an hour of being both here and there it was over.  

I spent the weeks between that procedure and my surgery praying that God would use my time in surgery to minister to me.  I would be a captive audience with no distractions.  I prayed over and over that He would walk me through the memories during that time.  Scientifically, I am sure that sounds implausible, but

my heart doesn't operate in the scientific it operates in the supernatural.  

When people would ask me how I felt about the surgery and the cancer I would answer them honestly and say I was just ready to get on with it.  The cancer was no big deal compared to what lay behind that door and I was very worried about surgery opening that door even further.  I didn't tell them that part though.

I just prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed.  "God, please, just show me what I need to know while I am under.  I know I will be unconscious, but please just tell me what I need to know. Walk me through it, I don't care if it sounds dumb, just do it. Please!"  

Surgery day came.  I went into the operating room and thought, "Okay God, you're up." as they moved me from one bed to the other and I slipped into the anesthesia, or rather it slipped into me.  

(to be cont.)

Five Minute Friday: Crowd

*a factual fiction of a moment in time, which took more than five minutes to write*


She sat in the crowd not knowing if she fit in, but she was there and for now that would have to be enough. She looked around at the other faces and backs of heads in the crowd.  They all seemed to know something that she didn't; how to be comfortable in their own skin.  Some raised their arms up, others swayed back and forth, and others were crying - openly letting the tears stream down their faces.  As she watched the crowd she wondered what it would be like to feel emotions the way they did, integrated, mind and body both working in collaboration instead of being separate entities.

The man up front started to speak and the words broke through her observations and seemed aimed directly at her heart.  Her eyes stopped looking at the crowd and focused solely on the man.  She watched to see if he knew who he was speaking to, if he knew his words were aimed at her or not.  He spoke of freedom and of being whole and she watched his eyes closely.  He believed what he was saying.  She could see it in his face that he meant every word, but she still wasn't sure if it could be for her or not and then he looked at her. He looked right into her eyes and he talked about chains binding hearts; she felt as if her heart stopped beating and she held her breath.  Was he really speaking just to her, did he somehow know?  She felt visible, as if he could see through her eyes and into her blackened soul.  As much as she had hoped to be seen, this viewing seemed too exposing and she looked away.  When she looked back he had moved to the other side of the stage.  She was safe again.

When the man stopped talking he invited the hurting up to the front.  He offered healing.  She ached for that healing, but she knew what would happen if she let her feet take her up there.  Her body would be present, but her mind wouldn't be there.  It would be wondering what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to behave.  Her mind and her emotions would be frozen, because if anything came all would come and she would wash away with them and take everyone else with her.  So, no, no she would not move.  She would stay and watch as others went forward.  She would watch as they were able to let the waves wash over their eyes and hear as their sobs left their lips and she would wonder how they could do that, especially in front of eyes like hers that were watching, and how they could feel without being washed away by the feelings.

It was time to leave, the healings were over, the crowds dispersing. She left wondering if she would ever learn how to go about being whole.

Bone weary: slipping through that crack between forgotten and remembered

**A Warning that this could be a trigger for those who suffered from abuse**

I am tired.  All the time.  It is the kind of tired that makes my bones want to dissolve into the bed when I lay down.  It is more than just a physical tired, it is an emotional tired.  This subconscious leaking into conscious is exhausting.  It is like living in an internal fog where you walk and you walk and you never know what you are walking into until you run smack dab into it.  

It is loading the dishwasher and having a half formed memory slip through that crack between forgotten and remembered, causing you to lean heavy into the sink sobbing.  It is the kind of tired that comes from being 38 in body, but 4 or 5 emotionally and all you know is sadness and fear and you don't have a clear understanding of why or what or who.  You know enough to know that it is something, but not enough to work through the story.  You can feel the weight of it like chains that bind you; but you can't see them or touch them - feel them under your fingertips.

It is waking up from a sound sleep with hands clawed and battle ready, your legs kicking hard.  It is knowing that it wasn't a dream that brought out this fight, but a memory that still hides in shadow.  It is telling yourself where you are, reminding yourself of the present so you can drift back to sleep only to wake up fighting off the memory that is as dark as the night you are thrashing in.

It is lying on an exam table having your throat pressed on and in your mind you are child being choked, feeling as though you are going to pass out, breath quickening, lip quivering, praying for Jesus to come and rescue you from your mind, because He didn't come rescue your body when the choking was real.  

It is riding down the road wondering if you are losing your mind and a memory comes that isn't new, but this time it brings with it the taste of soap and cologne so strong in the back of your throat and on your lips every time you take a breath that you ask out loud what that smell is, but the other in the car can't smell it.  It is not wanting to acknowledge where that tasted smellmory is coming from and having to turn your head over and over again to make it finally go away. It is the nauseous clawing in your chest that is fear, sadness, and anger intermingled.

It is wondering if your mind is writing its own story, but it isn't one you want to read, so you tell it to stop, but it won't.

It is wanting to run away from everything that is internal and leave it behind, but you can't.  Running away from the depths of you is like trying to run from the color of your eyes -f impossible. You can avoid your reflection for a time, but eventually it is going to be there looking back at you.  You can try and hide it, mask it, but masks are only temporary, the reality never changes.  

It is being tired, so tired of the fight.  The fight to forget alternating with the fight to remember.  It is knowing that you need something, but never being able to figure out exactly what that something is.  

It is hearing that all you need to do is X,Y, or Z to be better, but you have no idea how to do X, Y, and Z and no one can give you the instructions they just expect you to do it.  

It is straining your ears hard to hear hope singing, because sometimes he is hidden deep in the fog.

It is the constant grinding friction of what you know to be truth in all those parts of you that are rational versus what you feel, see, and hear in all the other parts of you that are not so rational.  

All of this is what makes me bone weary and I just want some rest.

I will make you beautiful; the makings of a masterpiece

If Jesus told you a love story what would He say? What would you want Him to say?

I was tasked with writing a love letter to Jesus this weekend. I found that really hard. Probably harder than it should have been. In fact this last weekend was just hard in general. I have been struggling since. I asked to see one of our Pastors today because I was struggling living in the hard of it all. I think I went there looking for a hero to save me from my hard. Of course I didn't find one. I left wondering what I had been expecting to happen at that meeting. It wasn't a bad meeting, please don't get me wrong, it just wasn't the "rescue" I was looking for. Since I left I have been asking myself what it is I think I need, what is it I am wanting to hear?

I was reading some blogs that were linked up with my last post. I noticed that quite a few of them had parts of their blogs where they wrote as if Jesus was speaking to them, to their hearts. It made me wonder, what is it that Jesus would say to me.  Obviously these words are my own, but I have no doubt that He was the one writing them on my heart.

*I am lying under the covers, surrounded by blankets and pillows; it is my own downy fortress of protection. Jesus comes and sits next to me. I turn away from Him and curl into myself. He just scoots closer and rubs the hair away from my forehead as He speaks in a soft whisper*

I know you are mad at me. I know how people have suggested that when you remember your hurts happening that you should envision me there with you and I know how the thought of me standing there watching makes the pain of it even worse. You want to know how I could just stand there and watch and not stop it.

I know that part of you thinks that because I didn't stop it that I created you for this, but I didn't. I didn't create you to be a rag to mop up man's desires, nor did I create you to be invisible and broken. I created you to be beautiful, a masterpiece. Man tried to destroy my handiwork, but baby what he doesn't know and what you have forgotten is that I am taking those pieces and I am going to make the most beautiful stained glass work of art you have ever seen. It feels slow and those shards feel sharp, but that is because I am taking my time to fit all the pieces in just right. You are going to be the sparkliest stained glass this world has ever seen and art like that is worth waiting for.

*He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and leans in close*

I know you are frustrated and scared. I know this weekend brought up hurts you thought had finished hurting. I also know it brought up much fear, because it loosed up hazy realizations of memories you don't want to remember, things you don't want to know. You are so afraid of finding out what has been hiding behind that door with all its scratching noises, but I am bigger than that door, baby, and anything that lies behind it.

You curse your mind for all the barriers and safeguards it has put in place over the years. Don't curse them. They have kept you going until you were ready to break them down and until I could bring you the people to help you do it, but your going to have to learn to let them in. Let Me in.

You fear it will prove too risky and that they will just let you down, leave you hurting, leave you tending to tender wounds all on your own. Trust in my timing, trust in My people. I am putting you in their hands because I know that they won't let you fall. Allow them to hold you. Tell them what it is you need.

I made you a promise 13 years ago that your heart would be healed here in Groton and I moved heaven and earth to get you back here for your healing, so please don't let fear stop you from getting it. Tell my people what it is you need, I will help them to listen.

It is okay to be weak small one. It is okay to be vulnerable. You have tried to be strong all on your own for far too long.

*He takes my hand and I pull it up to my heart as He sings soft and low the words

Beautiful, Beautiful I made you beautiful and I will make beautiful things of your life.

Carefully touching you, causing your eyes to see, yes I will make beautiful things of your life.*

Trust me dear heart, trust me.

And the story grows

Somewhere along the way I must have left it behind.   It wasn't until someone mentioned  it in their writing  that I even noticed it was missing.  As I read their words I expected it to rise up and pull at the waters in my eyes and dig at my mind, but it wasn't there. 

I took a mental note of the year; there had been no clearly marked line, no parting of a sea where I walked through and it was left to wash away.  Never the less, it wasn't there.  Shame had left and I hadn't even noticed. 

I wrote last about how I don't have a word or a theme for this year.  I still don't, but as I was thinking over my last year I decided that if I were to put a word over it like an umbrella to cover all it contained then that word would have to be MOVING. 


Tonight during our Wednesday night service our Pastor started off by asking us to answer this question in groups of 4 -5 : Why did Jesus come to earth?

There are lots of answers to this question. 

Our group of 4 came up with these reasons: 1. To pay for our sins  2. To die on the cross 3.  To heal the sick, the hurting, and the lost 4. To show us God 5. To fulfill the prophesies.

I am sure that there are many more answers to that question.  The particular answer that the pastor preached on was that He came to heal the sick and the hurting.  His scripture reference was Luke 4: 18-19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." ESV

His  message when condensed down to its most basic form was that we are all broken, lost, and hurting people who need Jesus, because you don't go through this world unscathed. 

Since Adam and Eve ate the fruit way back in the beginning we have all been hurting and in need of a healing and a covering from God. 

When he talked about the nakedness of Adam and Eve it reminded me of a blog I wrote way back in the beginning of my blogging.  (If interested you can click on the Adam and Eve link above to read it.)  Remembering it made me go back and take a look at it, re-read it, re-ponder where I was when I wrote it and where I am now. 

I wrote in there about God's covering and how Christ's sacrifice covered me where I couldn't.  When I wrote those words I was in the deepest depression I had ever been in.  A depression so deep I wasn't sure I would make it out alive.  (This is not an exaggeration.)  After that depression eased with the help of medication I went from pondering God's provision to being a very prodigally prodigal child.

When I came to my own realization that God's provision was better than the pig slop I was feasting in I felt like the most mangerish manger person to ever return home.  

I had essentially said to God, "Forget your fancy coverings you have given me I am going to go get me some forbidden fruit! You aren't cutting it." 

Talk about feeling naked when I came walking back down that road to Him. 

I felt completely EXPOSED and fruit stained. 

(And here is a little something extra, a little something that God just showed me, cuz He is really cool like that: Even when I was feasting on pig slop and forbidden fruit God still had me covered..... because God will never leave me nor forsake me..... He loves me and covers me despite my anger and confusion, because He knows where and who I am.  This is not to advocate sin.  This is not to say once saved always saved, this is just to say that God is awesome and graceful and He knows His children and when they are lost and hurting He doesn't give up on them.)

I hid from humanity for a long while after that.  I felt so stained and dirty and unacceptable that even though I had God's covering I couldn't forgive myself and didn't see how anyone else would be able to accept me as well. 

Before moving to Groton I wrote about how  we were moving, but God was too  .  Little did I know then how much He was and how He was orchestrating this move to Groton to bring healing back into my life and draw me back into humanity and out of my shame. 

There is so much to this story that keeps unfolding and growing and deepening, but this is where it will end for now. 

They are small, but they are mighty.

Sometimes the steps we take are so small that we don’t even realize we have taken them.

I wrote last about how I was still just standing still, but what I didn’t realize when I wrote that is that although I was indeed standing still at that moment, I was standing in a different place.  I had been moving all along and hadn’t even realized it.  When I wrote of the thorns I was thick inside of them.  I am no longer there.  Was I standing still in that sanctuary?  Yes, I was; but here is the thing I missed, are you ready for it?  I was out of the thorns….I was out of them and IN A SANCTUARY.  I was so focused on the standing that I forgot to look at my surroundings. 

When I was in the thorns I was so stuck because I felt so empty.  I felt like nothing .  I felt like I knew better and I did what was wrong anyways.  I knew God was waiting for me and loving me, but I was too ashamed to accept it.  For a long time, really until just this week, I felt as though my actions made everything that I had said about God and His love hollow and less believable to others.  This week I have been re-reading back through all of those early blogs.  What I am finding is that those early words have not been negated by my actions, but that God is using them, using my own words to remind me of the deep truths of His love.  And here is the really wooooo-eee-oooooohhhhh realization: the whole time I was struggling, the whole time I was writing down those words God knew what was coming.  He already knew the choices I was going to make. He already knew the words I would need to hear again and again to get me out of those thorns and He had me write them.  There is a kind of awe-inspiring peace that comes when you can see His hand throughout it all. 

I wrote very early on in this blog about a Healing Road .  In that particular blog I wrote how some roads are lined with brambles.  At that point in my life I was still on the road and the brambles I got tangled in weren’t even in my line of sight.  When I saw those words as I reread this week it just struck me.  It struck me hard that God knew what was coming even if I didn’t. 

So much is going on in my heart and my mind here.  Everywhere I turn now I see little steps; little heart steps, and life steps, and healing steps.  They are small, but they are mighty. 

If you are struggling to see past your hurts, your choices, your circumstances and you feel like you are stuck standing still let me tell you that I understand.  I see you.  I hear you.  But more importantly God sees you, hears you, understands you and even if they are small, and even if there is months between the stepping trust me when I say that one day you will look around and you too will find that your surroundings have changed.  Just keep breathing my friends and seeking God.  And it is okay if sometimes seeking Him comes in pain soaked sobs.  And it is okay if it comes in the broken sighs where all you can do is just keep taking one breath after another.  The one thing I can tell you, the one thing that I KNOW is that God loves you, friend, and He will stand on that road with you no matter how small the steps you take and no matter how long it takes you to start moving.  Just keep checking your surroundings.

linking up with Five minute Friday for "small" although this took me longer than five minutes to write.
and also linking up with Emily and her imperfect prose community.

 

and also with