. . . . again . . . .

I was thinking this the other day......   I was stronger until I let men into my life. 

Stronger emotionally. spiritually, physically and definately happier.   I let men in.... God still had no plans for men in my life at the time.  

Why I thought Collen was the one for me I will never ever know.  Dysfunctional behaviour was the sin.
Now I see that.

. . . shamed . . .

I felt criticized by Tim and then shame ...

for something in a dream I had...my ability to shape up undisciplined kids, whose nanny (sort of) I was.

I was hurt...very much so.  I felt shamed and inadequate to be a "gf" let alone someone loveable or able to do anything but be controlled by how others felt about me.  

So I called him back and he told me he didn't mean to have me feel that way.   It's just that if a person isn't trained by age 5 or 6 "it ain't gonna happen."   While I realize this...it was a dream.

A dream where the out come was one where the man cared for me.....very differently than Tim.
See other blog for dream.

To Tim I wrote:

One of my dysfunctional behaviours is isolating/avoiding/aloneness . . .. . . once again Sheri said:
The opposite of love is aloneness.

I beg and plead for just a bit of love from those that I think matter to me and it means not feeling alone when with them, being intimately attached emotionally, always welcome and accepted by them and all the other warm human emotions we attach to someone whose time and attention we value.

Much like a cat or dog gives to its owner.

Every human being is born with innate deep longings that are of love, security/safety, understanding, purpose, significance and belonging. When one or more of these deep longings are not available, there is deep wounding.

The author of the book we are using, Terry Wardle and Sheri know first hand the struggle I have maintained either in the background or head on since the age of 3. The age I acutely remember being conditionally or totally unloved, misunderstand as a mere child, without significance, brushed aside in purpose and not safe in the presence of one parent or the other or both (as when they fought so).

I want to take a big step and work on ~~ surrendering control of my feelings or emotions in what others say to me or how they feel about me, which puts me in great distress and emotional turmoil.

When you "criticize" and remind me of this, I shrink back in pain and it triggers shame.
I thought I would share this with you tonight.

Dearest Mary,

It appears my focus is all over the place instead of where it should be and I was almost sobbing the whole time tonight, as the tears stream down my face now.

We nailed to the cross, literally, one dysfunctional behaviour that we want to surrender to God. A beginning point after some learning on the subject.

One of my dysfunctional behaviours is isolating/avoiding/aloneness . . .. . . once again Sheri said:
The opposite of aloneness is love.

I beg and plead with Jesus for just a bit of love from those that I think matter to me and it means not feeling alone when with them, being intimately attached emotionally, always welcome and accepted by them and all the other warm human emotions we attach to someone whose time and attention we value.

Much like a cat or dog gives to its owner.

Every human being is born with innate deep longings that are of love, security/safety, understanding, purpose, significance and belonging. When one or more of these deep longings are not available, there is deep wounding.

The author of the book we are using, Terry Wardle and Sheri know first hand the struggle I have maintained either in the background or head on since the age of 3. The age I acutely remember being conditionally or unloved, misunderstand even as a child, without significance, brushed aside in purpose and not safe in the presence of one parent or the other.

I nailed to the cross a big step on my part ~~ surrender control of my feelings or emotions in what others say to me or how they feel about me, which puts me in great distress and emotional turmoil.
When criticized of this, I shrink back in pain and it triggers shame.

I come home and it is like no one is here. There is aloneness, which to me means no love or any deep core longings.
There is so much to learn and grow from....another 54 yrs of striving, but this time I so covet with God.
I love you Carl's Mary.

manipulated scene so that she understood she was "lying"

could not find her bell, most important item besides monitor and OJ.
she used to throw, in a frenzy, what she found not to her liking in a room if the important item was not there.... in fact throwing at the child
I have done that on occasion, but taken what was at my disposal
i asked if i should do so, so that she knew where her bell was.

i use the same behviours she did and i feel like the dirtiest peice of trash for it.

. . . focus . . .

God not Tim.
Anything I turn to, to help cope or alleviate the pain, other than God's love--- this is me sinning.

The sign language for control and sin are very much alike, it was pointed out tonight.

http://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/SIN

http://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/CONTROL

I am very tired and have a bad headache.  Coming home to mom was like a thorn itching.

The opposite of aloneness is love.

...lesson 4.....

I have struggles this week and last with deep inner saddness and hopelessness.

Sadness that Tim and I will never move toward what he will not give and no more.
Sadness that I am not worthy because I am so broken in his eyes, and probably not redeemable for him.

Hopelessness in regards to a future shared with another.
Hopelessness in regards to finances and always being under the weight of irresponsiblility.
Hopelessness in never being intimate in always with Tim...yes a deep saddness, abandonment and rejection.
Hopelessness in the fact that mom is incapable of breaking free of her broken vessel to communicate and share with me.
Saddness and hopelessness that I have any family member who fully accepts the broken person I occasionally show them by fits of rage and anger, blame and chaos.

Deep sadness for lack of friends, true friends.

God I do want to leave at the broken bleeding feet of Jesus lifted upon the cross. my saddness and hopelessness, fears of abandonment and rejection......I really do not want to ber the insufferable pain anymore,  Why cannot I not just leave it at the foot of Jesus's crucifying cross where he can see fit to remove it?

I have learned to love the feeling of saddness and hopelessness....how awful that sounds... tis what Tim tells me I do...I love the feeling of miserable.    I really do not.  It's just hard to believe that I truely can walk away from it.

missing group

missing group is hard ..... not physically but emotionally.

The prospect of learning and nowing more about myself and God is so scary I want to turn and run and would rather continue to avoid in insifferable pain than to pick up where I left off.

Lesson 3: to trust or not to trust.
Feelings tell us a great deal about what we believe about our world, our God and ourselves.

The God I am afraid to trust is not the true living God, but the false god I have created.

Without realizing it, I began trusting a false god long before the feelings of abandonment, isolation and avoidance leeched like growing roots, grashing and choking long before I recognized I even had a problem.
It is like dealing with the roots in the yard, attempting to deal with the cement they have found to awrap themselves around and their unforgiving hold so I might plant bulbs.

Blind trust

     passive mistrust

     aggressive mistrust

My own experience of trust with other people is often projected upon my relationship with God.

Either near or far, past or present, I have never been abandoned by my Shona "family", Pastor Jerry's teaching, Elizabeth and Carl's Mary.

there's the end and then there is a window

I've not been to group for 2 weeks because I cannot find a "sitter" for mom.

Mary called and encouraged me with her love the other day on voicemail, but she has no idea of  what it would mean to really sit at her feet and learn.

I feel so far away from God and feeling like I have no way of ever getting back "there."
I know its me and I know that I make mountains out of mow hills, but I feel like I should just want to fall asleep and never wake up again.
I lay in bed planning it.

... asking ...

I am suppose to "come in faith . . .  believing."
I need something Father, eyes of favoritism upon my naivety.  MD jumped upon my house like a hound and had a buyer within less than a week and I took his bullying, like I usually do, without realizing I was being a doormat, and have found myself in a difficult pickle.
To whom is MY house belonging.  Tim has helped me by r eading the contract but if he would have taken his time the first time in helping me, would I be here?  I must ask him instead of "letting it go."
But now for why I am here, I must write 2 letters and....you want to know what I reference?
To Ambassador Title (SL), to Shorewest (MD).  *waiting ..... go on.
I am requesting a termination of my signature on the residential offer and on the residential listing (WB-11) and because I signed it, I no longer am free to make this termination? 
What I ask for, I said need before, because it is a need I ask for; to be free of these papers and be able to approach someone else or ask mom to finally make her decision as to her offer.
Her offer?  Yes it was my request if all failed cause I need to be free of obligations, IE the loan and stop foreclosure.
*sigh in frustration.
I thought You knew these things and I would not need to be spelling it all out.  I need you to tell me, like I do not know, it helps you.  *crying
I must write the letters and deliver them.
Please Father, just as you found a sitter for mom on Monday night, You PROVIDED for me, please provide a termination of this offer and listing, of my house, without legal action.
*waiting
I will do  as I can. 
Thank you.

...new things....

I unwrapped the factory sealed CD and put it into the Bose player and suddenly pipe organ music speed through my head, heart and memories..........  the Moody Church pipe organ.  As majestic as I remember it and as positively ominous as Torrey Grays's pipe organ.  Both increadibly awesome!!
I cried as memories swept over me.

Listening to KLOVE I heard something along the lines of: it's not how God fits into our life but how we fit into God's life....  God wants us/me to fit as intimately as I feel with Danni and Jordan, yet for all this time, I still was trying to fit God into my life.

Then the tune was running through my head as I was creating pizza sauce:  He sought me and bought with His redeeming love ........ all my love is due Him.....  "Victory in Jesus"
In response to the sacrifice Christ made on the cross, I should have only a desire for total intimacy with Him....from the start.   But was I ever taught this was important?  I was taught it is important to know my doctrines, how to help someone recieve Jesus, how to serve Him; but be intimate with Him?  No, never.

Redeem
1. To recover ownership of by paying a specified sum = Jesus, the Shepherd's life!
2. To pay off the debt of my sin
3. To turn in and receive something in exchange.  His life for my sin
4. To fulfill the OT spoke always of the Messiah, who would redeem His people
5. To set free; rescue or ransom.  yes it was a ransom... not until the Shepherd's life life was shed could anyone, me, have sins forgiven which means a relationship with Jesus.
"Christianity is fundamentally a love relationship with God, available through faith in Christ and nurtured through the faithful embrace of a variety of spiritual disciplines.  The Holy Spirit will empower your participation in such activities as prayer, Scripture reading, solitude, silence and service."
7. To save from a state of sinfulness and its consequences. DEATH ETERNALLY
8. To restore the honor, worth, or reputation of:  restoring me to the state God sees me in FORGIVEN and HIS CHILD, sinless.

WOW ! Redemption is a powerful thing !! I am then reminded of And Can It Be that I should gain .... 
An interest in the Saviour's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be,
That Thou, my God, shoulds't die for me?

'Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the first-born seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
'Tis mercy all! let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father's throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace,
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race:
'Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

Still the small inward voice I hear,

That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.  (I've not heard this verse before)

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
~~CharlesWes­ley
I am not so sure that the word's would move me if not the tune was as powerful as it is.


I do not boldly approach God as I would Tim or had my own Dad, to claim whom I am, though Christ is mine, for my sins have been forgotten.  This denial I make is a huge disappointment to my Lord, my Shepherd.  
It is time to be drawn and continue to recognize His voice.

. . . sheep . . .

Sheep are like children, they need to be taken care of.
His child= His sheep (is there a singular expression of this word?)=
I don't, really I do not, need to know all the answers, have to do it myself, have to worry about grown-up things.

An "old" song came to mind yesterday and I had to fnd it!  There it was, on puter for me!
Here it is:
His Sheep Am I

In God's green pastures feeding by His cool waters lie;
soft, in the evening walk my Lord and I,
All the sheep of his pastures fare so wonderously fine,
His sheep am I.

Chorus:
Waters cool (in the valley), pastures green (on the mountain)
In the eve- (in the eve-) ning walk my Lord and I (ning walk my Lord and I);

Dark the night (in the valley), wrong the way (on the mountain)
step by step (step by step--)  my Lord and I (my Lord and I).
author unknown

Next to me on the table sat a single solitary sheep, picking it up I wanted to silently steal it.
I held it the rest of the session and felt like the sheep.  Solitary, curdled up and sleeping peacefully.

But there is no peace as I do not have all the peices yet.

. . . beginnings . . . . . .

Ah, where to begin !
Each journey has a beginning... so back I step.

Upon Sheri's table lay a brochure....
I glanced . . .  then I fingered it glancing at the title . . . I actually read it . . .  Inner Healing Care Group ~~ intensive life-changing group . . . and I was drawn as a moth to a flame.
Eventually I found myself asking Sheri abot it . . . then I shyly asked if I could join.  Taking the step to ask was like my soul reraching out for God's approval as if I could find some healing to the wounded "person" hiding in the damp humid resesses of the darkness of my being.

But the topics scared me and I wondered if I really wanted to take a journey  . . .  would it mean giving Tim up -- seeming to be the only positive stable safe person in my life in a very long time?
I don't know, I cannot imagine him gone even if God and I really could dwell together intimately.

The question is, would I even allow inner healing.  Sheri told me the first week that just as I WANTED to be a part of this experience, was indication to her that . . .  it was my heart's desire. 
God was drawing me.   How scary.  Was he going to take Tim away?

I had "homework" prior to attending the first session.  I forget it.  No I did not neglect, but truly forgot.    Yesterday I poured over the "homework" in crash course fashion  . . .   this NEEDED
to be a slow feed, NOT a glutanous meal.