Believing you're a pushover:just a thought on the road to recovery

You know....  I'm realizing that I truly believed I was a pushover.

Someone told me today I'm stubborn.  That my kids must have gotten their stubbornness from their mother.  Music to my ears! I am stubborn, what?! For years I'd been told I was incapable.   
And I believed it. I was told that if I left I would never see my kids again because I would never be able to keep a real job and support them.   
And I believed it. 
I caved. 
I didn't believe in me. 

"But he said to me,  'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" ~ II Corinthians 
12:9.  

Weakness into perfection.  This is God's desire for you.  Grace offers power from weakness. Not in place of weakness, but from weakness. There will be days where you feel so little strength,  you can't even imagine yourself strong. There will still be weakness. But, His grace is sufficient. 

I heard a song on Sunday. It was an older worship song that I'd sung in high school.  It said, "Rise up women of the truth. Stand and sing to broken hearts. Who can know the healing power, of our awesome king of love?"*  You can know the healing power. You.

   This is my attempt to rise up and sing to broken hearts. I want for you to know freedom. I want for you to know joy. I want for you to know love. I want for you to know confidence and not be ashamed of it!  I want for you to know healing. Please join me women of the truth. Rise and sing. You are beautiful. You are strong.

I was told today I was a good teacher. That I'd done a good job teaching a lesson. It was a weird feeling. It was so unnerving to me to hear these things and realize I actually believed them. 

They told me I was a good teacher. And I believed it.

I'm healing.

~ * are lyrics from "Shout to the North"

a letter to survivors of domestic violence

I have to let myself be ok with how much I loved that man.

This is perhaps one of the hardest things that a survivor of abuse has to come to terms with. Self-forgiveness. No matter what it might be for. 

We may sometimes feel so much shame. 
Shame for what our exes did. 
Shame for not having left sooner. 
But the shame of knowing that you truly loved the man whose hands had bruised you. ... overwhelming.

Enter Isaiah 61. This is such a beautiful passage for a woman who has been captive.  Has known heartbreak and deep darkness. Guilt. These words bring comfort,  hope, and joy.  This is the hope we have in God.

" He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—" 


There is emotional healing. Sisters, Jesus wants to mend the very softest, most painful spots in our aching hearts. Our God not only is able, but desires, to "bind up the brokenhearted."  To heal those wounds.  To aid in our recovery.  God desires your heart to be restored. 

There is light. I know you've known darkness, because I have too. A thick, heavy darkness that is tangible. The darkness of depression and anxiety.  Loneliness. Fear.  Walls of darkness.  Walls that when stacked up against each other created a prison.  God wants to "proclaim freedom" for your life.  Proclamations are loud ladies!  And God wants to speak a decree of freedom from the darkness to you.

Comfort is a form of vengeance. Strife was probably your life.  Constant turmoil. A sense of never ending uneasiness. Moments of peace became fleeting memories of days past, because if your body was not agitated,  your mind sure was.  So to find safety and rest, is such a sweet blessing.  It brings about an opportunity for vengeance not in a sense of "getting even" but in "getting comforted."  The greater peace comes from knowing that God cares for you and has a definite plan for your life. He wants to comfort you day by day.

What is a captive?

     There are so many different ways to be a captive.  The captives we often think of are the ones we see on t.v. and in the movies.  The captive physically bound against escape.  The captive with visible scarring from their ordeal.  But captivity can take so many different forms.

     There are those who show none of these visible signs of their captivity.  Theirs is a hidden prison.  A shiny cage of their own polishing.  Must appear well. 

     These are the captives whose bonds are a feeling of fear.  A confusion caused by sorrow.  In whose minds, the lies spoken over them by someone else become truth.  And they have no other choice but to stay.  They can’t break free.

     But those who have known this kind of captivity can also understand the kind of freedom and unfathomable grace offered within these verses.  “He has sent me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord.”  ~ Luke 4:18-19. AMP.  Praise be to God! 

     I am grateful for the gift of knowing I am accepted and acceptable.  That by the grace of God, I am released from all manners of captivity.  And that through the love of God, I am sent forth.