I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life. He gave me life that I might enjoy all things.
How many years has it been like that? At least two, I think. When I first realized the birdhouse had flipped, I decided to keep it like that as a reminder for me to stop expecting everything to be sooo perfect. Even the Garden of Eden had a slithering, conniving snake in it.
Yesterday, while resting our tired, aching bones from working in the yard, I asked my husband if he would fix it; I don’t need a reminder anymore; my perfectionist self doesn’t come by as often these days. Sometimes she thinks about moving back in, but I slam the door in her face. Temporary visits are more than enough for me to handle.
“I’ll fix it when we’re finished with the yard this evening.”
Suddenly, a bluebird flew in and out, and then another. There’s a family living there now! All those years it’s been hanging upright, absolutely vacant. Now that it’s upside-down, it’s the perfect home to set up house-keeping. We’re not home wreckers, so we’ll wait until they move out before we renovate it.
And I got to thinking. That old, imperfect, upside-down birdhouse is hardly a dream home with all the modern conveniences, a double car garage, and a swimming pool in the backyard. But the happily married couple chose it to raise their little, blue-feathered babies.
We live in a generation a million miles away from the old farmhouses with no running water, no light switches, and a toilet a mile from the house. A generation that doesn’t find pleasure in walking through the woods, sitting on a log before a trickling stream, dreaming and meditating, and feeling close to God.
When we take our eyes off the treasures we already have, we begin comparing ourselves with the rich and seemingly more successful than ourselves. Young people, still wet behind the ears, have the biggest houses and newest cars equipped with more gadgets than they know how to work or will probably ever use. And we’re sitting in our wheelchairs, beating ourselves up because our dreams turned into dust.
I’m learning, ever so slowly, that life is less complicated when I stop beating myself up for my imperfections and bringing my lofty expectations back down to earth. Like the bluebirds nesting in the old, broken-down birdhouse, I’m learning to be more content and reminding myself that life isn’t perfect and neither am I.
From a distance, I observed him, forever studying his somber, blank face, every line, every wrinkle in search of a smile, a spark of light in his eyes, a mere hint of someone living in his skin.
My brain told me he was my father, but my heart said he was just a stranger living in our house. And that’s how I always saw him: a stranger living in the shadows of solitude, with a barbed wire fence around him.
Many times I’ve tried writing about my dad and the painful impact he had on my life, only to delete the few paragraphs that took me hours to write. Even now, I’m not sure if I will do it justice.
Observing my dad was like observing a shadow. He was there, but had no substance, no voice, no passion, no warmth; like a hermit living in a faraway place, with not even a dog for companionship.
What makes him tick? What sets his heart on fire? What’s his favorite color, his favorite book? Why did he get married? Why did he have kids? Why?
His steady, artistic hands worked like magic, restoring broken, neglected antique furniture and bringing it back to life. With only an eighth-grade education, he read books that a seasoned professor would find difficult to understand. He had the patience of Job, the brilliance of Einstein. Yet, he didn’t know how to be a father.
Before he was drafted to serve in World War II, he and his best friend had a machine shop together. Before going overseas, my dad gave his partner power of attorney, just in case he didn’t make it back home. After two years of hell, he was discharged, only to discover that his well-trusted best friend had sold everything out from under him and kept the money for himself.
He was a good man in every sense of the word. His only bad habit was smoking. He never yelled and screamed, never lost control in a fit of rage, and would rather jump off a bridge than wield a switch across my bare legs.
He had so much to give, yet hoarded it like a stingy, selfish miser. To make matters worse, he contributed very little financial, emotional, and moral support to the family. Those responsibilities he piled on my mother’s shoulders; an emotionally broken woman, who, many times over, became a raging monster beneath the weight of it all. Not surprisingly, our home became a battlefield of broken, bleeding souls.
I blamed my dad for everything. I fought him like a tiger, deliberately provoked and sassed him; anything to get his attention. Anything to get even. Anything to stir up something alive in him.
I hobbled through life like a three-legged dog, longing to fit in, longing to belong, longing to know a father’s love. To know what it feels like to sit on his lap, to be held in his arms, and to hear his heartbeat. To know what it’s like to feel safe. To feel loved.
It would be years before I discovered a father’s love. Years of pretending that I didn’t want it, that I didn’t need it, that I could make it on my own, all by myself without it. I will wipe my own tears, doctor my own wounds, pick myself up, brush myself off, and keep going.
I knew how to survive, but like my dad, I didn’t know how to live. So, I stumbled through life pretending to be a sweet, loving Christian girl who had it all together. When my heart raged with anger, I hid it. When my insides were churning with fear and anxiety, I hid it. When jealousy rose its ugly head, I hid it. No one must know who I really am, because they won’t like me if they discover the truth.
After years of hiding, stuffing and pretending, lying to myself and to the world, my heart became a swollen, pain-festering boil. Slowly, it began to ooze, but I covered it with a flimsy patch of denial.
Suddenly it happened. That one last thrust of the smoldering blade straight through the heart knocked me to my knees before God.
You can’t run from God. He will hunt you down. He will find you, and He will reveal Himself to you beyond your understanding.
The Breakthrough
Self-discovery is a long, arduous process of facing the truth and owning your brokenness, and the bad choices you made through your pain and confusion. You begin to stop blaming others and eventually stop crying the blues because your fairy tale childhood went up in a puff of smoke. You roll up your sleeves, dig deep into your soul, and face the ugly truth about your past and the person you became as a result of it.
That’s where I was that quiet, early morning when I felt a presence beside my bed. By now, this invisible being and I have developed a strong bond during my wild, healing adventures, so I knew I was in for a bumpy ride. Bracing myself, I closed my eyes and, sighing deeply, I whispered, “Okay, Lord. Where are we going today?”
Immediately, the journey began, down a dark, narrow stairwell through the dungeon of my soul.
This place reeked of evil destruction. Battered souls were locked in cages, brutally murdered with the bloody axe of hatred, guilt and shame, abandonment, selfishness, arrogance, and pride. Generational sins of the parents. Generational stomping grounds of the devil.
Buried beneath a pile of rubble, I saw my inner child, broken and discarded like a useless rag doll. Her clothes were faded and torn, her face dirty and streaked with tears. Slowly, I bent down and gently pulled her out, cradled her in my arms, and cried till I could barely breathe.
My pillow was drenched in tears. I didn’t want to be in this place anymore. I wanted to turn back, slam the door shut, and never come back here again. But the Holy Spirit was on a mission and stuck like glue beside me. I felt His comfort, His peace, and understanding. I even felt his tears splashing on my battered heart.
At the bottom of the stairs, I see a little girl standing in the doorway, gazing into a misty, foggy room. Through her eyes, I saw a man sitting in a rocking chair, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. He seemed frozen, like a zombie, staring into space, his eyes as vacant as the empty room in which he sat.
Suddenly, she began to cry as bitter words spewed from her mouth, telling him how much she needed his love and protection; how much he had hurt her, and how ugly and stupid she felt. Words she never said before, feelings she never owned before, sprang forth like a gushing spring. And like a zombie, he just sat there in a cold tomb of silence.
Suddenly, I felt a gentle nudge, and as I turned to walk away, there, at the bottom of the stairs in the deepest recesses of my broken soul, I saw God! All these wasted years, He’s been patiently waiting for me to turn around and see Him standing by my side. He never left me for a second. But, blinded by my own pitch-black darkness, I couldn’t see Him.
Turning to leave this morbid tomb, I glanced at the man one last time. And before he vanished in a cloud of smoke, I whispered, “Goodbye, daddy. I have a new daddy now.”
I’m still a work in progress. The difference now is, I have a Father I can trust and depend on. My Heavenly Father reminds me every day of His indescribable love and mercy for me. He is everything I need. Having a loving, caring earthly father may have made life easier for me, but it may not have led me to God.
We all want and need a dad in the flesh to love and support us. And even if we are blessed with that, he’s only flesh and blood and will one day leave this earth. But God, our Heavenly Father, the Creator of the universe, Savior of the world, can’t die. He can’t leave us. Because He’s an awesome, mighty God and wants desperately to show us how much He loves us, even when we don’t believe it.
What about you? Are you searching for a father’s love? Is your heart broken and bleeding? Call on God. Repent, and surrender to Him. And I promise, you will never be the same.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32
What price are you willing to pay to know the truth? How deep will you dig in search of the truth? How badly do you want to know the raw-naked truth?
The majority of people in the world today avoid the truth like avoiding a rattlesnake. Why is that? What is so horrible about the truth that we want to hide it and would rather bite off our tongues than to tell it?
FEAR
That little four-letter word has the mighty power of Superman to keep the truth dead and buried; no matter what it takes. And the longer we allow fear to control us, the more watered down the truth becomes.
Let me introduce you to my mother. When she was just a child, her mother was between a rock and a hard place. Her alcoholic husband left her alone and penniless to care for her children. So, in my eyes, she did the unthinkable; she put her kids in an orphanage, with the promise she’d come get them when she got on her feet.
My mother, the youngest of twelve siblings, was farmed out to an abusive, foster home. They beat her, humiliated her, molested her, sent her to school with stones in her lunch box in the place of food, and worked her like a mule when she got back home. They told her she was ugly, stupid, and no good. And the final blow, that her mother was dead and was never coming back for her.
Throughout my childhood, my mother recited her broken past as if rehearsing for a horror film, which my tender heart and mind soaked up like a sponge. How could anyone be so mean and cruel to my mother? I wanted to beat them up with my little clenched fists!
Even before I started the first grade, I decided to be her savior. Her protector. Her golden child. With all the love and understanding I could muster, I surrendered my heart and soul to her. I became her golden child. Her savior. He protector. Her puppet. Her victim.
But the one thing I never surrendered was my stubborn, independent, strong will. And that became a monstrous problem in our relationship. Even as a child, the harder I resisted, the more ruthless she became with her twisted mind games; guilt and shame. Tag-along demons from her abusive past to now wreak havoc on me.
By the time I left home, the golden child I tried so hard to be was a broken mess of confusion, anger, hurt and rage, overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, abandonment, and betrayal. Is it any wonder relationships didn’t work for me? Is it any wonder that my first marriage failed? Is it any wonder that I didn’t even know who I am?
Having a loving, peaceful relationship with my mother was impossible. She was like an octopus, with her tentacles reaching every nook and cranny of my life. Everything broken in her life I was supposed to fix. EVERYTHING! And like a drunken fool, I kept trying.
One day I snapped. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop hurting. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I couldn’t stuff my feelings anymore. My heart was a swollen, festered boil and was exploding all over the place. What is wrong with me? Why do I hate my mother? Why do I hate the world? Why do I hate myself?
After walking out of my mother’s life and two years of weekly, cognitive therapy sessions at the mental health clinic, my heart was finally at peace. But my mind is still in the painful process of recovery, and probably will be until I die.
But, I finally know the truth, about myself, about God, about life. Bad things happened to my mother. Bad things happened to me. The difference is, I got help. I uncovered the truth. I repented of my sins. I stopped the abuse. I forgave myself. I forgave my mother. And yes, I forgave God.
How badly do you want peace? How badly do you want to know yourself? How badly do you want to know God? How badly do you want to know the truth and be set free?
I’m a full-blooded, empath people-pleaser with a built-in pain detector. A complete stranger can pour out their heart to me, and tears gush from my eyes like Niagara Falls. Sometimes, I even feel guilty, as if it were my fault somehow. And I always, always, always want to dive in and fix it.
People love empath, people-pleasers. Right? They will stick to them like glue, treat them like royalty, and never, ever leave them stranded in a dark and lonely place. Right?
WRONG!
People with a false sense of entitlement love to be pleased by people-pleasers. They love controlling, confusing, and gaslighting them, making them feel helpless and believing they could never live without them. The world is full of predators like that. And they can crop up in the least expected places.
I think my first introduction to reality was when I bought a car from this guy recommended by a friend. The only problem was, he needed a few weeks to get it up and running. I was a single mom in much need of a car with a motor and four wheels. But what I got were empty promises from a jerk who took my hard-earned cash, and built himself a Nomad, dream car using the parts from the phantom car I bought, and skipped town, never to be seen or heard from again.
Was I angry? Not one bit. I just wanted to wrap my fingers around his scrawny neck and choke him till his eyeballs popped out of his head and rolled across the floor! I just wanted to hammer his brains out, rip off his arms and legs, and drag him to a den of starving lions. . . Over and over again!
Still, my stubborn, fearful heart refused the silly notion of setting boundaries. Besides, Christians aren’t supposed to have boundaries. Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek, wash people’s dirty feet with their tears, and keep giving away their soul.
But, where does it say that in the Bible? Matthew 5:38, where Jesus says to turn the other cheek, is He telling His followers to be doormats, allowing others to walk all over us? Is He telling us to be weak and surrender to our abusers?
No. But that’s what my twisted, religious brain believed. Now, a thousand years and a million scars later, I believe that Jesus was and is teaching His followers to live in peace with one another; to hold on to our integrity by snuffing out the flames of revenge. Turn the other cheek and walk away. But, if they follow you, stand your ground. And if they come at you with a knife, fight like hell to protect yourself. That’s what I believe today.
But how do you set boundaries when you’ve never had them before? When you’re afraid that people will hate you for it and turn others against you because of it. How will you survive without your family and friends?
You start by saying no. No, I won’t allow you to hurt me anymore. No, I won’t be manipulated and controlled anymore. No, I refuse to bow down and kiss your feet just to keep you in my life when you’re killing me. No more crossing the line. No more sleepless nights. No more guilt and shame. No more! You choose to believe in yourself, to love and respect yourself, and to live in peace, with or without them.
My circle of friends is very small these days. And that’s the way I like it. The less people I have in my circle, the less stress I have in my life. And at my age, I don’t have much time left to waste on users and abusers.
I’m still an empath. I still enjoy pleasing others. But not for the same reasons anymore. The people I once allowed into my heart broke it to pieces. The scars run deep. Recovery has been long and painful, like crawling through a dark, slimy sewer with a zillion rats eating me alive. That’s when I finally woke up. When I finally realized that my own family was killing my soul. That’s when I put up a no trespassing sign and closed the gate and locked it. And that’s when the painful healing began.
With the heart of a lion, I endured all the ramifications of walking away; the glaring eyes, the shunning, the blame, the gossip, and overwhelming feelings of anger, hurt, and shame, hours spent questioning my sanity, and the fierce temptation to fall on my knees and beg forgiveness. The story of my life. But not this time. This is the time I break the chains and take back my life. This is when I dig deep into my troubled soul, scoop out my broken inner child and learn to love her. This is when I planted my heart in the rich soil of truth, watered it with my tears, and slowly began learning, forgiving, and growing.
What about you? Do you allow people to take advantage of you and hurt you over and over again? Do you grit your teeth and just bear it? Maybe it’s time to figure out why you keep allowing that abuse. Maybe it’s time to draw the line. Even if it hurts. And it will hurt like hell. You just gotta be tough and do it. If you don’t, you will never have the peace and satisfaction you long for.
So, it’s been a while since I’ve written, or even wanted to. For many reasons. A library full of reasons. All frustrating. All senseless. All just down right debilitating.
As some of you know, I’m old. Some days, I’m walking on air. Most days I’m crawling over broken glass. Naked. My mother told me not to get old. But I never listened to her. I have my own way of doing things. Besides, getting old can’t be that bad. Can it?
Oh, yeah!
Of course, I do have a Chicken Little view of life; a mind-set I’ve been working on for ages. And that in itself is bad enough, especially when you’re old, and everything is falling apart, with no signs of things ever getting better, because your body has gone on strike!
Yep! The sky is falling! The sun has quit shining and will never shine again. The only thing waiting for me at the end of this suffocating, dark tunnel is a pine box adorned with flowers that are doomed to shrivel up and die, too.
Old age is scary for people like me. Even people with their heads screwed on tight have their scary moments. But Chicken Little people are just, flat-out doomed!
Trust me, old age is tough. Especially for those of us who takes the bull by the horns and does whatever needs to be done. People of action. People of strength and determination. That’s me. And that’s the woman I miss. My younger self. The one who packed up her bags and left me stranded just when I need her the most. Just when the house is falling apart, the yard is washing away, the weeds are taking over my flower beds, the trees are sky-high and dropping limbs all over the place, and everything is shot to smithereens. Betrayal of the worst kind!
Frustration laced with anger and confusion and fear and grief and loneliness and depression hardly covers the overwhelming feelings at times. Bawling my eyes out helps. Talking to God helps the most. I do that a lot these days. Who else understands me more? Who else can give me the strength and wisdom that I need? Who else can calm my fears?
So, now you know why I haven’t been around for a while. And now you know for real that old age ain’t fun. But it’s not all bad, either. I don’t have to set the alarm anymore. That’s a plus . . . I think.
As a kid, I didn’t think twice about walking five miles to my friend’s house, a mile to the bus stop, or three miles down the road just to see the old paper mill still up and running.
Walking was never a dreaded chore. It was sheer enjoyment. A means of transportation. A trip around the world and back. It’s what I did.
As a single mom with no vehicle and no money to buy one, I walked to and from work, to the grocery store and the Goodwill across the busy highway. I’d put my baby in the stroller and off we’d go. Just the two of us, down the old tree-lined, cracked, broken sidewalks of Wilmington, Delaware.
I was thirty-six when I started jogging and fifty-three when I stopped. At sixty-two, I started jogging again, but not with the same commitment or enthusiasm. It soon dwindled from walking when I felt like it to not walking, period.
But I never quit thinking about how much better off I would be today, had I never quit jogging. Because, now, two years shy of turning eighty, with neuropathy and back problems, it’s tough just getting out of bed.
But, I’m not in a wheelchair, or on oxygen, and because I don’t want to be, I’m going to walk. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe an hour. Maybe three days a week, maybe four or five. Maybe, only one day. But that’s better than not doing it at all.
So yes, I walked today. Really fast because it was freezing. My fingers were on the verge of breaking, and I was a hair from calling my husband to come get me!
I just finished a brisk twenty-minute walk. Yay! I mention this because I stopped walking when it got so hot last summer, promising myself to start back in the fall. But, everything happened but that.
You know how it goes: I’m too busy, too tired; too not into it. I’ll do it tomorrow. A thousand tomorrows later, my walking shoes sit and cry in the closet.
Thinking about getting fit and making excuses for why I can’t only cause a guilt complex. And already there’s no more room in my brain for that! So, I pledge, not to the New Year, but to myself to get out the door and walk.
If it’s not snowing. Or raining. Or too windy. Or someone mentions shopping!
A head lacking ideas is an artist’s worst nightmare. It’s like sand running through their veins. Like a near-death experience. Like creative juices stop flowing and their arms and legs fall off. Their brains fall out. And they die. Slowly and painfully, like a zombie.
It was a day like that, sitting at my art table, staring at the bone-dry paintbrush in my hand. Brandon, my then six-year-old grandson, was watching Beauty and the Beast for the umpteenth time, and studying the eye-catching images on Disney DVD covers.
Between Belle getting locked up by the Beast, and refusing his demanding dinner date, I got an idea! Suddenly, the juices started gushing, my heart arose from the dead, and my brains flew back into my skull! I’m alive!
Jumping down from the stool, I said, “Hey, Brandon! You wanna help me build a birdhouse?”
Like a puppy on steroids, he jumped to his feet and followed me out the door, across the backyard, and behind my husband’s workshop. That’s where the bricks were. Neatly stacked against the building, as if waiting for this very moment to become useful again.
Excitedly, I looked at Brandon, his beaming face now drenched with doubt. I guess I’ll just have to prove it to him, I thought to myself. I will create it, and then he will believe it. And that’s what I did. Now everyone believes it.
Final words: I created many of these brick birdhouses, churches, and schools, and gave them away. I sold a few from a local Christian bookstore, but they were too heavy and awkward to package, so I quit selling them. I kept the one in this post, mostly to see the look on people’s faces when I tell them it was once a dirty red brick.
Straight From the Heart 