What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes (James 4:14).
I always feel a twinge of sadness after spending a wonderful day with my family. Like the child of long ago, lying in bed, frightened and alone in the dark, I feel a sense of grief, as if a piece of me has died. The only things that exist are the ghostly shadows floating around in the chambers of my mind. And my heart mourns the death of another, fulfilling day, never to be lived again.
I try to remind myself how short life is and to live each day as if it were my last, but I’m not very good at it. I take each day for granted, as if there’s a million more to live, to wipe the slate clean and start over again. Then one day, I stand in front of the mirror, hopelessly searching for my younger self trapped in another time zone.
Each day is like manna from heaven. We can’t store it, borrow from it, or save it for a rainy day. We have twenty-four hours to live it, and then it’s gone. What we do with those twenty-four hours is up to us.
In the short time Jesus walked this earth, he taught his listeners how to live each day, but they didn’t get it either. Help the poor, he said. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Trust me. Love your enemies and do good to those who hurt you. Follow me, I am the only way, the truth, and the life. I will lead you safely home. I will give you peace and rest for your weary souls.
I’ve been blessed with many years, some I wasted, which I regret. But I can’t go back in time and change a thing, and if I could, I’d probably make it worse. All I have is today. Maybe it’s a sunny day, maybe it’s a stormy day, but it’s the only day God has promised me. How I live it is up to me. And I can’t do that very well without God’s help because some days are just too hard, and I’m too tired and frustrated to deal with it.
Life on Earth will end one day, and that is frightening. But eternal life will begin either in Heaven or in Hell. Today is the only day you have to choose which one it will be. And salvation is simple: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life John 3:16).
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper (1 Kings 19: 11, 12).
We were doing great. I threw in the bloody towel and hung up my tattered boxing gloves. My fighting days are over. God touched and healed my heart. I’ve been reformed. I am no longer the same.
Then one daunting day, the earth rumbled and shook, like a violent earthquake. The birds stopped singing. The sun stopped shining. And the rain burst through the heavens like a gushing river.
Words, as hot as fire, spewed from our mouths like molten lava, destroying a lifetime of hopes and dreams we had built together. Now our mangled hearts lie dead in the smoldering ashes of doom.
We messed up. We broke our promises. We held each other’s hearts in our hands and crushed them like broken glass. Now they are slowly bleeding to death. Our love for each other suddenly turned to hate, anger, and frustration. And like a roaring lion trapped in a foreboding cage, I broke loose and fled out the door.
The woods were peaceful and quiet. The stump on which I sat was damp and draped with moss. Beneath my feet lay a grungy blanket of withered leaves and broken twigs, and tree limbs. The earth smelled pungent, like a dank, musty cellar. But like a kindly, old grandfather, it comforted me. It held me safely in its strong, rugged arms, as it always has throughout my tumultuous life.
Beneath the canopy of trees, the sun filters through the rustling leaves, as if attempting to warm my shivering heart. Tiny bugs crawl up and down the brittle, peeling bark on the tree beside me, as birds flutter from limb to limb, singing happy songs. If only I could be as free as the trees. As free as the sky above and the gentle breeze caressing my tear-drenched face. If only I could sprout wings and fly a trillion miles away.
The few hours I spent crying and meditating in the shelter of the woods were not long enough. I wanted to pitch a tent and stay there forever. But, I whispered my goodbyes to the tranquil, captivating haven and, like a weary old pack mule, plodded back home, wishing I could wake up from this gut-wrenching nightmare.
The house was dark and quiet, like a morgue. Everything felt dead; I didn’t want to be here anymore. I wanted to turn back the clock to that Sunday a few weeks ago, when I was sitting in church, wiping tears of conviction from my eyes. I wanted to feel the joy and happiness, and to hear the music and message again. I wanted to feel God’s presence and the safety of his strong arms again.
Just when I thought the worst of the storm was over, it started back up again, and my husband packed his bags and stormed out the door. Just like that, our fifty-three-year marriage was stuffed in a suitcase and thrown in the car like a piece of worthless trash.
Betrayal! Abandonment! Devastation! Two hearts once joined together by love and faithfulness are now shattered to smithereens by hatred and rage, never to be the same again. They are crushed and broken beyond repair.
What happened? Where did these two monsters come from? Who let them in our house to rape, plunder, and destroy our hearts, minds, and souls? Who gave them permission to rip apart our happy home?
I should have seen it coming, or at least been on guard. Satan is always ready and eager to mess things up. But I thought I had it together now. My husband and I were back in church. God was restoring my rebellious heart. I could feel his healing touch rippling through my wounded soul like a soothing balm.
For days and weeks, my heart and mind were finally at peace with each other. No more depression. No more monsters kicking and screaming inside me. No more anger. No more rage. I’m all better now. I’ve surrendered my life to God; he has everything under control. Then suddenly, the current changed, and once again, I was drenched by the flood of failure, shame, and remorse.
A sobbing, pleading hour later, my husband came back home. I put on a pot of coffee, and we sat and talked things out. Our marriage is solid, like a tree planted by the water. It’s battled the storms of sickness, pain, and grief, arguments and disagreements, and will continue doing so till death do us part. But the chaotic events of that dreadful day nearly destroyed us both.
Spiritually and emotionally, I am still sorting through the aftermath of disbelief and confusion. Where is God? Is he so disgusted with me that he abandoned me? Have I let him down one too many times? Is my faith too watered down with doubt and grief? Has my love and trust in him drowned in my tears of anger and frustration? Will we ever be on speaking terms again?
Sitting here writing the ending of my story, tears roll down my face as his love washes over me. Tenderly, he opens my eyes, and I see that I am the one to blame. I am the one who ran away, too ashamed and broken to face him. Too afraid to trust him again. I am the one hiding and shivering in a cold, dark cave of hopelessness and despair. I am the one who left him; he never left me for a second.
He stands there, whispering my name and telling me to get out of the cave. To stop running from him. To stop trying to fix myself. In his hands, he formed my soul, and in his hands, he restores it again and again. In his hands, I am safe. If only I could learn to stop jumping out, to get it through my fearful, rebellious heart that running from the shelter of his love and protection always leads me to the depths of despair.
Conclusion: I spent weeks writing this article and agonized over whether to publish it. I came close to deleting it, because it’s too personal to share. But I kept coming back to it, rewriting it as the fog began to lift, lending a better perspective and understanding. And yes, it is personal, but it’s real. Life is real. Suffering is real. Failure is real. We can all relate to the harsh reality of living in a world consumed by evil forces. We can deny it, but we can’t hide from it. And when we take a stand against evil, we can expect the devil to slither through the smallest cracks of our relationship with God and everyone around us. If you get anything at all from this article, I hope you can identify with the emotional and spiritual struggle between good and evil, and know that no matter where you are at this moment, there is hope in God. There is deliverance. There is salvation. There is peace and joy. Life on Earth will never be perfect. But just as God molded and breathed life into a clump of clay, he can also fix it when it breaks. There is nothing God can’t do for us when we invite him into our hearts. Life is tough. Don’t live another minute without God leading you through it.
He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul (Psalm 23: 2,3).
Let’s pretend that your heart is a car. Okay, a truck, if you prefer. It’s traveled thousands of pothole-ridden roads, through thunderstorms and pouring rain. It gets stuck in the mud, and there is no one to get you out. You keep spinning your tires till, suddenly, you run out of gas and the nearest gas station is a hundred miles away. Your iPhone is dead, and Siri is as useful as a blind horse in a maze. What are you going to do?
Like a vehicle, our hearts travel thousands of miles, in and out of love and toxic relationships, getting banged up, stuck in the mud of lies and deceit; foolishly spinning our tires till our gas tank is empty. Now we’re stuck on life’s busy highway with no helping hand in sight. Our hearts are broken; our souls are parched and dying of thirst. What are we going to do?
We can hide our brokenness behind a pearly-toothed smile. We can crack a few jokes. We can win a stranger’s attention with our Ken and Barbie’s charming good looks. But sooner or later, the flimsy walls we built to fool the world will crumble and fall at our feet. What are we going to do?
Our pride screams, leave me alone! I can fix it myself. I’ll just drink a little more, take a few more happy pills, toughen up and keep plowing my way through. No one will see my tears. No one can bring me down. I can do this all by myself!
I tried it my way. It doesn’t work. Thankfully, God has a way of bringing me to my knees. He knows my heart. He knows my foolish pride. He knows the raging storms within, the rugged mountains I’ve climbed, the rivers I’ve crossed, the bridges I’ve burned; every dark and lonely night I spent drowning in my tears. And he knows just what I need.
But, I had to know that I could trust him, that I could give him my heart, without fear of him crushing it in his hands. I had to believe that he loves me just as I am, that he won’t turn his back on me if I mess up. I had to know that, unlike my earthly father, I could trust his love and protection.
The more I trust him, the less fearful I become. The closer I walk with him, the more I feel his love. The more I study his Word, the clearer I see his smiling face. The more I surrender my life to him, the more he restores my soul.
What about you? Does your heart need to be restored? Are you exhausted from trying to fix it yourself? Are you depressed? Discouraged? Frustrated? Have you tried everything under the sun to feel better, to be better, only to fail time and time again? Give it all to God. Trust him with your broken heart, and he will restore your soul.
Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand (Isaiah 41:10).
I am your God. Not your worries. Not your fear. Not your fickle emotions. Not your relationships. Not your home. I am your God. I will take care of you. I will fight for you. I will give you everything you need. I will give you complete rest.
How long has it been since you’ve been able to rest without the burdens of the world screaming in your ears? How long has it been since you’ve felt at ease living in your own skin? How long has it been since you felt that someone genuinely cared?
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).
As a chronic worrier, I bow down to fear and kiss its feet. Fear is the boss of me. I trust it to always be there, and it never lets me down. Crazy, I know. But that’s what I do because that’s what I learned to do. Fear it, then worry yourself to death about it, and maybe it will disappear. If it doesn’t, worry some more.
Last Sunday, my grandson delivered a powerful message on the topic of idolatry. And like a guided missile, the Holy Spirit took aim and pierced my heart to the core. That’s it! Fear, and all those other destructive cousins, aunts and uncles are sitting on the throne and controlling my life! They crawled through the window when I wasn’t looking and are working diligently behind the scenes.
Worries. Emotional torment. Failed relationships, misunderstandings, and irrational thinking; all those little gods now standing in my mind as tall as trees. I crowned them all, trusting them more than I trusted God. All my tears, all my begging and pleading God’s deliverance while clinging to the filthy rags of idolatry.
In the parlor of my mind, I see a big, brown, heavy door. Behind that door is a lifetime of pain and misery that I’ve been clinging to like an old, tattered security blanket. That door is closed behind me, now; God has sealed it shut. And standing there, feeling fresh and clean, like a newborn baby, my life suddenly has meaning and purpose. As if I just woke up from a long, deep sleep and seeing the splendor of the universe for the first time.
What about you? Are you ready to tear down the altars of those little gods tormenting your life? Are you ready to stop trusting your worries and fears and start trusting God? Are you ready to fall into his arms, kick off your shoes, and rest completely in his love? His power? His protection?
The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23).
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).
Meet my brother, Leonard, the youngest of six siblings; a rebel to the ninth degree. At home, at school; anywhere he decided to kick and scream against society. In his twisted thinking, rules were made to be broken. He didn’t know the meaning of respect and felt entitled to do and to take whatever he pleased. He never worked for it; he just took it. What he didn’t steal, he destroyed, like the abandoned house he set on fire when he was just barely twelve.
After spending a year in reform school, we thought he had learned his lesson. It only made him worse. He blamed everyone but himself for what he considered cruel and unusual punishment. With a heart burning with rage, he continued his bitter war against authority, serving time in jail, getting out on parole then back in jail for breaking parole and committing even more devious crimes.
Addicted to the thrill of the chase, and hallucinations of drugs and alcohol, my brother became a prisoner of pride and self-destruction. More than five decades of living a life of crime, death was his final destination, where his penniless, decaying body lay in a shameful, pauper’s grave.
But, as a Christian, was I any better? Was I freer than he? Less angry? Less rebellious? Less responsible for my twisted thinking and kicking and screaming against injustice?
For decades, I thought I was safe, hiding behind the walls of my religious facade. It was too risky opening the door to my soul. What would people think when they saw the blazing fire of anger and rage? And, what about the green-eyed monster of jealousy and the double-edged sword of vengeance? What would they think about the barbed wire fence around my heart, and the snarling, junkyard dog chained to it?
We can parade through life fooling people, but we can never parade through life fooling God.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5: 19, 20, 21).
Like an earthquake, I was shaken to the core of my being after reading these blatant, condemning words: those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.And the Holy Spirit whispered to my soul, not even you, Sandi.
It’s as if a dam broke inside me and all the sludge and filth I’d been holding back for decades, began pouring out. The Holy Spirit removed my blindfolds, revealing every sin labeled and dangling before my eyes like puppets on a string. What I so carefully kept hidden in the dark was exposed before God like creepy, ugly bugs scattering in the light.
Falling on my knees before God, he washed my heart clean and set it free. He tore down the walls that Satan helped me build and showered me with his love and forgiveness. He renewed my mind, restored my soul, and sent the Holy Spirit to teach me how to live. He pulled me out of the quicksand of sin, released Satan’s death-grip from my heart, and gave me peace and joy and everlasting life in him.
Freedom in Christ is not a free ticket to a trouble-free life, nor is it a one-time deal, but an ongoing process of moving farther away from what we were, and closer to what we are becoming in Christ. It doesn’t mean we will never fail and disappoint God, because we will. We’re humans, bent towards the alluring pleasures of the devil’s playground of sin and destruction.
And, because God created us with a free choice, he allows us the freedom to run away, and to get all tangled up in Satan’s web of lies and deceit again. The choice is ours, and so are the dire consequences we will face. Continue living for Satan and die in the tar pit of sin, completely separated from God, or live in the everlasting power and freedom in Christ. The choice is all yours.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want “Galatians 5: 16, 17”.
Even as a child, I knew something was wrong with me, and so did everyone else living in the house. For instance, every Saturday night was hair-washing time; a Freddy Krueger nightmare for me and a Jack the Ripper moment for my parents.
I was a high-strung, temperamental six-year-old. Mom was the lady with the shampoo bottle in her hand and daddy was the man with the willow switch across his lap.
Whimpering like a frightened puppy, I squeezed my eyes shut, gritted my teeth and tried my best to be brave. But the instant the warm soapy water drenched my long, red hair, cascading over the edge of the old galvanized tub, panic devoured my brain.
Like a streak of lightning, I bolted from daddy’s tight grip around my wet, slippery arm, and raced out the door half naked and dripping wet, arms flailing, kicking and screaming like a wild donkey. Down a spooky, wooded, dirt path. In the dark. Where trees turned into giant monsters and grizzly bears ate little children alive!
Suddenly, the thought of drowning was better than being eaten alive, so I hightailed back into the house, where the woman with the shampoo bottle and the man with the willow switch sat like a pair of statues.
Back in the fifties, I was labeled super sensitive. High-strung. Strong-willed. Problem child. Had anyone looked beyond the labels, they would have seen a frightened little girl buried beneath the rubble of torment.
I was fifty-something when I was finally diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Fifty-something years of living with my skin turned inside out, feeling every little prick as if I were being chopped to pieces with an axe.
Finally, I had something to blame; I have a brain malfunction. I can’t help it. I was born this way. It’s not my fault. I’ll just take my meds and go with the flow. Hopefully my psychotic episodes will be less frequent and severe. Hopefully the highs and lows will level out, and I can finally be at peace with myself.
It doesn’t work like that. In fact, there is no medication for BPD, only for the anxiety and depression associated with it, which is like taking a baby aspirin for a severe migraine. And when my emotions are triggered out of control, nothing helps. I’m too far gone, too over the edge, too emotionally fractured to think and react rationally. The Grim Reaper is my only ticket out.
BPD is like an invincible monster; a devil controlling and manipulating every corner of your life. It toys with your brain, convincing you that what you see and feel is real, that people are out to get you, that they hate you, and deliberately want to hurt you. They constantly judge and criticize you, stab you in the back; anything to get you all fired up until you’re spinning completely out of control.
BPD shows no mercy. Not for you. Not for anyone around you. It slaughters relationships and makes working a public job nearly impossible because everything and everyone is out to destroy you. Loud music, loud people, loud anything causes an emotional explosion impossible for Superman to contain. So, it ruptures, like a volcano, destroying every shred of sanity clinging to your twisted brain.
For a Christian, BPD is a double-edged sword. You’re damned for not reading your Bible enough, not attending church enough, not praying enough, not doing whatever a good Christian is supposed to do enough. If you were a REAL Christian, following all the golden rules, you wouldn’t act like a blooming idiot when your emotions are shot to smithereens. Shame on you!
No! Shame on you for turning your back on me when I’m crying for help. Shame on you for leaving me stranded and drowning in my own tears. Shame on you for judging me without even knowing me. Shame on you for kicking me deeper into the pit of despair.
Long before I even heard about BPD, I made weekly visits to the mental health clinic for nearly two years. My relationship with my mother was so toxic that I walked out of her life before she completely destroyed me. During our separation and numerous cognitive sessions with my therapist, I became less confused and began to see myself for the first time.
I began to understand why I bawled my eyes out for weeks on end when we moved from the city to the country; why I couldn’t sleep until I quit that noisy, nerve-racking sewing job; why loud noises pushed me over the edge; why I felt that I was living in a house without walls, and why it seemed that I was being eaten alive from the inside out.
Fear is the sinister monster, devouring my confidence and self-worth, demolishing the walls of safety and protection, leaving me feeling naked and exposed for all to see and to judge and to shame and to ridicule. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to feel safe.
Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated our eight-year-old great-grandson’s birthday at our granddaughter’s house. There was a crowd of people there that I didn’t know, but I was okay. My heart wasn’t pounding, my brain wasn’t screaming, and the urge to run never entered my mind.
Self-discovery is the antidote for BPD; the process of seeing deep inside yourself and the ability to finally understand who you are and why you overreact in stressful situations, and why you feel so angry and overwhelmed by anxiety. And as discouraging as it is, you must realize that healing is not in a pill, it’s in yourself.
But you can’t do it alone. You need a support system of family and friends you can trust. As for me, I wouldn’t have come this far in my journey without God’s help, and the support of my husband and my son, and his loving, growing family. They may not always understand my struggle, but they always love and support me.
God is good and wants us all to experience his love and understanding toward us. He knows our pain, our struggle, and he is always there to help us. All we have to do is ask him.
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?
Straight From the Heart 