Private Me
For as long as I can remember, I have been a profoundly private person. I did not want to give anyone any ammunition by which ‘they’ could use to attack or hurt me with. I didn’t want them to know the specific areas I was vulnerable and open to pain. I was hurting enough without anyone else adding to my suffering and that was all at my hand. I had put up so many walls and I had fenced myself in. So where do you go from there?
From the time I was a little child, I didn’t really cry much in public. If I was hurt, I wouldn’t let you know. Even to the point to when I was beaten, I would not drop my defenses and let you know how much you had truly hurt me. Those were mainly all reserved for my private time. Rarely did I allow others to know the pain they had caused me and I was not giving them the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
When I first started back to church, I was so intently private. I could not cope with the pain of anyone even knowing who I was or who my family was. Time was on my side in this case. As it had been so long since I had been to church almost no one knew who I was. In fact, some didn’t even know that a fifth child did exist in our family at all.
I would get so upset with Bill if he slipped and said how much money I was spending, the fact that I had problems and couldn’t leave the house, or that I had shut down and wasn’t able to do the cooking. It seems Bill was unable to say just about anything because I would lose it for some reason or another. I really put him through a lot.
I could not bare to let people know anything about the real me and how riddled with tons of gobbledygook I was. Not that I wanted people to think I was perfect, but goodness gracious, I certainly didn’t want them to know all the secrets I was so carefully trying to hide. It was too much anguish, and I couldn’t handle it. I was trying to stop the pain, not cause me even more by letting out all my secrets.
Harm
If you have, someone that mistreats, abuses, harms, belittles or berates you that is not something to be proud of. In addition, odds are if they are doing it to you, then you are hiding it. You are ashamed to admit you are in that type of relationship that is not good or healthy. You deserve more, but you’re not going to get it as long as you are willing to settle for less than you deserve. You have to realize your worth, then decide if you will continue on that path or make a change. Love yourself no matter who you are per our Grand-daughter Kaydence.
Making the change is most difficult and often leads to uncertainty. That in it’s self can be enough to make you try to stay in something you know in your heart you should not.
There are generally two facts at play, one your own self-worth, the second the image vs. the man.
You first have to have a good sense of your own value to know that you don’t deserve to be abused in even the smallest of ways. Putting your foot down and taking a stand is the first step in defending yourself. If you don’t, no one else is going to look after you. It is up to you, to have a line in the sand and move it for no one. That is foremost of importance.
I am not talking violence, wrong game. Stop settling for less. Moreover, no playing the game, “well it isn’t really that bad”. Yes, it is or it would not be an issue in the first place.
Second, an image can’t keep you warm at night. So it is really worth what you are putting yourself through? Or to have bragging rights that you are with so and so? Not when you can’t be proud of the way they treat you, and not when you have to keep secrets. Is that really, what you want?
I was speaking to someone and without them knowing all I had been thorough they told me I had been through a lot. In my mind I thought, no I haven’t, not anymore than anyone else. With the journey God put me on writing this book, I have began to understand I have been through a lot of different things and some in the severe nature category.
My belief now is that I needed to go through these to help connect with others.
Suffering
“Blessed [be] God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” II Corinthians 1:3-4
It is difficult to relate to someone if you have not walked in those shoes. If you haven’t felt the pain, anguish, loneliness, suffering, agony, defeat, isolation, torment, seclusion, grief, despair, sorrow, solitude, or misery then you really have no clue what they are suffering with; I do on those issues. Those were all of my past now and I owe it all to God, as He saw fit to take it all away. They are only distant memories now and I will keep for I can help others, by not trying to bury them.
Not only have I walked in those shoes, but God saw fit to deliver me from them as well. Just the same as He will for you.
I have always had a problem with someone telling you they understand what it is like when they themselves have never been ‘there’. I have walked in many of these shoes on varying degrees and can certainly relate with most people on different levels.
Have you ever talked to someone and they are giving you advice even though they have no knowledge on the subject. You’re talking about going boating and the one with all the advice has never been off dry land, or your talking about making bananas foster and they can barely make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I only speak on those topics that have affected my life; sure, there are those I know little of and some nothing. That is not to say I have experienced everything in life.
Just to be able to share all my life lessons are more difficult than words can describe. This entire book has been a struggle; I have battled with my own flesh just to write what God wanted as well as the obstacles that satan has tried to put up as well. I also had to deal with my husband and the struggles that he has been faced with; the biggest was the loss of his job and the fact I desperately needed his assistance. For him it was a tremendous battle. He was doing his best to aid me and yet he wanted to also have fulltime employment with pay.
After all, who sits down to write a book when your spouse has just lost their job in a severe down turned economy and have no real income coming in. I was select in whom I told about my book, even still I was warned not to get my hopes up and not to expect anything.
I know what God told me to do and He told me what would come of it. As I stated in the beginning, WE WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT, as I KEEP walking!
“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” II Corinthians 4:18