Restless Sheep....BAAAAAAAAAAA

Lately I've been so distant and discombobulated I haven't been able to focus and have wanted to curl up under my rock and be alone. It's an all too familiar feeling to me, I used to do exactly that many years ago but usually I'd take a run away from home.

I started running away from home around 14 years old. No my parents didn't beat me quite the contrary they were everything I could have asked for in parents. Looking back now I wasn't running from a horror at home but one in my heart. From the time I could remember I was dissatisfied with myself... with thoughts like I'm not pretty enough, smart enough, witty enough, good enough....





Basically I didn't think deep down inside my heart that I was worth anything of value really.

I know now after being a Christian for the past 12 years it was the enemy that started on me at a very young age feeding my heart with lies and deception. I went to vbs and sunday school sometimes but it never passed from my head into my heart. My husband says the distance from heaven to hell is about 18 inches which is the measured space from ones head to their heart. I believe that to be a fact today. I lived to much of my life trapped in my mind of lies and untruths about myself that no matter what people would tell me it never pierced my heart. Being a mother now I think back to how agonizing it must have been for my mother to watch this child she had carried in her womb and nurtured so tenderly wrestle with such hatred of herself as I had. I know now that the enemy's plan was to kill me and any chance of leaving a legacy of faith behind.

I can remember those middle school years of awkwardness and never feeling that I quite belonged anywhere really. I mean I laughed and had friends but never felt like they'd miss me if I vanished. Then moving into high school was even worse, the desire to feel love and acceptance seemed to leave me paralyzed when I was around my peers so much so that I would do anything desperate to be so. To the point of self mutilation(cutting and burning myself) and self destruction. I wish I could talk to the girl I was then and tell her the wisdom I've learned these past 20 years. To hold her face in my hands and let her know how very valuable she really was, but we all know that is not possible. So something even better I get to do that with my own children and the kids that God has placed in my life. It's amazing what God does when he restores our hearts and sends us out to make a difference.

It's also amazing to me how long it takes for Truth to settle in you and take up residence. It is such a process this walk of faith that I have embarked on over a decade ago and sometimes that girl I knew myself as before comes flooding through so vividly. Yes we are suppose to cast our past off and move on but when you have been through the fire of life as I have it isn't as simple as it sounds. For those of you that have arrived I commend you,seriously no sarcasm intended, but for some of us that have survived the horrors of trama and abuse it takes time and our journey of healing is a process at times a very slow painful one. Yes I do believe with all my heart the God can do a quick work and deliver but in my case He has used the messes of my life to be a message of hope and restoration to others around me that need to hear. It would be nice to put our past in a neat little box and tuck it away so that when people look at us they don't see anything but someone that is all put together beautifully. But to be honest life doesn't work like that we are broken people living in a fallen world, that's why we needed a Savior. If we could save ourselves we wouldn't have ended up where we were/are. I know that the struggles I am having today are a direct result of the traumas I have lived through. Life is such a cycle of ups and downs and curves and slopes and hills and valleys, it's enough to make anybody run for cover somewhere- anywhere but in the midst of it all. I guess it makes me feel better to ramble and vent and type it all out because I know that somewhere out there is somebody facing the pains and the struggles that I am facing and if I can encourage you to hang on, to push through, to trust that no matter where you find yourself in this moment at this place in time that as long as you still have breath in your body you have HOPE!   

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

^{2 Corinthians 5:17} This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! ¹⁸ And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. ¹⁹ For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!"