The Wind Is Blowing ... Unto Where?

I can only make guesses as to the "what" is coming but I can feel change. My sleeplessness is a sign, now that I think about it. From my first year in college until now, I can remember short seasons of time laying in bed awake for way too long, thinking, thinking, Winnie the Poo, think, think, think. In the day there are plenty of things to distract myself and of course work to be done but in the stillness of the night, it is as if my soul is absorbing the reality of change so that I have the endurance for it when it may arrive. Generally I have known of the change ahead, the last long period of sleeplessness was in the weeks before I got married, but this change feels more elusive.

An intuitive person, I often see the possibilities of change and preemptively prepare for them. But then there are those life altering changes...like moving. I have moved about every two years for over a decade. They have been more of less significant, for various reasons and I have learned to hate, or at least dread, the moves. Now that I feel one coming, I am trying to "un" dread my thoughts so that if this sticky feeling turns into reality, I will not melt like butter on a saucepan when the time arrives.

The administration of moving and starting over somewhere, well, there is a reason it is on the top ten list of stressors. I wish they distinguished the stress level between moving within your current area and moving to a NEW STATE, or across the country. Fortunately, I have not yet moved out of the country, especially not to a country where I do not speak the language. Deep sigh, I have been spared thus far. Did I tell you that I am a homebody?

Quite Frankly, How DOES One Recover from Sexual Abuse?

For me, identification of it has been the first hurdle and that hurdle took more than two decades to nail down. Even yet, I feel that full identification is standing on the other side of a wall that I can neither peer over or come to the same side of it. IT happened when I was small enough to escape the concrete memories of it, yet to have experience of something so wrong to childhood was also the root of a growing tree in my own life. Such tree has born countless poison fruits and I have spent many years unknowingly eating them.

Plainly said, evil is evil and there are many expressions of it. My personal experience is what I speak of and that is childhood sexual abuse that continued on in more subtle forms into my adulthood. It was not until I was married and could point out him to my new husband, who, eager to protect and advocate, helped me manage to close the door. Neither my new husband nor myself was aware of what a broken sexual being he carried across the threshold and years into marriage, we finally understand the reality of that poisoned tree still bearing poison fruit.

Identification is painful but it can give power. If I recognize that my arm is broken and can bring it to the attention of capable caregivers, it can be restored. The heart and broken being of one having sustained the wounds of sexual abuse is a much more complicated thing, and caregivers who can attend to such wounds may be harder to find. Yet there are caregivers capable and I find myself in reverent thanks to have found such a caregiver. As that may be, there is still the work of the patient. I am that patient and I have come to the point in this journey where I identify my illness and I want to be well. If only that wellness came overnight!

Yes, there is the work of the patient. Sometimes my work is to sleep, as the labor of healing requires a great deal of recovering. Lately that work has been building up my reserves of joy, doing the silly yet important little things that make me happy. I have lately spent great hours reading stories written for children, if for no other reason than they make me happy. I have been unwinding myself, at least for a season, from endeavors that require my strength and energy. I suspect I will soon need that energy if I am to continue to heal. Plainly, I have detached myself from my career, a job I do think I was never intended for and chose because I had been eating those poisonous fruits. You see, I am desperately in need of the energy required to heal. While it may be possible to rip an entire tree out of the ground, maybe even roots and all, repair the ground and replant, I simply do not have the endurance for such a dramatic process. So the process has been a slow one, but I am hopeful.

Now, the reader ought to know that I do believer there is a Great Caregiver who is delighted to be orchestrating this journey towards healing. I am strongly suspicious that this Caregiver has a tree of good fruit to plant in place of the decrepit one I have known. I am nearly convinced, even if it is only the convincing of hope, that if the poison is as bad as it is, it is only because the true and intended good fruit is so powerfully good. I eagerly await the fruit that is both good and true.

The Greatness of Beginning

"You had to be taught what courage was. And you couldn't know what it was without feeling it: therefore it was given you. But don't you feel as if you would try to be brave yourself next time?"

"Yes, I do. But trying is not very much."

"Yes, it is-a very great deal, for it is a beginning. and a beginning is the greatest thing of all."

At the Back of the North Wind by George Madonald

I Like it Best When They are Sleeping

It has been particularly assigned to me that I should be so blessed as to have a season to rest. My days and nights come to pass and slip away filled with books I feel I ought to have spent my childhood with. Some are light and playful and remind my heart of the very things that sustained my little girl dreams these decades past. Others are thoughtful and delicate and lend breath and life to those pursuits that have huddled in cold and darkness for many times over.

In the hours that pass in these days, my four legged practice children as I call them, have spent many happy times cuddled by the window, wrapped with me in the blankets that are required for winter. They are small dogs to be sure but their presence is none too insignificant. These are quieter times and I like it best when they are sleeping. If their sleeping was in-proportionate, I would think them lazy but indeed they spend plenty of time running and chasing and watching for crumbs from the table as other pups do, so their time sleeping is of particular joy to me. They strive not and even the effort of giving their affections is put aside. I feel loved most as they offer the least, offering only their trust, as of course one is possibly the most vulnerable when one is sleeping. Indeed it is as they offer to me their vulnerability, that I think the most of God. Sometimes I think He likes when I am resting near enough to Him to feel him but still enough to offer nothing, enjoying the safety I know of Him. Yes, sometimes I think God likes it best when I am sleeping.

An Uncharitable Thought

Of all the drab or grand reasons to start a blog, it has finally come to this. I'm starting a blog because I read some that were downright boring, that's right, boring. Not that I commend myself so highly to think mine would be so much better, maybe the outright boringness made blogging seem approachable. Well, here we go. However I don't intend to TELL ANYONE who I am in real life, as I plan to say whatever I think and shall enjoy my little secret for now. Since...well, I might be the only one actually reading it anyway.