Healing
We are all guilty of denial, the subtle unkindness that blinds unsuspecting hearts to pride. Behavior born of pride is really an inability to share in the loving gift of a compassionate heart. Stumbling upon pain, we quickly and unashamedly walk away, ignoring someone’s obvious hurt, yet, in truth, denying our own. The compassion we fail to give or receive is the price we pay for loss of self-respect.
Thirty years is a long time to run from myself, to neglect the hurting person I shunned most. Begging completion through deceitful lies, I chose the path of least resistance, damaging my own soul. Truth isn’t always obvious, but by denying what I believed, I made unwise choices.
At 15, I experienced death for the first time when the man I adored died unexpectedly. Too suddenly displaced and afraid, I slipped into denial.
"Something's wrong with your father," mom’s alarming tone rose above the blaring sound of Lawrence Welk’s big band polka. "We're driving him to Dr. Allen's."
Loud, rhythmic music was an escape from the mundane. I often retreated into our basement, where I practiced aerobics long before it gained popularity. Such torture was really common sense. By exercising like a fool, I could pig out, convincing myself that burning excess calories meant I wouldn‘t ever have to diet. Hours of aerobics, religiously pious to a teenager's mind, wasn’t vanity, but health.
"What's wrong? Why does mom look so worried?" My mind raced with unanswered questions, as I sensed the outcome that would change my life forever.
"Linda has the car," mom continued. "I called Beth, and she‘s picking us up."
My older sister had just gotten her driver's license. I often wondered if Linda felt guilty about not being home at the exact time dad suffered a massive heart attack. Perhaps he'd have lived had mom driven dad herself, instead of waiting on Beth. But, speculation is useless, and a heart attack at 38 wasn’t expected.
Beth, the mother of my best friend Jean, was a godsend. Jean and I were inseparable from the day she moved down the street three years earlier. Now Beth was coming to mom’s rescue, as Jean often did in my life, lending patient ears to boyfriend woes of unrequited love. My confidant and I were about to share in the cruelty of death.
Disbelief grips suddenly in the midst of impending loss. Mom must have adorned angel wings for she left suddenly and flew up the stairs so quickly, that I didn’t recall her leaving. I turned off the stereo, and skipping two steps at a time, I raced upstairs, and ran into our living room. Looking out our bay window, I noticed Popsie painfully hunched over, supported by Beth's husband John as he carefully positioned dad in the back seat of their Chevy.
Flashbacks of September's early Saturday morning, now rainy afternoon, interrupted my worry.
"We're going to church tomorrow," dad unapologetically stated, as he stared out the front screen door, with hands on hips. In retrospect, I thought his stance rather strange. He seemed to be bidding farewell to his earthen domain, which he tended to as much as he did me. I believe he suspected something, the way he surveyed with pride his freshly mowed yard.
We hadn't attended church in years. Why today was he suddenly talking about going back. I didn't want to go. Church was boring.
"I don't want to go," I shouted defiantly. "I'm too fat."
A few extra pounds, though a lousy excuse, made perfect sense to my adolescent rebellion. Besides, I had overeaten the day before, and I didn't want to fantasize about my fat belly fitting into an already tight skirt.
Fixating on immaterial, childish words in the midst of overwhelming pain is a defense mechanism against facing the inevitable. My parting words and bad attitude disturbed me.
As Beth backed out of our driveway, I ran outside to pray.
"Dear God, if you let daddy live, I promise I'll go to church every Sunday."
My heart knew he was gone.
In the months following dad's death, I didn't cry. Too confused, and overcome with grief and guilt, I shut down emotionally. Normally extroverted, I became an introvert. With food as my only comfort, I gained 15 pounds in one month. The tenderness in my heart died on that September afternoon, along with dad's unconditional love and encouragement. Understanding and acceptance, prerequisites to receiving compassion, lay buried in sorrow at the loss of dad’s sensitivity.
Time, once richly blessed, became a day-by-day drudgery. I missed my encourager and fan. My basketball trophy for the best player the year before no longer motivated me to excel. This basketball season, I warmed the bench.
My pain intensified, and like a sharp knife, sliced apart my insides, especially after my marriage at 18, and subsequent divorce at 21. To squelch the disappointment of now losing two relationships, I looked for love in all the wrong places.
In our humanity, we are body, mind and soul. At 21, I was an empty vessel. The hole inside the pit of my stomach screamed fulfillment, in spite of my escape into overeating. Heavy of heart, I begged for relief. A father's pure, loving words satisfy a young woman's budding emotional needs. A loving husband then assumes the leadership role by assuring his wife of his love and her special place in his heart.
My husband's final words devastated me more than mom's words of impending death. He offered neither reasons, nor solutions, only a broken promise, when he flatly stated,
"I don't love you anymore."
I had hoped he wasn't suggesting divorce, yet familiar feelings of rejection prepared me for the worst.
His grandmother offered insight when her words broke the silence Ben and I tolerated, as we left her home and walked toward our car two days before I left Massachusetts to fly home to Virginia.
"Why you thinking to divorce?" she asked in her Portuguese accent. "Why you not working things out? Marriage is forever. And you have son. He need you both."
I believed in forever, but apparently Ben didn't. My husband, this man who pledged to love me forever, wasn't supposed to change his mind after marrying me. True love means keeping a vow, viewing conflicts as an opportunity to grow, and being willing to change.
I looked into her worried, brown eyes, and surprising even myself, I confidently asserted, "I don't want this. You'll have to ask him."
Like a timid child, she begged for reassurance. Why you do this?"
As usual, he said nothing.
September's rainy afternoon and divorce's winter chill convinced me that death, though uninvited, arrives at its appointed time. And maybe love, after all, wasn't forever. I was too young to be so cynical.
Years of singleness, attempting to raise my son without a father, fueled my negativity. I ran further away from my beliefs, my responsibilities and myself.
Young Brian found comfort in his surrogate mother, his maternal grandmother.
From 21 to 28, I relentlessly searched for love, only to find disappointment. Charm, without commitment, arrives to deceive, divide and conquer. Effortlessly, I fell prey to temporal words of adoration. The chasm between a father's pure love and a lover's deception glaringly reveal real love from pretense.
Waning self-esteem coupled with insatiable hunger to devour lies in hopes of fulfilling unmet needs are codependents of escape.
Some women crave love so badly, they'll do anything to get it, especially when love poses as an exciting counterfeit. Lied to and abandoned, left with a tainted view of men, some women loathe themselves. I was one of them.
At 28, devoid of self-esteem, feeling alone and old before my time, I had willingly sold my soul to the devil.
Nearing insanity, I caught a glimpse of Heaven. It beckoned gently by knocking at my heart. Although I didn't entirely recognize it at first, Heaven whispered where I shouted, brought peace in the midst of inner turmoil, and communicated truth where lies shattered belief. I read about a would-be missionary, who at 65 placed her hand upon a worn Bible, asking God to open doors of opportunity. Desperate for life, and ready to escape my darkness, to discover real love, I placed my trembling hand upon my rarely opened Bible, and whispered out loud,
"God, if You exist, help me. I want love in my life."
God answered my simple, yet profound prayer when three days later, I met a loving woman during my son's PTA meeting, when I sat down beside her on the only empty chair in the cafeteria. Because she listened and heard the depth of my depression, she began sharing about Jesus’ love and His desire to come into my heart and offer me eternal life -- the Heaven I sensed. Through her gift of compassion, I knew instantly that God had also heard my pain. I was ready to receive His compassion.
Life has not always been easy since receiving His free gift of love. My Heavenly Father is perfect, and, currently earthbound, I am not.
For many years, still caught in the clutches of despair, divine intervention and my invitation to receive more of His love, has brought hope and direction. After years of counseling, introspection, prayer, and, sadly, another unwanted divorce, I finally faced the one loss I still denied, one far worse than losing my earthly father and two husbands.
The appointed time had come to confront the demon inside -- the ugly truth that I had lost self-respect, by groveling in the dirt and settling for less than true love. After dad died, I was incapable of giving or receiving love. Although I was blessed as a child in knowing a father's unconditional love, I lost the compassion that would make me whole by making poor choices in dealing with my pain. I then realized that I didn't know what love is either. And what right did I have to arrogantly condemn another living soul, including myself, for what was also lacking in me. The faded memory of love that sustained me for a while, was unfolding anew through the reality of God’s love growing ten-fold inside of me.
The good news is that no matter what happens through people or circumstances, my Heavenly Father proves His love to me, for He is Love. Like my earthly father, although perfect, my Heavenly Father understands and accepts me. I can now pay the cost of self-respect by opening my heart daily to Him, allowing Him to give me life. He will never die, divorce me, or walk away from my pain, for He promises He will never leave me nor forsake me. His compassionate heart is His gift to my heart. The moment I invited love to come in, judgment left, and His truth became reality. Knowing His mercy, I can choose to love others with His love abiding in me.
No longer miserable with a victim mentality, I am now a mature participant in this abundant earthly life, tended by my Lord.
Spring is in the air. The sun is shining, and this season, I'm basking in His forever love.
Because He paid the cost to esteem me, I am free to respect myself.
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Very good. Thanks for sharing it with us. -Carole
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