One studio was the home of a talented artist who works with multiple mediums, sculpture, paint, collage, etc. She too had lost everything in the Camp Fire. Imagine, as an artist, losing all of your precious creations, along with everything you use to create them. She was devastated. When she went back to the site of her desolated home, she told a friend she wanted nothing from the heaps of ash. This friend encouraged her to gather some pieces to begin to create new art. Together they found several charred and what to the average eye would seem worthless pieces of unsalvageable trash. Included in this were pieces of melted and twisted glass from her windows, along with the melted aluminum frames. From this “worthless trash” Bellatrix, and several other angels, were born. She named the series, Angels Rising, as they were beautifully created from the ugliness of the broken, melted, and twisted pieces found in the ash. Of course it captured my heart and felt perfect for my blog. Even her hair is very similar to mine.

There is a sticker on the back of the angel I chose that reads, Bellatrix – female warrior. Like the many other leaders and members of the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), I too am a warrior. I advocate for sexual abuse survivors. I engage in advocacy, activism, interviews, and I lead support groups and guided meditations. My passion is that every abuse survivor receives healing and is heard if they want to be; and that those in authority open their eyes to the evil among us. It is painful and exhausting work…and I cannot imagine doing anything else. Warriors in this field are often wounded in the battle and must retreat for awhile to heal and rest, lest we succumb to our wounds.

Nine years ago I was raped by a stranger. My therapist was in Hawaii and she knows I absolutely adore sea turtles. I sometimes use the image of swimming with them as my safe place. She was hesitant to give me the turtle because the right flipper broke during travel. I explained to her that I was feeling so unsafe even my sea turtles were being destroyed when I tried to image them in my mind. This description encouraged her to give me the broken turtle. The turtle is so small it fits delicately in my hand. The fact the turtle is a baby broke my heart for its wounding and gave me a strong desire to heal it. I very carefully glued the fragile flipper back together, held it until the glue adhered, and re-stained it to hide the brokenness. It is barely perceptible now.

I tell you about this turtle because I had to travel from CA to WA for a training, and then back home. I wrapped Bellatrix very diligently in several inches of bubblewrap, knowing her wings were extremely fragile. I surrounded this bubbled mass in my softest clothing to protect it from careless baggage handlers. I used the utmost caution while unwrapping her when I finally arrived home. Her right wing had broken off, and while saddened, I was also pleasantly surprised it was all that broke off this glass sculpture. Bellatrix had now become a wounded warrior, like me, like so many others who carry the message of hope and encouragement to fellow survivors. It is interesting to me both symbols of my journey were broken on the right side, as the majority of my somatic (body) symptoms are also on the right. My memories remind me the predators most often approached my body from the right side, and my body remembers. And my turtle and my angel bear witness.

I am sure one day I will take the same delicate care to heal the fragile wing of this angel that I took with the fragile flipper of the turtle. Today she is a reminder of the cost of this battle, and the need for self care. Like the turtle and the angel, I will always carry the scars of the abuse, the trauma, the agonizingly long journey toward healing, and the war where I choose to do battle. It tears my heart every time I hear another story about a child, or adult child, who was broken by evil and selfish perpetrators. I am angered and raise my sword every time the story ends with healing and justice denied by those who would choose to cover up for predators, allowing untold numbers of other children to be broken. Our battle scars may not always be visible, but they will always be there, even when healed with great care and attention.

I dedicate this piece to a sister warrior who is learning how wounding and exhausting this work can be, yet she never gives up. Battle after battle she literally sacrifices her voice and her health to support and lift up others, bringing attention to the damage evil men and women can inflict. This warrior writes publicly on Face Book under the pseudonym PK Hill. I encourage you to read her stories, she is very talented, and very committed, despite being very wounded…which makes her very brave!

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As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me! For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me. Psalm 40:11-12 ESV

My past does indeed encompass many evils, a truth for the majority of child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors. Children are chosen and groomed sometimes for convenience, and sometimes the abuser sees brokenness and exploits that child. Once a child has been abused, it is like a bright red bullseye has been tattooed on their body and subsequent abusers aim for the same target. CSA so breaks boundaries that a victim has no gauge for safe and unsafe people and will continue to be abused, attacked, assaulted, until they find a solid trauma informed therapist and experience a good amount of healing.

I have recently been more in tune with the natural grief process that needs to happen for this kind of healing. Contemplation and stillness have been an important piece of this because one needs to understand the losses they are grieving. There are times reflection of this type has caused me to feel a deep aching sorrow. Other times I feel lost and alone, and still other times I have felt the joy of reconnection to parts of me dissociated for survival. Whatever the emotion, I have given permission to the tears they produce. When this healing journey began, my tears had long been clamped off by brutal trainings before I could even walk.  A safe healing place and a growing number of safe people, along with a LOT of hard work, have re-established the flow like a giant wrench on a rusty spigot.

This particular grieving process, for me, is intensely personal. Whether I weep until I can no longer stand, or a solitary tear sneaks out at an unexpected moment, I now allow them their voice, their space in a time far removed from the time they were created. I give them the respect they have been craving as they desperately tried to tell their story for decades. I know the tears were generated by anguish. I now accept the breaking, the violating, the abuse was not my fault. I was not bad as the monsters professed. What they did to me was absolutely bad, it was horrific, so I also accept this aching sorrow the contemplation brings.

Wherever I am when a tear comes, I place a hand on my heart and take at least a moment to mourn for the child who endured the nightmare. I extend compassion to my wounded self  because compassion is what I needed and deserved when I was being raped and traumatized, and it is what I need and deserve today for surviving. Each tear I release makes my heart a little lighter. I have hope that like a child’s pool in the sun, eventually most of these tears will dry up and what will be left will be only a necessary few… reminders sparkling like diamonds reflecting the light of a life restored from darkness.

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For the last several months I have been at odds with my therapist of eleven years. Other than God, she sees me and knows me more than anyone else. That knowledge makes this pain incredible. I believe that if she knows me, she would know the things she said could be extremely hurtful. She called it a calculated risk. Her calculation failed and the pain went so deep I could not find a way to excavate it and set it free. It came on top of another deep wounding on her part, which allowed this one a straight and unobstructed shot to my heart. The blood was dripping, now it forms a pool around every thought of returning to therapy.

I have worked hard to figure it all out, make it okay again, as I sloshed around with the festering wound. I did meditation. I talked to friends. I prayed. I read. Surrendering to my inefficacy, I sought help from another therapist. Finally, I had a remarkable vision which would serve to mend the damage like a mother’s quick stitches of her son’s trousers as he runs late to school. I anxiously returned to my main therapist to share this enlightened moment, and it went well. I followed up the next day with a thank you letter, for patience, for hearing me, for the apology I deserved. And she responded…with another thrust of the sword. Like the boy whose hastily mended jeans would soon burst open, my wound gushed with vigor until I lay dazed, confused, and in incredible pain.

It would take a week for me to even speak of the incident as I tried to get any traction on the slimly viscous fluid which continued to pump out of my body, draining all my energy and clarity. Unlike my quiet, non-confrontational “good girl” part, I found my voice and explained in detail what her words continued to do to me. She graciously listened and responded, ending with, I will wait to hear from you. I thanked her again for hearing me and explained that I didn’t know what to do with all the confusion and pain. I received an email full of psycho babble which ended with, I will wait to hear from you. The letter tasted bitter like the pith of a lemon which is followed by the sting of the juice when it reaches a forgotten canker sore. I waited a week and sent a text emoji which was answered with another. I am not a trained professional, and I didn’t know how to mend this again, the edges were too tattered to hold a stitch. I was trying to trust her knowledge, and hoped eventually she would reach out, after all she had “heard from me” three times.

After nearly two weeks, a YouTube entitled “Necessary Endings” came across my notifications. I took this as a sign, a message from God, and I immediately listened and agreed. This is probably a necessary ending. After eleven years of her seeing me as though I was naked before her, overcoming this will require grieving. We have bound up wounds together, painfully scraped old dead tissue, used surgical grafts as required, and applied endless antibiotics on stubborn infections which would long defy healing. I have incredible gratitude for her perseverance, treatment has made me stronger and more resilient, and I am finding my voice again.

This morning a message keeps looping in my mind, can you find me? At the heart center, this translates to, do you care? She told me she loves me (I won’t even get into how difficult that made my therapeutic life) so why can’t she find me?

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Truthfully, I am going to have to learn WordPress all over again and will appreciate everyone’s patience while this happens.

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This has always been one of my favorite quotes, and as a Christian, I believe it is what our Heavenly Father would want us to do to honor His Son. Last night a friend, who exudes every definition of friendship, shared a story with me in her annual Christmas letter. It turns out that it is a sermon by Peter Marshall from 1952. It re-opened my eyes, touched my heart, and answered some questions I was having about gifts for others. It is the messge of Christmas that gets tangled up in bobbles and bows, trees and traffic.

I pass on the gift as I offer it now to you. My hope and prayer is that if you will take a few minutes to read it, your focus and your thoughts will be impacted and you will be uplifted in a worshipful way. As the angel said so many years ago, “I bring you good tidings of great JOY, which shall be to all people.”

Let’s Keep Christmas     ~ Peter Marshall

Changes are everywhere.  Many institutions and customs that we once thought sacrosanct have gone by the board.  Yet there are a few that abide, defying time and revolution.  The old message, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord,” is still the heart of Christmas.  It can be nothing else.  And this message can neither be changed—nor quite forgotten, although there are many things that tend to make us forget.  The idea of Santa Claus coming in a helicopter does not ring true.  No interior decorator with a fondness for yellow or blue or chartreuse or prink could ever persuade me to forsake the Christmas colors of red and green.  I must confess that modernistic Christmas cards leave me cold.  I cannot appreciate the dogs and cats, the galloping horses and the ships in full sail, the ribald humor…or any of the cute designs that leave out the traditional symbols of the star…the manger…the wise men on their camels.  Angels there must be—but they need not be modernistic angels in evening dress with peroxide permanents or avant-garde hairdos.  There is no need to search for stories new and different.  There is only one after all—and no modern author can improve it:

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them:  and they were sore afraid.  “And the angel said until them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

We all feel the pressure of approaching Christmas.  The traffic is terrible…You can’t find a parking space…The stores are crowded…Mob scenes make shopping a nightmare.  You are thinking about presents—wondering what in the world you can get for so-and-so.  You think of friends and loved ones who are so hard to shop for.  You can’t think of anything they need (which is rather strange when you take time to think of it).  Maybe there is nothing in a store that they need.  But what about some token of love—what about love itself…and friendship…and understanding…and consideration…and a helping hand…and a smile…and a prayer?  You can’t buy these things in any store, and these are the very things people need.  We all need them….Blessed will they be who receive them this Christmas or at any time.  Let’s not permit the rush to crowd Christmas out of our hearts…for that is where it belongs.  Christmas is not in the stores—but in the hearts of people.  Let’s not give way to cynicism and mutter that “Christmas has become commercialized.”  It never will be—unless you let it be.  Your Christmas is not commercialized, unless you have commercialized it.  Let’s not succumb to the sophistication that complains: “Christmas belongs only to the children.”  That shows that you have never understood Christmas at all, for the older you get, the more it means, if you know what it means.  Christmas, though forever young, grows old along with us.  Have you been saying, “I just can’t seem to feel the Christmas spirit this year”?  That’s too bad.  As a confession of lack of faith, it is rather significant.  You are really saying that you feel no joy that Jesus came into the world…You are confessing that His presence in the world is not a reality to you…Maybe you need all the more to read the Christmas story over again, need to sit down with the Gospel of Luke and think about it.

I thank God for Christmas.  Would that it lasted all year.  For I have observed that on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day all the world is a better place, and men and women are more lovable.  Love itself seeps into every heart, and miracles happen.  When Christmas doesn’t make your heart swell up until it nearly bursts..and fill your eyes with tears…and make you all soft and warm inside…then you’ll know that something inside of you is dead.  We hope that there will be snow for Christmas.  Why?  It is not really important, but it is so nice, and old-fashioned, and appropriate, we think.  Isn’t it wonderful to think that nothing can really harm the joy of Christmas?  Although your Christmas tree decorations may include many new gadgets, such as lights with bubbles in them, it’s the old tree decorations that mean the most…the ones you save carefully from year to year…the crooked star that goes on the top of the tree…the ornaments that you’ve been so careful with.  And you’ll bring out the tiny manger, and the shed, and the little figures of the Holy Family, and arrange them lovingly on the mantel or in the middle of the dining room table.  And getting the tree will be a family event, with great excitement of the children…and there will be a closet into which you’ll forbid your husband to look, and he will be moving through the house mysteriously with bundles under his coat and you’ll pretend not to notice….  There will be the fragrance of cookies baking, spices, and fruit cake…and the warmth of the house shall be melodious with the lilting strains of “Silent Night, Holy Night.”  And you’ll listen to the wonderful Christmas music on the radio or television.  Some of the songs will be modern—good enough music perhaps—but it will be the old carols, the lovely old Christmas hymns that will mean the most.  And forests of fir trees will march right into our living rooms.  There will be bells on our doors and holly wreaths in our windows….And we shall sweep the Noel skies for their brightest colors and festoon our homes with stars.  There will be a chubby stocking hung by the fireplace…and with finger to lip you will whisper and ask me to tiptoe, for a little tousled head is asleep and must not be awakened until after Santa has come.  And finally Christmas morning will come.  Don’t worry—you’ll be ready for it—You’ll catch the spirit all right, or it will catch you, which is even better.  And then you will remember what Christmas really means—

The beginning of Christianity…the Second Chance for the world…the hope for peace…and the only way.

The promise that the angels sang is the most wonderful music the world has ever head.  “Peace on earth and good will toward men.”  It was not a pronouncement upon the state of the world then.  Nor is it a reading of the international barometer of the present time…but it is a promise—God’s promise—of what one day will come to pass.

The years that are gone are graveyards in which all the persuasions of men have crumbled into dust.  If history has any voice, it is to say that all these ways of men lead nowhere.  There remains one way—The Way—untried, untested, unexplored fully…the way of Him who was born a Babe in Bethlehem.

In a world that seems not only to be changing, but even to be dissolving, there are millions of us who want Christmas to be the same…with the same old greeting “Merry Christmas” and no other.  We long for the abiding love among men of good will that the season brings…Because we believe in this ancient miracle of Christmas with its softening, sweetening influence to tug at our heart strings once again.  We want to hold onto the old customs and traditions because they strengthen our family ties, bind us to our friends, make us one with all mankind for whom the Child was born, and bring us back again to the God who gave His only begotten Son, that “whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

So we will not “spend” Christmas… or “observe” Christmas.  We will “keep” Christmas—keep it as it is…in all the loveliness of its ancient traditions.

May we keep it in our hearts, that we may be kept in its hope.

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Our perpetrators commanded their power over us to keep us in submission and keep our voices silent. The following song explains how the one true King of Kings and Lord of Lords did not come to this torn apart world as a powerful ruler ready to wield His sword. He came to this world in the weakest form, as an innocent baby to grow up among us. Emmanuel. God With Us. You and me. Despite what our history holds, He wants to hold us, He wants to redeem the abuse and give back the days the locusts destroyed. How can we not worship a King like that?

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In a season that is all about merry and jolly I did not expect to find so many lurking triggers and I have, in magical movies about Santa; in commercials; in shopping trips. My depression and PTSD have intensified and my doctor is trying to balance, change, balance, change my anti-depressants. Anyone who is or has taken them, understands how all the changes negatively affect your mood in itself. I start slipping into that “I just don’t care” mode and this picture demonstrates my preference for the season.

Whether you are trying to survive and get everything accomplished with anxiety, or your mood is such that just getting out of bed takes enormous fortitude, the Christmas season is challenging. My encouragement for all of us is in the final picture, a lesson we learned from “Frosty the Snowman” when we were little children.

Those in the first category need to slow down their pace, one step, one errand, another step, another project. I know you may be thinking, she just doesn’t know what I have to do. Yep, been there, have hosted the extremely large extended family Christmas at my house more than once and will this year again. Getting too many things going at once just gets you lost, confused, frustrated, more anxious, and then guilty because it is not all done; and certainly not up to your standards. Breath. Take a step. Breath.

For those of us in the second category this year. One step may feel like dragging a hundred pound lead weight across the floor. The same advice works here. One step. Just do the next thing. Then rest. Then do the next thing. You will not only be surprised with what you have accomplished, you will feel good about yourself for completing a task and that will help motivate you to face the next one. And remember, that bed will be waiting at the end of a masterful day!

All pictures are from one of my favorites: Mary Engelbreit

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Today is Motivational Monday again so I would like to share something
that was shared with me at the AHMA conference a couple of weeks
ago. One of the speakers, who is both a migraine sufferer and a
prominent migraine doctor shared about the isolation we who suffer can
succumb to. He told us about a concert he really wanted to go to but
knew the noise and lights would likely trigger a migraine. He told us
that he pre-medicated and took the chance because life would become
dormant and idle if we gave in to our fears and avoided all potentially
triggering situations.

Last night I took his advice and went to a concert I have been wanting to go to for years and have been afraid to. Some of you may be familiar with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and their incredible electrophonic music complete with pyrotechnics and laser lights. I love their Christmas music and I knew this show stood to be incredible. At first my husband offered the ticket to a friend because we both figured it would be a bad idea for me to go. When the friend was unable to attend, and I had the encouragement of the migraine doctor, I loaded up with my meds and we went. It. was. fantastic! And though I wore earplugs and sunglasses, got a little nauseous a couple of times, I am very thankful I overcame my fear and decided to go.

I thought about this and how it relates to recovering from sexual abuse and the many triggers we encounter on a near daily basis. If I lived in hyper-vigilance, trying to protect myself from every potential trigger, I would have to sit at home, alone, no phones, no TV, no music, no internet. I would become a very bored recluse…and my perpetrators would win. This is not what I desire. I want to thrive in this life as I pass on my healing and hope to others. I encourage you today to remember:

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act in the presence of fear. ~Rev. Mary Harvey

And for fun, here is a sample of TSO’s Christmas music.

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The words to this song may be a recognized cry of your heart if you have survived abuse. I pray for each one who listens. I thank Matthew West for continuing to make these stories known. They are usually brushed under the carpet because they are difficult to hear, and as a society we don’t want to believe they’re true. They’re true. It is happening in your neighborhood. It is happening in your work place. It is happening in your church. As Matthew West’s writes,” take [Jesus’] hand and be moved by mercy.”

I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces. ~ Psalm 34:5

Here is the story behind the song “Moved by Mercy.” I also strongly recommend purchasing the Into the Light: Life Stories & Live Songs (Deluxe Edition) as there is much healing in all the songs Matthew West has written.

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