Five years ago today I willingly gave up my ability to have children.
Willingly as in for medical purposes.
So basically unwillingly.
Five years ago today I unwillingly gave up my ability to have children.
No one remembers...
I remember.
I know that it was five years ago because there is a reminder in my calendar today as there has been on this date for the past five years. Every single year, I would be "off" on this date - weepy and such, see the reminder, and instinctively know why...
Not today.
I have never written about what happened or the decision(s) I had to make five years ago. It has always been something I dealt with privately, even then. On that day, there were two people by my side - one by choice and the other guilt. Outside of them, only five other people knew and that included my boss and niece and nephews. I couldn't bear to talk about it.
Next week I start counseling.
Five years ago is part of the reason why.
I have some deep pain. deep shame. deep regrets. deep loss.
There are things that have been done TO me and BY me that I cannot even find words for...when sitting alone with God...the one who knows me best.
I am grateful beyond words for the healing I have been given by God these past several years. It has been hard fought, and won, but with a cost. There is always a cost.
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| Effort. {Haiti 2014} |
I need deeper healing. The kind that only comes when someone wiser, more objective - sits across from you and helps you build a bridge to the darkest parts of who you are and then holds your hand (emotionally) while you cross over it and slay the dragons that reside there. The ones you don't talk about in polite conversation or even confess at the altar. Not because they are SO horrific, but because no one ever gave you permission to talk about them so you don't have the vocabulary to discuss them.
I have been shooting out flares for nearly two years looking for someone, a counselor, to help me go where I didn't want to go. Last month in the midst of quite literally the most open attack of spiritual warfare I have ever endured....day after day...every single day of February....I could wait no longer. So one week from today, I will sit down on a couch (I guess it will be a couch) with a complete stranger and start the work of healing Heather Ruth.
Five years ago I hurt in places I didn't discuss...with anyone. I made the best choice I could - based on the information I had. Somewhere in all of that, I need to forgive myself...for getting old, for having a body with faulty parts, for not focusing on love and family, for being broken, for choosing the wrong people to give my love and trust...for being selfish.
It is time to forgive Heather Ruth.
5 years is a long time.
...and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Five years ago a doctor (actually two of them) saved my life, and I will always be grateful. Tonight I am choosing to focus on being grateful for my health....I am choosing to be grateful that next week I get some help unpacking some old stuff that has been weighing down my heart for far too long. I am grateful for my tribe that has held my hand so firmly yet gently as I worked my way to the decision to call the counselor. Mostly I am grateful to a God that keeps gently reminding me how very dearly I am loved by him...and that this process isn't about placing blame, but one of release. It is time to set my heart free.
Set my heart....
Free.
That. That is worth celebrating.
For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand,
Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.’
14 “Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel;
I will help you,” declares the Lord, “and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15 “Behold, I have made you a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges;
You will thresh the mountains and pulverize them,
And will make the hills like chaff.
16 “You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away,
And the storm will scatter them;
But you will rejoice in the Lord,
You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 41: 13-16
Brokenness Aside by All Sons & Daughters Live : http://youtu.be/rJMWrBsSwMk
Sunshine Dreams to You ~ Today and Every Day! :)
