Friday 22 April 2011

If I were totally honest

Ok-
This has been a tough week for me in a few odd ways. I started this blog about a month ago so I could get some issues off my chest that frankly I don't have the guts to say in person. You see I have a disease that impairs me.It is not he kidney failure, I am coping in various degrees with that on a daily basis. My biggest incapacity is that I do not believe in myself. I do not believe anyone else does either. Oh, I believe they love me, but more like a pet that is amusing to watch, but you are glad it lives at someone else's house.
You can't tell these days, but I was a beautiful child, and I had a beautiful soul. I knew God and spoke to him like I am talking to you now. Just lay on my bed at night and chatted away. I had a bajillion cousins and they all lived pretty close to my house for the most part. I never had to make friends before attending school cause i was surrounded by family my own age. In fact, I had an uncle and a cousin in my kindergarten class.
Somewhere between leaving my parents home to come to school and second grade, I was molested by my elementary school janitor. Not just once and the worst damage was what thoughts he put in my head. I actually learned to hate.Not dislike -hate and wish to die hate. Sadly, I didn't wish it on the man who hurt me, I wished it for myself.
This viper told me that I was a child and no one would believe me. He said people would believe him and not me. He said if I told, my daddy would go to jail. He said whatever it took to keep me quiet. I can still see him in my mind, leaning on a broom with that snakey smile of his. He was missing teeth and was fat and leering. I also worried others would know i was dirty, like they could sense it somehow--as if guilt had an odor or something.
Here is the cruelest blow of all. It is 100% true I swear--what he did to me didn't physically hurt. Here almost 50 years later I am in real pain over this, but not physical pain. My mother will die of embarrassment that I am telling this. Her basic policy is not forgive and forget so much as ignore and move on. 
I will not criticize her because I could tell you horrific things about her home life, and my Dad, but that is her story. She deserves the peace she has made with it. Also to be fair, until the day I heard Mr W had died I never told her. She made all the mother guilt noises like she should have known, but there was no way that would ever even occur to decent people, and we decided not to tell my Dad. We sheltered him from a lot of things, because although he could be kind and compassionate, he would also have moments of irrationality.
I pretty much medicated myself with food. My Dad hated fat people, and couldn't understand why I couldn't just not eat. I think he was a bit ashamed of me. I can live with that, I am a bit ashamed of myself. This Easter season is about atonement for a great sin, it is about forgiveness and renewal, it is about letting Jesus wipe away the past and give you a new future. Here is the thing about that, many don't want to let go of their pain. It serves some kind of a purpose to feel a martyr, and in your sinful rationalization you can say you are suffering for your faith. What a crock. All the suffering ever needed for anything was done on the cross. No one judging you can go back farther than that. That cross is where God drew a line, and accepted men again and forgave their sin. God loves people and wants to fellowship with his creation, but he cannot abide sin. We needed a Saviour, and he sent the only son he would have. We deserve to be slaves for this great bloody sacrifice, but he calls us joint heirs in all he intends to give his own Son. How many people do you know do that?
Ok I promise this is not the way I wanted to approach this Holy Week, I wanted to be all "God is good", but God doesn't need that. He doesn't need defending either. He just needs us to get to know him at our pace, and show him our hearts and to let him heal them. But as this process is going on, He simply cannot love us more or less. We can't ever make him give up on us, even if we try to. He totally knows us and accepts us. It is often we who cannot handle our sin, not God. People think the Bible has so many don'ts, and it does, but none of them benefit God. They benefit us, to prevent these deep soul hurts that could ultimately make us turn away from His great love--feeling too dirty or worn down to try. I will take God's second chance, and third and fourth if I need to. I am not too proud for that. I want to be with Him forever--the promise of that cross. I know many of you do not believe as I do and that's fine. I am just telling my story as honestly as I can. Does becoming a Christian mean you never sin again, or does it lead to a perfect abundant life in monetary terms? Nope.Not a chance. I still will dialyze for the rest of my life probably. My brother has Chrohn's disease.. It is not fatal, but it is forever. While we live, we are a bit unwell. 
But one day--this will all be worth it, and we will walk with God in whatever  that means. This fleeting seventy years or so will seem like a blink then. And then we enter into eternity and bliss. I will finally breath fully and free.
Happy Easter.
God bless.

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