writing and it stimulates me in ways that other things just don't.
In spite of the fact that I have added this hard earned honors degree to my resume, I am getting no responses from the dozens of job applications that I am completing. That was unexpected. I thought it would be easier to get a job now, but it appears to have made no difference. My unemployment has ended and I don't wanna be a prisoner of the state.
So where do I go from here?
It's been a while since I've posted anything so I will update you on where things are and where I am.
The psychopath that I am married to is basically THE THING of the past. He stopped coming to see the kids 2 years ago, stopped calling them months ago and we don't communicate at all, unless I text him to request that he step up on his court ordered child support. His last two payments were $20 each. Other than child support of which he now owes about $120,000, he has no part in our lives at all.
The children all got into great charter schools this year, so no more private school tuition. Hooray! Emotionally they have their good days and bad, as we all do. Sometimes they feel sad about not having an intact family like many of their friends. Sometimes they feel bad about not having a father and I have to remind them that his rejection has nothing to do with them. It is about him and whatever dysfunctional mental and emotional problems he has. At the same time, they are young and have a whole lot of life stuff ahead of them that will get tougher than what they deal with today.
The most significant and saddest change that has occurred for me, is my relationship with God. Something broke in me as He allowed me to keep being broken and I don't think it can ever be fixed. I've lost my childlike faith that believed and trusted that God is always good, that He has a good plan for my life, has my best interests in heart and would restore all that I lost.
The abuse in my life didn't start when I met Jeff, it only continued. The abuse and pain that began in my childhood (probably before my conscious memory), is recorded inside of me for all time. It was during my time with my abusive husband that I first truly began to seek God on a real level and develop a deeper relationship with Him. I prayed about anything and trusted Him for everything. I believed as long as I did my part, He was gonna make everything work together for my good.
I felt that my wounds were being healed and that in spite of what I was continuing to experience, I was getting stronger and the pain becoming weaker. I believed with every fiber of my being, that one day I would be totally whole and victorious. Well, several months ago, things got really bad again and I poured my heart out. I asked and kept asking. I believed and kept believing. I begged for mercy on behalf of my children. I plead for mercy because I was reaching my breaking point. And you know what I got from God?
SILENCE.
The silence was so loud that it hurt to hear. I won't even utter the thoughts that were going through my mind. Suffice to say, I was expecting Him to do what He did for Abraham and send an angel to stop me. But He didn't and He wouldn't. It was then that I realized for the first time, that He would sit by quietly and let me be destroyed. I finally started seeing all the pain and times in my life when I was being hurt and he did the same thing.
NOTHING.
He allowed me to be hurt as an innocent child, young woman, believer and as a struggling single mother. He was never going to do anything to intervene and end my suffering. From my birth to the present, my life was a mistake. I was unwanted and mostly unloved and none of it mattered to him. It was a very painful realization that this had been the plan for me.
So where did I go from there?
Unfortuantely, I'm not wired like that. I look at the reality and I question it, I don't care who it is. If God is omniscient, then he already knows I'm thinking it, so it makes no difference if I say it. I could no longer accept and reconcile how a good, kind, loving God and father, would ever allow the innocent and those who followed him completely, to suffer so much.
I use this analogy: A father opens the door to his home and allows anyone to enter it. These wicked people come in and molest and rape his children, beat them mercilessly, torture them, and steal everything in the home including food and clothing. As these horrific violations go on, the father is present. His children scream and beg him to help them, save them, destroy the destroyers, but the father smiles and does nothing. He tells his children, not yet, not now, soon. I know it hurts, but this is tough love. Trust me and one day I'll close the door for a little while. Trust me that everything I am allowing to happen to you is for your good, your benefit. You will be better when its all over. Just trust that I love you and I know what is best for you. The children say, "Ok, dad. We believe you. We trust you. We will keep enduring the pain of the beatings and the rapings. We love you too."
My analogy may be a bit extreme, but I think it makes the point clear as day. What kind of loving parent would do that??? NONE! A parent would bolt the door. A parent would defend and protect his children so that they can live in peace and safety. Only a psychotic parent would allow anyone to hurt their children and turn the other way. Loving parents will rip out the eyes of anyone who tried to hurt their child. God is supposed to be a way more loving and perfect parent than we are, but he lets anyone who wants to harm us, do it. Why? Why does loving God hurt so much? As believers we are taught to ignore all the sorrow and devastation that he allows and blame it on Satan's rulership of this planet. I can't ignore it anymore.
Facing this reality was devastating for me on so many levels. For one thing I finally understood that Calvary wasn't coming. There was going to be no supernatural rescue no matter how hard I worked. I was all there was. Whatever I could or couldn't do, would be all that there ever was or wouldn't be.
For another thing, I realized I was alone. The children and I were without cover. My husband abused and abandoned his role as our protector and provider and God did too.
I also knew there would never be any justice for me and my children. No one who ever hurt me would ever have to answer for it. Vengeance is his, he would repay, right? My job was to love and forgive, right? Well, forgiving people who have hurt us is only good for one thing, it will prevent us from becoming angry bitter people that are immobilized by hate and unable to accomplish any good in our lives. Loving them? Being kind to them? In my opinion that just makes us suckers. We don't need to hate 'em, but we don't need to love 'em either.
I broke up with God. I don't consider him to be my friend anymore. I don't consider him to be anything but the Creator of the universe who says that after I finish suffering here and die, because I believed in his son, he won't send me to an eternity of punishment after my death. Guess that's better than nothing...if it's true. I can't bring myself to pray, praise or say anything positive about God anymore.
I was just telling a friend yesterday that I am the kind of person that's either hot or cold. For 11 years I was on fire for God, nothing could make me doubt. Not my husband's abuse nor the pain of the past. I was going to win. Before I departed this earth, I was going to unwrap every wonderful gift that I believed God prepared for me. I was going to raise righteous, faith filled, prayer warriors who would see seas parted, walls knocked down and walk through fire and not be burned.
Not anymore. As hot as I was, I am equally as cold now. God turned my heart to ice as far as he's concerned. I feel nothing but emptiness now, because he is what filled me up. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't want to become an all out sinner again, but I can't be a sold out believer anymore.
I don't know what to teach my kids anymore. I've stopped praying with them, stop talking about God to them (other than to let them know what he's not doing for us), we don't go to church anymore, we don't listen to inspirational music anymore. I don't want to instill my coldness into them and make them total unbelievers, but I am unable to teach them to believe. I don't want them to end up being disappointed repeatedly by trusting a God who won't help them when they truly need it.
I honestly don't know. Which way do you go when you can't go back to where you were and you've tossed the navigational system you were using?
God, if you're out there listening and want to get back with me, feel free to intervene at anytime and do something amazing that could not have happened by anyone or anything else but YOU! Blow my mind with something good as powerfully as you have broken my heart with all the bad. If not, it's all good. No longer expecting anything from you anyway, so I won't be disappointed. If you wanna talk, you know where I am.
