I fell in love!

I hope that I can wrap my head around all the thoughts swimming in my head. 

My sister called me last night in a panic!  It seems my mother was sitting outside Rebecca's workplace...just sitting in the car.  I asked Becca why she was so afraid.  I told her that mom couldn't do anything to her!  Rebecca replied, "But she can threaten!".  I stopped myself from discounting this as a legitimate fear.  To Rebecca, that is total and complete fear.  How did my mother control her...well all of us...FEAR!  How did she keep us quiet?  FEAR!  How did she get us to do any ridiculous thing?  FEAR!!  Fear was my mother's weapon and the last and lasting strong hold!  It can seem so silly to someone on the other side of this healing journey and especially to someone never beaten with fear.  For those of us who have experienced it (and care to recall), fear is so very real.  So real you could almost touch it!  It is usually irrational but not to the one who cannot understand and dissect her fear.  It is her way of life.  Her fear may have kept her safe in her childhood home...fear keeps us on our toes, it makes us ready for the beating, it alerts us to the mood our abuser may be in, it keeps us out of harms way if even once.  Fear is a skill any abused child NEEDS to survive.  When we leave our childhood home, the fear skill isn't as much of a need but how can we dump something that is indeed a part of our person?  You wouldn't ask an adult to forget what 2+2 is, would you?  No!  We are drilled in math skills until they become second nature...the abused child is drilled in fear and cannot easily lose this skill as it has served her so well.

I find myself wishing Rebecca would just LISTEN TO ME!!!  I feel this in frustration over having to have patience with her.  I know many people in my life have felt this over me.  My in-laws come screaming to mind.  Our relationship just is what it is.  They don't live in my body and in my past and I don't live in theirs.  Expecting them to "get it" is unreal and just evokes pain on both sides.  The same goes for them.  There is peace in a long journey.  You wouldn't expect an 8 year old to have the knowledge and skills of a 12 year old...that is absurd!  It takes time to mature, it takes time to learn, it takes time to grow.  God gives us childhood as a sort of shelter...a shelter to mature, learn, and grow and fail and succeed in these things along the way.  He expects children to be loved and protected...hugged and kissed by two loving parents.  Well, for a large number of people that never happens.  In childhood we are broken...raped...beaten...violated...hated!  In our small bodies we lack the capacity to contain these things and we react in many ways...all those reactions steal us away from peace...even if we comply to keep the "peace" we still never get to be a CHILD!  I believe that some people CAN just get over it...although these people puzzle me, who am I to say their recovery isn't genuine?  I don't know how God works in you.  Then there are those of us that need time.  Just like the child needs years an years to be labeled "mature" and "of age", I need time to tear apart my past and fill the holes with GOD!  I believe my personality (my tendencies to be analytical, obsessive, and thorough) plays a part in the length of this journey.  God did indeed create me this way and therefore, He is prepared to be patient with me.  God makes me fall in love with Him on this long path.  When I relive being molested, for example, each time it loses more and more fear...God finds me there.  GOD FINDS ME...who are you to think or say I should have arrived sooner?  I could certainly skip over all the ugly and painful parts...but they would find me again.  God finds me where I am which means I am exactly where I am supposed to be and when!  Who could ever convince me otherwise?  As with Rebecca...when has she ever had someone to call when she is afraid?  How thrilled do you think God was when she reached out instead of hiding in her fear.  A VICTORY!!!  God knows one day she will reach for Him...she will fall in love with Him along this path.  God never crams love into us so that we are forced to worship in "love".  That isn't real and God has no use for robots.  God wants us to make a choice to love Him.  Some can make a choice to "get over it" and that is a love response to God.  I chose to process and that is my love response to God.  He doesn't hold another's love any higher than mine...God IS NOT abusive.  God's patience makes me love Him in a most peaceful way!