Leave...

Recently I have been feeling discouraged and weighed down.  This August will be 12 years since I left my mother's house.  Twelve years I have been an adult on my own...and yet she is still with me.  Slowly, so slowly, I have been able to chop her up and toss the pieces away (in a figurative sense...I promise hehehehehehehe;-))  I rarely hear her voice and my body is safe from her ever touching me again.  So why am I the way I am?  Why do I struggle?  Why do I feel fear deep in my bones and not even know why?  A few times this week I have noticed "habits" that I have that I don't even think about as I am doing them.  One night I woke to Eli opening his bedroom door to go to the bathroom.  It had startled me from a deep sleep.  As I lay in bed waiting to hear him finish and return to his bed I felt a small pain in my hand.  It was clenched in a tight fist.  I fell back asleep.  The next morning I couldn't get that fist out of my mind.  I have often woken up and seen that both of my hands are in fists as long as I am lying on my back.  I have tried to lay my hands flat as I fall asleep but it is impossible.  I feel exposed in that position.  Of course I know why I do this.  Nighttime was a particularly fearful time in my childhood.  I think of the way animals will instinctively positionn themselves when they sleep so that they are safe or prepared in case a predator comes along.  I was no different.  Often I would wedge my body between the mattress and the wall to fall asleep.  Bunk beds were an extra protection.  I know I fell asleep under my bed a few times.  When I was sure it was safe I would climb back into bed.  I still feel exposed at night.  I am afraid of being caught off guard....a surprise attack where I will be unable to defend myself.  I am not sure I have ever been able to fall asleep without doing some protective ritual.  It might be making sure my back is to the door...hitting me in the back wouldn't hurt as much as my front and I could collect myself before being struck again.  I do this without thinking as if I were an animal and the simple truth was that my enemies would seek to devour me in the darkness.

A second habit I noticed just this afternoon.  My sweet Madeline is so much different than my Eli.  Eli's tantrums were rare even after he hit two.  Either that or I have permanently blocked it from my memory.  Madeline is so much more defiant.  She will clench her teeth and growl at me until she turns red.  Other times she will just scream.  She has been known to try and wedge herself between me and whatever surface I am working on.  It literally feels like she is taking a fork and scraping it across my nerves.  I try to ignore but she is a persistent little girl.  At the first sound of her screaming it is as if someone turns the burner on under the pot that is my anger.  The longer she screams the hotter I get, even trying to ignore her, and then it boils over and mommy screams.  This sequence of events was particularly bothering me today.  I have noticed another feeling in the midst of that...it is a jolt of fear.  I HAVE to keep her quiet!  I was bringing in the groceries today.  Madeline had wanted to go and visit with the neighbor's dog.  I was trying to figure out what I could distract her with because I didn't want her playing with the dog because it was raining.  I then reminded myself she doesn't NEED to see that dog and if I say No than I say NO!  She cried, of course, and I asked myself why it was so so so hard for me to hear her cry without feeling I had to stop it.  The answer flooded to my mind.  I had to keep my brother's and sister's quiet whenever I was home.  She didn't want to "hear" us.  "If you all don't shut up I am going to come back there!"  We knew what that meant.  I can remember being hit on the side of my head when one of the babies was crying.  As my mother left the room I was cradling a crying baby crying myself.  So from the time they were babies I would jump at the sound of them crying.  I reached for a toy or anything in desperation.  I was afraid it would make her come to where we were.  The only time I felt relief was when they stopped crying.  It wasn't just crying that made her mad.  I can remember playing in a bedroom with my brother and sisters.  I can remember running and I must have been laughing or yelling something in play and my mother burst through the door with a strip of duct tape and put it over my mouth.  I cried silently at the shame.  What is worse is the memory of being home to visit while I was in college and someone had just gotten in trouble.  My mother was pissed and told us all to shut up because she was going to go take a nap.  The kids were being kids but I took the role of keeping them quiet.  I got out the duct tape.  In my love for them, not wanting to hurt their souls, I made a game of it.  I drew funny mouths on the tape and we all took pictures together.  They never knew I was acting in deepest fear. When my daughter cries I get a jolt of fear.  I will often search the room for what she might need or what could distract her from her tantrum.  Until today this was a subconscious reaction.  I know babies and toddlers cry...but there were just another set of rules for me.  I didn't know about them but my kids were just not allowed to cry.  If they did and I wasn't enough to make them stop then that was proof I wasn't good enough.  I feel exposed when I can't "control" my children...everyone will know I am not good enough.  Thank you God for showing this to me.  Thank you for giving me this chance to seek how to correct this in me so that I don't have to connect my children's behavior with my own worth.  Thank you for showing me if I control them in this way...I become my mother and would devour the souls you gave them.  

It is really gonna suck having to separate this one from my "self". 

I found a new song for living inside a tutu.  I had actually been able to forget just how much I had wanted to "leave" my mothers house when it was impossible to do so.  I was seconds from cutting into my wrists a few times...I swallowed more pills at a time than I should have just to be able to "leave".  Whatever "childhood" I had was spent dreaming of being 25-30 and living in my own house...I just wanted to leave.  A full moon always reminds me of sitting in my bedroom window watch the cars drive by on the highway...wishing DESPERATELY that I would open my eyes and be sitting in one of the cars headed somewhere else.  I would sit at the Post Office down the block after being dropped off by the school bus as long as I could without getting into trouble for being late.  I needed to soak up every millisecond of "peace" before I walked through that door.  Each step closer to the house was a reminder to put my guard up...protect my body and my mind...don't listen to what she says...walk in fast and get up stairs to "prepare" for whatEVER will come.  Michael W. Smith sings this amazing song.  I wonder if he found my missing diary before this song was written?  I cried out to God like He were my only lifeline at times.  I had NO concept of Him but I was so desperate to "believe".  I wonder, can God be a safe place and give peace to those who don't or can't "know" Him?  If God hadn't filled some of the darkness in my life as a child I would be dead.  As I got older I had to take a more active role in my relationship with God.  I had to study and seek...but as a child God comforted me even when I didn't know to give Him the credit.  I can say it felt like God was farther away as soon as I walked on my college campus...a Christian campus at that.  But I can see now why it felt like He had left.  God wanted me to seek with all my heart...I needed to begin a journey that would reveal God as a reality instead of a "feeling".  I believe God's soft spot for children is proof that I was never alone even when I felt so lonely. 

LEAVE
Daddy's on the sofa, turning up another bottle to unleash when I get home

I pretend he doesn't hit me
Momma just pretends that she don't know.

I used to think of talking
Talking to my preacher
He says I should just forgive and forget.
Now my baby brother just sits and recollects the same regrets.

And I just wanna leave
Oh, God, please help me now, I wanna leave.

As if that's not enough
We're the new family around here
Guess that's all the reason some kids need
'Cause they all call me names, and say I should just take it on the chin.

If I'm overreacting, then why is it so cold here
Why is it so cold here, in this hell
Why would my friend Suzy
Tell me I should just go kill myself?

And I just wanna leave
Oh, God, please help me now, I wanna leave
And I, I just wanna leave
Oh, God, please help me now, I wanna leave

Oh, I wanna get out of here
Oh, God, help me now, I really wanna leave,

(oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, ohh)

And I, just wanna leave
Oh, God, please help me now, I wanna leave
Oh, but I, I just wanna believe
Oh, God, please hear me now, I wanna believe
I just need to know, that You're really out there
Tell me if You're really out there, 'cause I believe.

Jesus will meet you there...

You know, it is funny...all mu life I have seen (and even been annoyed by) people of faith.  You know the people, the ones who can see and speak of God's love in the most violent and devastating tragedy...I always thought they were not real.  Maybe if I touched them they would be a hologram...a person could not possibly be that insane to be able to forgo the pain and see the "Light". 

Somehow, someway I became that insane...according to some of you who have spoken to me since my post about Eli possibly being autistic.  When I spat out how I felt numb in the last blog...I was waiting on God.  I was waiting for just something.  The journey we have been on in the last year with Eli has made it next to impossible for me to believe I could control what happens to my son.  I gave Eli back to God long ago.  My son struggles in this life but is not alone.  I came to this blog like I always do...I come here to spill out the depths so that I can fill it back up with the truth that follows.  Jesus met me there.  I saw why Eli's mother was beaten...I saw why I was abused and left to crawl on the path to healing.  Hasn't this journey made me wiser than my years?  Don't I have a lifetime of pain and the soothing needed from God above?  I have not been where Eli is going...I don't know what his path will look like.  I am honored to be given such a very special child...a child chosen to "suffer" but hopefully overcome.  I wonder, God, did you mean for Eli to have a stronger mother...a wiser one...but I to have been given pain and hindrances I would never ask for.  I have learned I can't change the past but can use my lessons for the future.  I know everything happens for a reason...a Higher reason.  Eli still cannot speak...maybe autism is to blame.  A specific diagnosis, however devastating, would give Eli more specific help.  Maybe this is the key to unlocking the Eli we know is there.  God knows the way...if this is the valley we must walk through I will go.  Let me carry my son until he can walk for himself...god carry me and let me be the mother...the strength my son needs to overcome and learn to praise you with every breath he breaths no matter what he faces.  God make me the haven a boy like Eli will need to protect him or at least soothe him from the cruelty he might face...from the frustration and exhaustion his trials will bring him...always bringing the right words to teach Eli to thank you and not blame you.  I am not alone...Eli is not alone, he walks hand in hand with his Father.  You gave him to me, to bless me, and I give him back to You.

Eli's surgery is tomorrow at approx 7:30.  We don't have any way to really verbally prepare him for what is to come.  Thankfully this is a pretty simple surgery with only about a 4 day recovery.  Thank you to all of you who have prayed and even donated money in our time of great need.  We were able to make the payment to Eli's doctor because of your kindness.  I hope you have already reaped the blessings you deserve from giving.

The "A" word...

The kids both had their yearly check-ups today.  I scheduled them back to back so I could take them both in at the same time...NEVER AGAIN!!  Maddie had to get her finger pricked and had a little trouble clotting from the stick.  She was bleeding everywhere and Eli took advantage of my being distracted to take his turn on the elevator.  Anyway, we went through the usual and short list of Eli's achievements.  No surprise to anyone there...or so I thought.  Eli's doctor asked if he and I had ever discussed more serious implications of Eli's condition...specifically his odd behaviors.  I really thought he was leading into telling me he thought Eli had ADHD.  I was ready for that...I thought he would suggest medication, etc.  I was ready to refuse on principle and faith that we can handle Eli's behavior and outbursts.  He didn't say a word about ADHD.  He told me he was concerned Eli was showing signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder.  I am sure my mouth dropped.  We discussed it a little more and his doctor is referring us to a place in Atlanta that can do the official observation and make a diagnosis. 

I am numb.  It has been a long while since I have not been able to feel in a situation that should invoke a strong feeling.  I expected ADHD...and I got Autism.  This was supposed to be a routine visit and I get the shock of a lifetime...words a parent prays they never hear, "I think your son has Autism".  God, when is enough enough.  How much is one little boy supposed to handle?  How much heartbreak is this mother and father going to be given?  I feel so alone.  I feel like God has forgotten about us.  I don't know where to go or what to do.  I just feel alone and forgotten.  I feel that if I cried out to God all I would hear would be an echo.  The sorrow and stress has rained down on our family today.  Give me some peace...give me some hope...

Weeping in worship

Been a while, I know.  I decided to have a "handmade Christmas" this year.  I grossly underestimated how many man hours such a task would require!  My sewing machine has been working as hard as I have.

Some good things have been happening.  I promised a friend I would make a gift for her to give a mutual friend about to have a little boy.  I sat at my sewing machine making a little pair of baby shoes.  I held this small project in my hands and I was overcome.  I was overcome with joy...joy in having this ability to create.  I was so thankful for the way my mind can work out and put together such a project.  I was so grateful to God for giving me a talent.  I know everyone is good at something but I seriously believed that applied to everyone else.  I was set aside...undeserving of a talent or a gift.  I was simply the leftovers.  Like the fabric I throw away after a project...to small a piece to create a thing it is no good to anyone and would just take up space or create a mess. I was the cast aside and I had accepted my fate.  I should not inquire or ask for more from anyone.  Yet there I was...the seamstress!  I was so proud of myself and so thankful to God all in one instant.  I even took a risk by putting my handmade goods online to sell.  A few friends bought what I had made but that still gave me the confidence to say I was "good"...that I was good at something not everyone else can do.  What an amazing feeling...to have the feeling of being touched and woven together with a specific set of qualifications!!  I wept in worship.

Then...there came a hard blow.  My sweet Eli will need another surgery.  His infections has returned and his ears are filled with fluid.  A simple surgery so he won't be phased much at all.  The blow came when I was told we needed to pay his doc $150 and the hospital $500 before the day of the surgery, December 30th.  The total cost for his surgery to us is $1,471.  I think I lost a year of my life when the nurse told me this news.  HOW?  How can we pay this and still feed our children?  Where will the initial $650 ever come from?  To be able to incorporate my faith here would be very calming, but I am a worrier.  I can remember my faith when problems seem smaller.  I asked myself why do I freak out and feel alone and solely responsible when it comes to financial things like this.  I didn't wait long for an answer.  Growing up we were poor.  My mom stressed about the bills and included me in on her worries.  "If we don't get money from somewhere we are going to be on the street next month."  Things like this would haunt me.  To this day my biggest fear is being homeless.  When we come up short I resort to trying to "fix" it.  I scramble and panic...I run away from faith (which in my mind means doing nothing).  I think I incorporate having so little money with being forgotten.  My mother told us God wasn't taking care of us.  God was punishing us, etc when there was no money.  I feel that now.  I feel like I am on my own.  I feel like I am being punished for something.  To have faith in this situation...what in the world does that look like?  To believe God will pay this bill seems so absurd and irresponsible.  I feel like I am on my own.  I am scared.  I am scared to live paycheck to paycheck.  I am afraid I won't be able to feed my children.  I am afraid others think I am bad because we struggle with money.  I don't know how to have faith here.  I want the calm and the peace faith would bring me now.  I need to see a way...I need to know how God will take care of us.  I need to know so that if His way isn't what I want I can complain and find another way.  It sounds so ridiculous when I say that out loud but my fear drives me here.  Eli needs this...that is all that keeps me from picking up the phone and cancelling the surgery.  Love keeps me doing the right thing.  God that is all that I have right now...I love my son and I move forward in giving him the best I can.  Take care of him, take care of me.  Please provide so we are never without a roof and beds to sleep in...

In response...you should know

I thought a little more on my post the other day.  Once I release the words onto this blog screen I am filled with peace...always!  No matter if I write to lament or to question...or to praise.  God asked me more than a year ago to just write.  I didn't know His voice then or that He moves me in desire that way...but God was the one who named this blog.  God was the one who made me look down at my sweet Madeline and just pour out!  Some of you have written me or even called me to say thank you or voice the own cry of your hearts...a cry that this blog put into words.  Ladies, thank you.  I don't always know who is "listening" and when you respond, in agreement or not, I am affirmed...no matter what is said.  I have even been blessed enough to have my writing compared to David's...what a treasured blessing.  One that allows my ego to float up to heaven and thank God again for the healing in me...the healing I can feel, that I can see, that I can believe.

In response to what I wrote the other day.  I am afraid I left some people thinking I didn't believe in God's power.  I thank those who let me know and allow me to clarify now.  I know these blogs are my thoughts and they are not always fact...as in this is one side of "the story".  I think of it this way...there are billions of us.  I believe God fashioned each millimeter of each of the billions.  I believe God is mighty...He is so mighty that my meager words could never contain what God has done, what He is doing, and what He will do.  Why would I ever want to or try to contain God.  I believe in miracles.  Two of them have come from my own body.  With their first kicks inside of me and their first cries of life I have been in awe of the treasures we receive in this life.  I just cannot imagine the life I will live in Eternity if my life on earth can be this...FULL.  I believe God can move mountains.  I believe that if God felt Mount Kilimanjaro belonged in my backyard He could pick it up and place it here...I believe.  God obviously feels otherwise.  I believe God can sew up the gaping wounds of every woman I see in pain.  He'd thread the needle of ultimate healing and He would tenderly sew up those wounds and they would hurt no more.  I believe He does that for some people...He does.  Praise the Sewers Hand!  I believe He leads others on a different path.  Make no mistake, I have BEGGED, PLEADED, and BARGAINED with God to sew up my wounds so that I would bleed no more.  I wanted healing and I wanted to see HIS face.  I wanted to see God when I begged Him to show me Himself.  God did not sew up my wounds at once.  I bleed still.  Why?  Why would God not answer me when I was so so so ready to receive?  He tells me now, "Ashley, my sweet, you did not know me."  I didn't know Him.  I had been saved, no doubt about that, but I still had lies in my head.  My mother had to stop beating my body when people started to notice.  It was at that time she would beat my soul.  She told me God would "get me".  She told me God hated me...she told me God thought I was lazy.  She told me that if she found something I had done wrong it was because God had told her...I would then be slapped, kicked, spit on, ridiculed, etc...because God had told on me.  Is that God?  Is that the kind of Father I am meant to worship...to serve?  NO, ladies, that was not God.  God never laid a wrathful hand on me.  God never beat me.  That was my mother...my clinically insane mother.  Her hand broke my skin and made me bleed.  Her words cut my soul.  She blamed God so she could sleep at night.  All I had ever been told of God was lies.  Lies I had no other choice but to believe.  Why would I WANT to believe my mother could hate me so much...it was easier to believe someone I could not see was the one destroying me.  I thought there might be hope...that my mother might love me.  She did not!  God was crucified so that I might live.  God took the blame because He knew that if I knew the truth, that my mother hated me, that I might be lost.  Isn't that love?  God takes on all the burden knowing in the end He wins the prize...and to think the prize was me.  I have wrestled with God...I have screamed at Him...I have turned away...I have questioned...and I have believed the lies.  Ladies, God was never fed up.  God never let an inch between us.  He wants the prize!  He prepares my home in Heaven..."this is my Ashley's place".  God's love leaps over the stains our earthly lives leave.  I think of the strangers I pass at the store...God prepares their homes.  He cleans it out and calls it their own.  God can do all that but is never distracted from me.  We cannot understand why some things happen.  We cannot understand why some of us take longer and some of us heal sooner.  It is the journey that MAKES GOD REAL TO EACH ONE!!!  I don't want your journey...I want God.  Tell me it is taking too long and you tell me I am not good enough...you put more truth to the lies my mother told me than to the love of God you preach.  "Love me like Jesus"!  We all fall short of what God wanted us to always be.  We all make mistakes and yet we can all come back.  It takes just as much of God's patience to let us keep coming back as it does for me to walk at my pace so that He becomes my TRUTH.  I am worth it...you are worth it.  Don't steal her value because you cannot contain patience.  None of us can ever save an other's soul...we don't have what it takes...and that is okay! 

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! 

...At your feet

I drained every second out of the snooze button this morning.  I couldn't seem to wake up.  I splashed cold water on my face...a few times.  I got dressed and prepared to walk across the hall into a battle to get my son dressed.  After he finally surrendered I crammed my children into a borrowed car.  Don't get me wrong, I am thankful fro good friends to loan us a working car...I just want things back to normal.  We bought an SUV for a reason!!!  I am too OCD to have things so askew for so long!  I dragged my son into his class kicking and screaming.  Drove home and walked into my messy house...I was just so tired.  I fed Maddie and finally sat down.  I looked out my living room window and I couldn't help but wish I was looking out from somewhere in Pennsylvania.  I get so very homesick this time of year.  I just want to be home!  I truly want healing in my family.  I want the perfect "Quinn family Christmas".  I want my kids to be safe near my mother.  I want what was taken from me.  I want my mother to suck it up...admit what she did...heal...and put things back together!!!  I don't want to feel loneliness surrounded by people anymore.

I spoke to my sister, Rebecca, yesterday.  I hung up the phone feeling about 30 pounds heavier with the weight of worry over decisions she is making.  I felt sorrow and so out of control.  I can see clearly the dangerous path she has chosen...and there in nothing I can do to stop her.  She is compromising and turning away.  Life, I know, could be a lot worse.  I know that worry can blind me from the blessings I have.  Sometimes I would just like a break...I want a life that is totally and completely carefree...a life where bills pay themselves, where I always feel at home, bank accounts don't bounce, cars always start, dirt and clutter just float away, exhaustion is a fairytale, children are always obedient and they have 2 sets of grandparents....scars disappear and people recognize and embrace true love when it is offered...well I guess that would be Heaven, huh? 

So it was just me and my sweet Madeline at home together this morning.  I know how I usually behave when I am that tired.  I just couldn't stand the thought of overreacting or yelling at her...her crying and my adding guilt to my day.  I remembered the Casting Crowns song "At Your Feet":

Here at Your feet, I lay my past down
My wanderings, all my mistakes down
And I am free


Here at Your feet, I lay this day down
Not in my strength, but in Yours I’ve found
All I need, You’re all I need

Jesus, Jesus, at Your feet
Oh, to dwell and never leave
Jesus, Jesus, at Your feet
There is nowhere else for me
There is nowhere else for me

Here at Your feet, I lay my future down
All of my dreams, I give to You now
And I find peace, I find peace
Here at Your feet, I lay my life down
For You my King, You’re all I want now
And my soul sings…

‘Cause I am free (here at Your feet)
All I need (is at Your feet)
I find peace
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet

And I am free (here at Your feet)
All I need (is at Your feet)
I find peace
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet

Here at Your feet
I lay my life down

I can't pray yet...but I know I get closer the more real God becomes to me.  My heart cries out for the people around me and for my family.  God just hears me in words I cannot speak.  He reciprocates with Peace.  My past will never be forgotten...my body will always carry scars.  I will make more mistakes...I will have to make more apologies to my children and my husband when I don't control my anger.  My future is unknown and I HATE that...I like to have control.  I know where I WANT to be but God says "No" for now.  It is impossible for me, in my sinful nature, to never turn away from the feet of God.  I'd love to say that it is possible but lets get real!  But I believe it is the place God wants me...where He likes to see me.  He welcomes me back each and every time.  When I turn my back on my worries, my past, my stress, my obsessions I am at Jesus' feet...soon life interrupts me...but I was there and my energy was renewed by that Peace...peace when everything was still especially my mind...peace where it is quiet and my heart flutters because Jesus has my attention.  My kitchen is still dirty, my address is still the same, my car still won't work, my family is still a mess, and there are bills that won't go away but I face them one day at a time...in peace!