Gateway to Health: Confidence

Pss. 118:8 “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”

Confidence

Throughout scripture, I can find dozens of verses building me with the confidence I need to move forward. Ones where God promises to never let me down in times of trouble (and when there is no trouble also). 

As a child, I lacked confidence and had very low self-esteem. I had no confidence in moving from one day to the next. Suicidal thoughts were my companions throughout many years of my life. Venturing into a strained marriage as a child at seventeen, left me carrying the burden of a mental illness that I felt consumed him more than me. I told myself that I was the strong one. In hindsight I realize I was just as crazy as him. 

My first sexual encounter with him was that of statutory rape as I was fifteen and he was nineteen. But since I had been sexually abused years prior, I didn’t know the difference in sex and love they meshed like clouds and sun. Sex down by the grainy railroad tracks was not my idea of an ideal love story in the making but I went on for twenty years married to him all in the name of love. I guess I was as warped as him. My question all along was, would God save me? Would He get me out of this mess I got myself into? 

God enabled me to be free of the disaster of a marriage with a young child in tow and an angel that had passed over when I was sixteen. My hard knocks crippling marriage would have come to an end even if I was the only one who saw the enduring mental illness that carried the marriage into the roadblock that awaited us. 

Confidence was never my friend. I saw other girls, and then women look like torches in the darkened night, going forward with their hair blowing in the wind. They were free to carry the light and they did so with grace and confidence even if their inner turmoil was present, they had families supporting them, friends surrounding their inner circle, and they might have had a God that guided them. I don't know but from the outside looking in, they were the epitome of confidence.

Matt. 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

My fairytale was never so elegant. Mine was crawling in the pits of ashes, clawing my way from one disaster to another. Yes, I had God by my side, but what I didn’t have was two or three gathered. I was alone and lonely in my mind most of my childhood and adult life and the fight was my own while everyone else was floating forward in life. I was scraping my knees to get by, nothing more; I lived only to one day die.

Then in 2002 things began to change. Life was breathed into me. I felt a new reason to live and that was the fairytale kind of love that knocked on my door; all I had to do was leave everything (EVERYTHING, except my child) behind and go forward. I was no longer on my knees; I was being whisked away by the light and love that other people, the floaters, experienced. Leaving the alcohol and drug-induced dysfunctional family behind was a little easier than I  had ever imagined. 

To say that the next fifteen years were an easy breeze would not be true. I had to adapt to a new way of living; new family to embrace. Living six years in Texas was just the cocoon phase of my metamorphosis. I would be part of a team, him and I; I would be enmeshed in my dream of the writing world, I would love and be loved back, maybe for the first time in my life! Granted my family back home loved me, to an extent, I was out of sight and thus out of their mind. 

My heart and life grew ten sizes too big when he and I were forced to move to Nebraska, the hometown of my hubby and his ever-loving God enriched family. This was everything I ever sought in life, to love and be loved. I had online friends who grew into a family to me; I had spiritual friends who I knew were only brought to me by the hand of God himself. I had family that was close by and that accepted me with all my quirkiness and tales in tow, they all loved me!

This might sound a little crazy coming out of left field but this disease is just one of the best things ever to happen to me. How many of you can say that? I was given a second chance to embrace life. Change the things I KNEW were wrong. I'm allowing people to see that there is confidence in being supported one way or another. Support is not people saying, ‘Oh I’m so sorry this is happening to you,’ support is people watching you walk through the coals of fire and standing on the sidelines saying they know you can do it, thatta girl, way to go!

When this diagnosis smacked me in the face I wanted to live like never before. I wanted God to use me for His purpose and maybe this time with the support of spiritual friends and marital family, and my niece Sara from back home, I wouldn’t be alone in my walk. They would surround me with the support I needed and I would now be the torchbearer walking forward in confidence leading them with the Light I carry.

Pss 118: 5-6 “I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place. The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”

Go Team! Football vs.Writing

I was thinking, since I’m such a football fan (Go Huskers, Yay Colts) that writing is a lot like a football team.

Go ahead and think me crazy but listen to the logic before placing judgment. There is a coin toss in the beginning of the game, right? Well that is sometimes what writing seems like, a complete toss up between getting published or not.

Then we have the field players. Words, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, etcetera are all vying for the win. In the beginning (we writer’s call it a rough draft) we play the field after placing all of these words in order, line them up and charge down the field at the opposing team. I like to think the opposing team in writing as writer’s block! You know that stiff tight end (you) you’d like to kick in the rear while it sits back with a blank stare, gazing at the empty page all the while having water poured down the throat? This is you watching from the sidelines instead of getting out there and playing, I mean writing!

Ok, we’ve got the words all in line, we have the opposing team ready to tackle our butts, now it is time to charge. Make some sense out of the story before we get the wind knocked out of us. We have our protagonist, our antagonists, all of the conflict ready, ups and downs, highs and lows, we pulled off a good piece of foreshadowing,(Deep breath here) then we revise. This in the football game would be called a field goal!We've basked in the afterglow of completion then we finished our story and now have to tackle the tough stuff. We huddle, then get back to the field, ready.

You see, football can be like writing, we have our coin toss, we have our rough and tumble days of opposing forces, I think sometimes we even have a bouncing ball on our screen! Maybe it is just squiggly lines telling us we’ve spelled a word wrong. But that doesn’t stop us does it? We continue on until we have something legible in our hands and are ready to make a TOUCHDOWN! That would be to place it up on the market and let the world see. Maybe get it published?

I can hear the crowd roaring behind me, my cheerleader's, although not as hot and big breasted, are my fiance and my son, standing on the sidelines yelling out, “Go get ‘em!”
I’m so glad they’re wearing their sweats as they cheer. I never did think they looked right in a skirt!

And as I’m running to catch that game winning touchdown pass, my helmet keeps me from bumping my head on the ground too hard as I fall, get rejected, but I still have the winning touchdown, my manuscript.

I wave to the crowd, thank them for all of the support, do a little winning dance, and go back out onto the field to run down the entire length all over again and again until I WIN the game, I become published!

How’s THAT for analogy?

Wait until you read my chess analogy. *wink* *wink*