All to Him I freely give…… #11

I did indeed, glorifyingly (like that word?) bask in my Saviour’s presence as I let go of all my troubles………OK, who’s getting struck by lightening as she types??? So, just because I had placed my name on a lil’ sticky note didn’t mean that I planned on my life being turned upside down. I just meant to get a blessing or something, lol…..Here goes it, here goes it…….

At this particular time I mistakingly thought that I was able to allow my mother to meet my children. We planned to go back to my hometown of Jacksonville, Fl. Oh, how I was excited. The beach is gorgeous, I was going to take my family to my favorite everythings, ride beach cruisers like my daddy and I had as a kid….I had all my favorite restaurants picked out, I could honestly taste the wings from Miami Subs and BBQ from Sonny’s…and only the Lord Himself, knows how good a Larry’s Giant Sub would have been……BUT, something happened that I didn’t expect…..

Dreams galore began to just overtake me in my sleep. By the way, I never get to fully sleep, so to have what lil’ I do get be interrupted by a bad dream…that just AIN”T cool. But, soon, the dreams became nightmares. Memories, well really the emotions flooded back. I just mean that there was suddenly an overwhelming inability to push the thoughts away, the tears, the fears aside. The thing that really changed is that it was my children I began to dream were being taken from me. They were being beaten, etc…I couldn’t help them, my family wouldn’t let me have them….I woke in a panic, went downstairs and clung to Mackey like glue. He never even knew it, but i swear when he breathed I breathed, when he moved, I did. I was scared to death. I did’t want to wake him, as his hours are CRAZY. The kids and I often sleep in another room or part of the house, so we don’t disturb him. But, I am serious when I say, that poor man couldn’t even breath. He just didn’t know it, lol……..

When that became the point, I decided that I better ask my pastor was that some kind of weird thing on my part or some sort of “warning” from the Lord, etc….he and I both decided that it may not be a good idea, that if for nothing else, a mother’s intuition is to be followed most times. So, I cancel my plans. But, it is as if there was no turning back from that point. Suddenly, the issues that had been with me for many years, are no longer happy just sitting away in a box. They needed to come out. It was a pressure I don’t recall having before in my life.

I begged Martha Crawford to tell me it was wrong to need to talk to someone. I said, I hate people that want to be on the Oprah show, I hate people like my sister….she thinks that the world owes her a living because she had some hard times….She encouraged me that it wasn’t a bad thing and that probably it would do me some good…..I tried to talk to my pastor, but remember I had NO interest in this because, afterall I had lived here for 8 or more yrs before I would discuss this with him. It wasn’t like I was looking for a shoulder to help bear this burden. I was a BIG girl, and I have always sucked it up and I wasn’t about to be a panzy over this. I remember him even getting a bit disturbed with me, I would almost talk to him and then I would shy away. He said he couldn’t help me if I wouldn’t talk to him. So, I angrily agreed to do so. Afterall, he only had my best in mind. But, his hands were tied. As I continued to battle this pull to share with my current pastor, I strangely by chance speak with THAT “minister” that I referred to in a previous post(this was once a man that i trusted and sumhow i reverted back to that) He began his typically sexual tendencies toward me as I was trying to share how scared I was, how unsafe I felt. It made me so very angry, I thought…this is it, this is the LAST straw, I didn’t say, but should have…..I thought…O NO YOU DON”T…..I am NOT a kid anymore, you can’t do this to me again…..Out of that anger that day, I knew…I knew it was time to seek council from a reputable Man of God…………
As I began to share all of my testimony with him, he took care and note of what he had heard. He gave me time to “let it all out”. Then it was his time to kind of pull some things together for me. I had not seen some of the things he had in this life of mine. I didn’t realize that my problem with authority came from so many men in my life exploiting my trust. He gave me some insight to why I was an angry person, etc…..I never knew that it was ok to hurt, didn’t know that a justified “peed-off-ness” was ok to feel. I wasn’t aware that sharing a part of your life like mine wasn’t shameful on my part. I thought that if I did, I was like my sister, and we ALL know how I feel about that……

So, did I intend to give my all to the Lord that day?? Yes, but did I realize this is what He meant by it?? I think I may preferred chancing that Bolt coming my way. I wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen in my life. I just plainly lost my mind for a few weeks. I knew I would, I knew I was going to be vulnerable and scared and stupid….I just couldn’t think straight, I made poor decisions, I angered a few folks along the way, I ended getting hurt in some areas, I HATED those few weeks. I still haven’t gotten past it. I don’t know how to forgive myself for it. I fear that it is held against me. I think that I damaged some relationships that were important to me. Why did this happen? I guess that it was just more than I could handle all at one time. I did heal from the sharing, but some things just never went back to the same. I don’t regret this “too” much, as it has led to my new ability to now share with you. I hope that it was all worth it. I hope that it can be a blessing to someone hurting. I know that I have had much feedback as to the Lord already using it in others’ ministries to hurting people. But, I just don’t know….I don’t want to hurt anymore. I want to heal from my “stupid weeks”, but the point is, I did what was right, I did what I needed to do, I obeyed the Lord, I surreneded…..

“I surrender all, I surrender all, all to Thee my blessed Saviour, I surrender all”