Category Archives: Earthly vs Heavenly Fathers

Apr3

Writer’s Block Notwithstanding…

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I’ve been struggling with what to write about lately ~ a LOT. I started working on a post about beauty, and I wanted to include some photos of birds, but I couldn’t figure out how to format them the way I wanted them to look. I finally got so frustrated that I had to walk away or I was going have a panic attack and throw my computer, which would have been a really bad thing to do.

Since the not-throwing-my-computer day, which was a long time ago, I keep getting ideas of topics to write about, but because I haven’t finished the post about beauty, I can’t really move on to any other subjects. So here I am, blathering on about wanting to write about beauty and beautiful things, but not being able to for whatever reason. Maybe if I write about wanting to write about it, that will help me move towards actually writing about it. So here goes…

I crave beauty. I need to be surrounded by beauty and beautiful things, so I make sure my environment always has artwork on display, plus I always have the means to create my own artwork as well. Beauty feeds my soul. I talk to God about it all the time. Everytime I see something beautiful in His creation I tell Him about it, and thank Him for it. God’s Word is beautiful, and I listen to it while I’m sleeping at night. In fact, it helps me fall asleep, because it fills me with peace.

Give unto the LORD the glory due unto His name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. ~ Psalm 29:2, KJV.

But godliness actually is a source of great gain when accompanied by contentment [that contentment which comes from a sense of inner confidence based on the sufficiency of God]. ~ 1 Timothy 6:6, Amplified Bible.

Both those verses talk about some form of beauty. The first one, Psalm 29:2, talks about worshiping the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Who knew that holiness could be beautiful? But it can be, and it is, because God is beautiful, and He is holy.

The second one, 1 Timothy 6:6, is a little more obscure, but if you think about it I’m sure you’ll be able to see it. The confidence that comes from knowing God will always be there for you, always meeting your needs, always keeping His promises to you ~ that will bring a deep-seated peace and such great contentment, knowing you never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from again ~ that truly is a beautiful thing!

And then there’s Psalm 23. There’s probably no more beautiful description about the sufficiency of God than Psalm 23,

1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. 4Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. 6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. ~ Psalm 23:1-6, NKJV.

It’s interesting that I’m focusing on Psalm 23 in this post, and in the one before this, because I’m going through some intense testing right now (so if you think of it, I would really appreciate your prayers), and it’s really comforting to know that I can trust God to have my back in the midst of this. I know it’s not God doing it, because of what it says in the Book of James,

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. ~ James 1:13, NKJV.

And I really like the way the Amplified Bible translates it,

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God” [for temptation does not originate from God, but from our own flaws]; for God cannot be tempted by [what is] evil, and He Himself tempts no one. ~ James 1:13, Amplified Bible.

It’s encouraging to know that God won’t ever tempt me to do bad things. My father used to do that, and then he’d punish me when I did what he’d tempted me to do. It was all a great big trick with him, and I could never figure out what the rules were. But God doesn’t do that, and for that I’m eternally grateful!

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. ~ James 5:16, NKJV.

May12

Real Brokenness, but Glorifying God

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Every once in a while I become aware of just how broken I am as a result of the abuse and incest that was forced upon me by my parents. Most of the time I’m able to live my life without having to acknowledge the real damage that Harry did with his abuse and selfishness. But there are times when I can’t avoid looking at it any longer.

I’m reminded of it everytime I have to make a phone call, or if I want to take a shower, or if I want to go someplace wearing a dress. For most people these things are normal everyday occurrences, but not for me. For me they are fraught with danger, and as such I’ll do almost anything to avoid doing them. And they are just three examples of things that are difficult in my life because of what Harry did to me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m limping through life crippled to the point of complete incapacity. While my life is difficult, God is so marvelously good to me that it’s hard to describe. My needs are abundantly met, and I can always sense His presence with me. He’s always there to talk to, and I have His Word to turn to when I need it. Having God’s presence with me more than makes up for the difficulties that I live with as a result of Harry’s selfishness.

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” ~ John 17:3, NKJV.

Knowing that I have Someone I can trust completely means the world to me! Going from not being able to trust ANYONE to being able to trust One Person completely is a pretty amazing transformation if you ask me. And considering the One Person I’m trusting is God Almighty, Master of the Universe, Creator of All Things, that makes it even better.

God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? ~ Numbers 23:19, NLT.

Apr10

Through the Eyes of Jesus

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I’ve come to realize that everytime I look in the mirror I have two choices. I could see myself as Harry, the devil, and the world would have me believe that I am, or I could see myself as God sees me. Satan and the world, working through Harry, tried to convince me that I was ugly and worthless. But God thinks I’m beautiful, and He valued me enough that Christ was willing to go to the Cross and die to save me from my sins. And since God is smarter than Satan, and He’s certainly smarter than Harry was, I think I’ll stick with God.

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” ~ 1 Samuel 16:7, NLT.

It took me many years to be able to come to that conclusion. I had to wade through a whole lot of pain and emotional sludge before I was able to reject what Harry had beat into me every day of my life, and believe what God said about me in Scripture.

There’s a saying that says beauty is only skin deep. Well, I beg to differ, because God, Master of the Universe, Creator of All Things, says otherwise. Whoever said beauty was only skin deep was ignorant. More to the point, they had their eyes focused on the wrong things. Skin-deep beauty is only what you can see on the surface, but there’s so much more underneath that. As 1 Samuel 16:7 says above, God looks at the heart, and I think that’s where the true beauty lies, for it’s out of the abundance of the heart that one speaks.

“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. ~ Luke 6:45, NKJV.

One can read beautiful poetry or speak deadly curses. The one will create positive feelings, and the other will cause sadness and depression.

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”

Those four lines are from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, Aurora Leigh, and I think they are some of the most beautiful poetry I’ve ever read anywhere. They talk about God’s presence everywhere on earth, whether you see Him or not, and if you choose, you will recognize that He’s there, and everytime I read those lines I think beautiful thoughts, and God shows me new things from His Word.

How cool is that!!

2There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3“This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” 4When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. 5“Do not come any closer,” the LORD warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. ~ Exodus 3:2-5, NLT.

As far as the negative is concerned, I’ve heard enough evil, gloomy, bleak, and fearful stuff from Harry and my mother to last me into eternity. All that negative input made me hate myself. It also motivated me to become self-abusive, and it drove me to consider suicide. I tried it nine times, but thankfully I was unsuccessful. At the time I was mad. I thought, “Geez! I can’t even kill myself right!” But now I’m so glad my efforts were ineffective. I’m excited to be alive, and in love with Jesus, my Lord and Savior.

If only everyone could see themselves, as well as other people, the way God sees them! It would make such a difference in people’s lives, and in the way culture is played out. People would be able to see the true beauty in the people around them, as well as themselves, and things like plastic surgery would be much less common, or maybe even not be practiced at all.

So those are just some thoughts I’ve been thinking about, with Resurrection Sunday on my mind (it was yesterday), and being grateful for all that Jesus Christ did for me on the Cross and three days later in His Resurrection, and all that He continues to do for me every day. Any gratitude I express now can’t come close to what I really feel, but I’ll say it anyway, because I can’t keep silent about it.

Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. ~ 1 Timothy 6:6, NLT.

God has blessed me with such abundance that I can’t even describe it, and I am SOOO GRATEFUL!! God is SOOO GOOD!! Thank You Jesus!!

Sep15

No Average Joes

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God created each one of us in His own image and after His likeness, and I believe He made each person unique and individual, like no other human being ever created before or after. God broke the mold, as the saying goes, after He was finished creating each person. So no one is average, no matter how boring you think you are. If you think you have nothing special to offer, then you need to ask God, and He will show you. EVERYONE has gifts and talents, regardless of how you see yourself.

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. ~ 1 Peter 4:10, NLT.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. ~ Ephesians 2:10, NLT.

The word, “masterpiece” in this verse comes from the Greek word, poiēma from which we get the word poem. I understand that to mean that God made me uniquely in His image, a masterpiece of His choosing, unlike any other person that He ever created before or after me, and all the other people who He created are also masterpieces.

Just as an aside, I think that’s why murder is such a terrible crime. When you kill someone, you are murdering a unique person who was created in the image of God, so you’re destroying the very image of God by killing that person, and you’re acting like God when you take that individual’s life. Look what happened to Satan when he tried to act like God. He got tossed out of Heaven, and demoted from Lucifer, one of the archangels, to Satan, lord over Hell. Only God should be able to decide someone’s time of death. God is the author of life, so He should be the author of death.

13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit them together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it. 15 You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! 16 You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book! ~ Psalm 139:13-16, TLB, The Living Bible.

When I was little, every time Harry abused me, he told me he had to do it because God hated me. He also told me that I was as ugly as if someone had thrown acid in my face. Those two statements were like a litany repeated over and over into my mind until they became part of the wiring of my nervous system. It took an act of God to break them down so I no longer believed them, terrible lies that they were.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Harry probably felt those things about himself so he projected them onto me. It took many years as an adult for me to be able to believe that God loved me, and many, many more before I could believe that I wasn’t ugly.. What did the trick was changing my name back in 1980.

I decided I wanted to change my name so I could rid myself of the legacy of child abuse. So I went to the Bible to find Bible names with good meanings. I knew I wanted my first name to be Sarah, because it meant Princess. Then I found Abigail, which means “a joy to the Father.”

Then all I was lacking was a last name, so I started flipping through Strong’s Concordance. I happened to open it to a page in the Greek section where the work “kuriakos” appeared at the very bottom of the last column on the left-hand page ~ the very last entry at the bottom of that column. I think God put it there so it would be easy for me to find. And it turned out that “kuriakos” meant “belonging to God”.

How cool is that! I had my whole name! Sarah Abigail Kuriakos. God’s Princess, a Joy to the Father, Belonging to God. I thought I had never heard such a beautiful name in all my life.

Then I decided I wanted to do it legally, because it felt like a legal name change would be the only way for it to feel real to me. So I went to court and changed my name legally from the name I was born with to Sarah Abigail Kuriakos.

Changing my name has made a tremendous difference in my life. Every time I hear the names, I hear their meanings. Hearing the meanings has been like feeding a new litany into my nervous system to break the wiring created by the old one and replacing it with this new, healing one. I could almost feel the healing process as it was happening over the years.

So that’s that! I’m beautiful! I may not look like Raquel Welch or Marilyn Monroe, but I wouldn’t want to. I have a hard enough time being me, much less trying to be someone else. Besides, God didn’t make me to be Marilyn Monroe or Raquel Welch. He made me to be me, and for the first time in my life, I’m fine with that.

I love knowing that because God thinks I’m beautiful, I can accept and believe it about myself, and feel beautiful because God thinks I am. It’s marvelously freeing, though it took me several more years before I could get to that point, even with that wonderful and amazing name.

Finally I realized that God Himself had given me that name. And if He gave me that beautiful name, He must think I’m beautiful. And if God thinks I’m beautiful, then I must be beautiful, because God NEVER makes a mistake.

Think about that. God NEVER makes a mistake, so I must beautiful.

Hallelujah!! Thank you Jesus!!

Jul19

I Need to Fire the Judge.

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Every once In a while, I mess up really, really bad, and last Saturday (July 11) was one of those times. And when I do I’m incredibly grateful for God’s mercy, and for King David’s ability to encapsulate my feelings in the Psalms. Psalm 51 is a particularly good example,

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. ~ Psalm 51:1-4, NLT.

King David wrote Psalm 51 after he was confronted by Nathan the prophet concerning his sin with Bathsheba and his conspiracy to have her husband murdered on the field of battle (see 2 Samuel, Chapters Eleven and Twelve).

And then I asked God to forgive me, because I so desperately needed His forgiveness.

So what actually happened? What did I do that made me feel such guilt and shame? As it turns out I was playing a new game on my iPad, and while the game itself was relatively harmless, at various points during the game it would offer timed challenges where you could earn extra coins if you could complete a level within a certain amount of time, for example, twenty seconds.

Now, I’ve never done very well with arcade-style games, or timed games of any kind, and I don’t play them as a general rule. They put way too much stress on me and have always been sure-fire triggers for panic attacks and self-abuse. When I downloaded this game there was no indication that it was an arcade game, or that there were any timing issues at all, so I thought I was safe.

Then I started playing it and discovered differently, but the timing challenges didn’t happen very often, and they were doable within the allotted time, so I didn’t worry about them.

Until…

Until I reached the upper levels. Once there I ran into a timed challenge that I could not beat no matter what I tried, at which point I absolutely fell apart. It drove me into a panic attack, and I started hitting myself ~ something I haven’t done in many months. In fact, it’s been almost exactly one year, because I wrote a post about God healing me of the self-abuse on July 16, 2019 (Go To Forgiveness, Go Right To Forgiveness. Don’t Pass Through Guilt, Don’t Go To Condemnation.), and interestingly enough He healed me of it in the context of playing a computer game.

So I had a panic attack and started hitting myself. Looking back, I feel a lot of shame about that, because I feel like I should have known better. I should have known better!! The problem is, when I get into situations like that, I can’t see the panic attack and subsequent self-abuse coming. I’m just blithely playing along, trying to complete the time challenge ~ and failing.

I guess that should have been my clue, that I kept failing at it, because I hadn’t failed at any of the other challenges, and I failed at this one every single time I tried. I should have stopped after two or three successive failed attempts, but somehow I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see that necessity, so I kept on trying until it was too late and I had reached the point of no return. It was at that point that my face was sweating and I was calling myself bad names, and after that was when I started hitting myself.

Once the self-abuse started, I kind woke up and realized what was happening, and all the rage at myself drained out of me. But I still couldn’t forgive myself. Not yet. Because, like I said earlier, I should have known. I should have KNOWN!!

I’ve always had the hardest time forgiving myself. I can forgive anyone, ANYONE, but not myself. Well, and my sister…

But even she’s easier to forgive than I am. But I’ve come to realize that in making that determination about myself, I’m really saying that I know more about me than God does ~ and that’s simply not true. And I’ve already come to understand that I would make a rotten God (or god; I Would Make a Terrible God).

McT and I talked about this situation during my phone-appointment last Tuesday, and we decided that what’s really going on is that I have a mean internal judge ~ probably all three parents internalized ~ both biological parents and my stepdad ~ who won’t let me accept that I’m human and therefore imperfect, and liable to make mistakes. When I was a kid being abused in the cult, if I made a mistake someone died, and it’s quite difficult to break that connection in my mind.

So McT and I decided that I need to fire the judge. What I really need to do is ask God to break the connection in my mind between the mistakes I was forced to make in the cult and the people who died as a result of those mistakes ~ because the mistakes were unavoidable. I had no control over them. They were forced on me by the people conducting the rituals.

My parents fostered that perfectionism at home as well. I can remember times when I would spill a glass of milk at the dinner table, and my mother would accuse me of doing it on purpose if I didn’t act abjectly remorseful.

Then there was the time after I left college when I decided to enroll in a local secretarial school. I completed the program there with the highest score anyone had ever gotten at that school ~ 99.2% overall ~ and when I told my stepdad about it, all he could say was, “Why didn’t you get 100%?” I was crushed after he said that. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, like no matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough.

Now, I certainly don’t want to dwell on the past, but these particular events were times that, in essence, branded me. They left scars that only God can heal ~ and I believe He will do just that, just as He’s healed me of all the other things people have done to me. I believe He can and will break the connections between what happened to me in the cult and the consequences of those things, so I’m no longer trapped into doing things I don’t want to do ~ like hitting myself, because God didn’t want me to be abused in a satanic cult in the first place!

You are not to sacrifice any of your children in the fire to Molech. Do not profane the name of your God; I am the LORD. ~ Leviticus 18:21, CSB.

“The people of Judah have sinned before my very eyes,” says the LORD. “They have set up their abominable idols right in the Temple that bears my name, defiling it. They have built pagan shrines at Topheth, the garbage dump in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and there they burn their sons and daughters in the fire. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!” ~ Jeremiah 7:30-31, NLT.

It’s comforting to me to know that God didn’t want me to be abused in the cult, that it never crossed His mind! Knowing that has really helped me in my healing process, especially with regard to some of the lies Harry told me ~ for example, that he had to abuse me because God hated me. It’s so easy to forgive him for telling me that, because I know he was seriously deceived himself when he said it.

I thank God for His healing power in my life, and for His goodness to me!!

Jun24

Loneliness In All Its Combinations and Permutations

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I hope you will indulge me in a little goofiness here at the beginning . . .

Here I am again, trying to fill a blank page. Reminds me of the phone bills I used to get with pages that were blank. And then, if you look more carefully, you see this ridiculous phrase planted in the middle of the blank page that says,

This page intentionally left blank.

Which automatically invalidates itself, because by the presence of that phrase, the page is no longer blank.

At this point I’m giggling helplessly because it’s so illogical.

I think I get why they put it there ~ because if they left the page blank without telling you that it’s blank on purpose, they’d probably get all kinds of calls and emails from people wanting to know if there’s a mistake on their bill because there’s a blank page, and the phone company wants to avoid that if they can. Kinda silly, if you ask me.

Enough of this foolishness. The whole blank-page-in-the-phone-bill thing is something I’ve wanted to mention to someone for years, but never had an opportunity before. But now I have my own platform of sorts. So you all are the (unfortunate?) recipients of my meandering thoughts.

Lucky you! Now on to more serious matters.

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. When I hear people talk about how amazing their dads are, I get all jumbled up and confused inside, and of course, I hear people’s stories about their wonderful dads everywhere on Father’s Day, and on the days leading up to it as well. So I spend the entire week before Father’s Day wanting to hide because I can’t stand how muddled I feel inside. It really kind of sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to ride it out, and look to God, who is my real Father.

But that’s the problem. Even though I love knowing that God loves me, and that He loved me enough to send Jesus to die on the cross for me, I also know that His love for me is spiritually based. And that’s amazing and marvelous and wonderful. It saved my life, both here on earth, and best of all, for all eternity. When I die I’ll get to meet Jesus face to face, the best reality imaginable.

However, until that becomes my reality, I’m stuck here on earth, and while I’m here I still need the physicality of a hug, or a spoken word from the mouth of a friend-in-front-of-me. It’s not that I don’t value my relationship with God. It’s the most important relationship in my life, and I can’t live without it. But there are times when you need something tangible, and you can’t get a hug from God.

This is especially true during the times of coronavirus, where we all have to stay home, and engage in social isolation and all that stuff. Enforced loneliness gets a little old after awhile, as much as I like being alone.

I have a close friend whom I haven’t seen in months because of COVID-19, and I miss her terribly. We used to get together on Thursday nights to watch Doc Martin on TV, and we haven’t been able to since sometime in March because of the pandemic. We talk on the phone and text back and forth, but it’s just not the same. You can’t hug someone through the phone or in a text. And you can’t see someone’s facial expressions in response to what you say to them through the phone or in a text.

There’s something about being able to see someone’s laughter when you tell them a joke, or see someone’s tears in response to something you said that saddened them. You don’t realize how important visual cues are in relating to people until you’ve been deprived of them.

And it’s all well and good if you’re quarantined with family, but I’m not. It’s me and my cat, and she doesn’t speak English. She also doesn’t laugh or cry. The most I get from Lily is purring. And don’t get me wrong. Her purring is great. She has a wonderfully loud motor, and it doesn’t take much to turn it on.

But I have no control over Lily and her motor, and she picks the most inopportune times to give me affection ~ like when I’m trying to cross stitch. Invariably when I want to cross stitch is when she decides it’s time to get in my lap. And there’s no room for both stitching and cat, so cat takes precedence.

I should just tell her to get lost, but I feel guilty when I do. Plus if I do that, she will get down, but then she comes back and we go through the same routine later, again and again and again. She’s gonna get her way, come hell or high water ~ or my cross stitch. And I can’t let her sit there while I stitch because if I do, then my stitching ends up full of cat hairs, and it’s a mess.

So what all this boils down to is, even people who like being alone get lonely at times. At least this hermit-person does. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. And the cool thing is, I get to see my friend tomorrow night!

WAY COOL!! YIPPEE!!

Yup, I have a doctor’s appointment in Orange County tomorrow morning, and it’s an in-office visit, and my friend lives in Orange County. So after I’m done seeing my doctor, I’m going to goof around for awhile, and then I’m going to my friend’s house for the evening. We’ll watch Doc Martin, we’ll eat dinner, and we’ll talk about all the things we haven’t been able to talk about all these months. And we’ll hug each other, and we’ll look at each other, and we’ll LAUGH long and loudly.

I can’t wait, and neither can she. She told me so when I called her to tell her I was coming.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. ~ Proverbs 17:17, NKJV.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. ~ Proverbs 27:6, NKJV.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. ~ Proverbs 27:17, NLT.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. ~ John 15:13, NKJV.

So I guess what I’m learning out of all this is that it’s okay to be alone, but it’s also okay to need ~ and want ~ the fellowship of others.

Thank God for my friends!!

And maybe my blank page goofiness at the beginning was an expression of loneliness, because the page, when completely blank, might have been lonely in all it’s white blankness, and when they added that ridiculous phrase, maybe the words made it feel less lonely ~ if an inanimate object can feel anything at all.

Here’s to a little laughter during COVID-19!

Jan17

The Monster Is Dead

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I just got a phone call from my cousin. It seems that Harry, my biological father, died yesterday. He was 93 years old. I haven’t seen or heard from him in about forty years. Basically he wanted nothing to do with me, and had made me persona non grata to him. It felt like I had ceased to exist for him.

As far as I’m concerned it was his loss.

This news is a bit of a shock to me, and I find myself a bit unsure of what to do with it right off. I’m fairly certain that he wasn’t saved, though I prayed for him on multiple occasions, that God would send laborers across his path to minister the Word to him. I believe God answered those prayers, but as long as I knew anything about him, he was an atheist. I can only hope that any seeds that were planted bore fruit before he breathed his last. I have to trust that God did exactly that, because He’s the One who makes His Word bear fruit,

The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with My word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it. ~ Isaiah 55:10-11, NLT.

As I said, I don’t know what to do with this information just yet. While he was alive, I had the hope that I’d be able to reconcile with him, that I’d be able to tell him that I’d forgiven him for everything that he did to me. (For those of you who don’t know what that means, my post, Am I Afraid of Anger, or Do I Get Angry at the Fear?, will explain it to you.)

I find myself feeling kind of fragmented and jumbled up as I think about this. For one thing, I find myself feeling more grief at Harry’s death than I ever felt when my mom died. It’s not that I loved Harry more than I did Mom, not at all. If anything I loved him less because he made himself so incredibly unloveable. I always felt a great deal of ambivalence about both my parents, and about my stepdad as well. Even when all three of them were alive I felt like an orphan most of the time, and now that they’re all gone, at least biologically, I am one. Spiritually I’m not, because God said He would be a Father to the fatherless, and I can always feel His presence with me,

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. ~ Psalm 68:5, NIV.

I’m wondering if the reason I feel more sadness with Harry’s death than I did when Mom died is because I was able to resolve things with Mom much more than I was with Harry. Plus Mom always wanted me around, and Harry didn’t, so I spent many, many years desiring a relationship with him ~ a desire that I was never able to bring to fruition. Plus I’m fairly certain that my mother is in Heaven, where I don’t have that certainty at all with Harry.

Now that he’s gone, my prayer is that God will grant him mercy in His dealings with him at Judgment Day. If he must end up in Hell, then let him go to a level that’s not as bad as it might be, if such a thing is possible. But maybe, just maybe, he’ll end up in Heaven ~ just maybe!!

I can only hope, and I trust in God’s goodness and mercy.

Aug9

I’ve Made Peace With My Past

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I probably could have broken this into two posts, but it felt like it was important to keep it in one piece. So here goes…

I’ve spent the majority of my life hating and regretting my life, and wishing I’d been born to different parents, in a different family, in a different life than the one God gave me. I was also angry, even enraged, at God for placing me in my family of origin, because I felt like He’d done it on purpose, especially considering that He knew what would happen to me in that family. The Bible says God knows the end from the beginning,

Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” ~ Isaiah 46:9-10, NIV.

What that said to me was that God knew from the beginning of time that He would place me in a family where I would be abused within an inch of my life, where my mother would try to kill me during my infancy, and my father would play Russian Roulette with his revolver between my legs to threaten me if I told anyone what he was doing to me. Yet He still chose to put me in that family, knowing in advance the terror and horror I would experience throughout my childhood, and knowing as well that I would barely survive to adulthood.

I could not understand how God could do this to an innocent child! What had I ever done to deserve this?

What I couldn’t appreciate or comprehend at the time was that the being I knew as God was completely different from the God of the Bible, and the God of the Bible was who God really was. The one I knew as God was actually patterned after Harry, my biological father. That God was mean, impatient, egotistical, angry, abusive, a rager, selfish, violent, and He hated me. That God had told Harry many times to abuse me and rape me because He, God, hated me.

I didn’t know it then, but that God was actually the devil working through Harry, trying to obliterate me, because God, the real God, the God of the Bible, had a plan for my life, and the devil didn’t want God’s plan to come to pass.

The devil tried hard, to be sure. As I stated above, My mother tried to kill me a number of times during my infancy by drowning me in the bathtub, or suffocating me with a pillow, but was unsuccessful because one of my alters, Deadsally (I had to become multiple in order to survive), would come out each time and make me stop squirming so my mother would think she’d succeeded and stop trying.

Also, Harry started threatening to kill me when I was about two, as I related above, and in addition, I tried suicide nine times as an adult. Fortunately none of those attempts succeeded either.

I’m so glad that God is more powerful than anything the devil can do!

I spent a lot of years feeling angry at God for what I endured, because I didn’t understand that God, being God and therefore sovereign, can do whatever He pleases, and even though His plan might look perfectly terrible to us, ultimately it’s a good plan. It’s all a question of His sovereignty over my life, and I have to be willing to let Him have control,

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? ~ Romans 9:20-21, ESV.

I have to trust that God knows more and better than I do, and I’m so grateful for God’s kindness and patience with me as I learn to trust Him. And I’m so grateful that He was willing to patiently wait for me to find out that He’s the exact opposite of everything the devil and Harry made me believe He was, and is.

I discovered that God was a good, kind, and loving God over a period of years as I read the Bible from cover to cover several times, and then allowed people to pray for me, and then, finally, over the last four years, I took some online classes through Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). The courses I took were through RZIM’s Academy, and they were wonderful. They helped me to increase in boldness, and become less fearful when talking to other people about Jesus ~ something that had always been a huge problem for me. They also helped me to be more logical in my thinking.

The class that helped me the most, however, was the one called “Why Suffering?” This course was life-changing for me, because it helped me to see my childhood in a whole different light.

The class presented a new theory of theodicy that really helped me to see things from a new and different perspective. The term “theodicy” was coined by Gottfried Leibnitz back in 1710 to vindicate the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God given the presence of evil in the world.

In the “Why Suffering” course, one particular theory of theodicy was proposed, called the Non-Identity Theodicy Theory. This theory was originally put forth by a man named Vince Vitale, who did his PhD dissertation on it, and the “Why Suffering” course was kind of formulated around it. I’m glad it was, because learning about it set me free.

The basics of Vince Vitale’s theory are that when I think about myself in the world of suffering that we all live in, I’ve often wished myself to be in a world with much less suffering. And then I’ve thought, “Why didn’t God create me in that other world where there’s much less suffering instead of this suffering world that I’m actually in?” But wishing to be created as me in that other fantasy world with no suffering is actually a philosophical and biological impossibility.

I know this because I’ve wished for this very thing with my whole heart many times. Why couldn’t I have been born into a different and better family with parents who loved me and didn’t beat the crap out of me every time I turned around?

As a result of taking the “Why Suffering?” course, I’ve come to realize that my wish, wholehearted as it was, was an impossible one to grant.

Rats!

The reason was all too logical. If I was born into a different family with different parents, I wouldn’t be me, because I would have different DNA. Once I saw that, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to come from a different family, because, while it meant that I wouldn’t have suffered the hell of my childhood, it also meant that I wouldn’t have the close relationship with God that I do.

And my relationship with God has become the greatest and sweetest treasure of my life, one that I wouldn’t give up for anything, not even at the cost of gaining a better childhood with better parents.

I’m reminded of the passage in Mark’s Gospel,

‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for Me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age…along with persecutions ~ and in the age to come eternal life.’ ~ Mark 10:29-30, NIV.

Feb1

I’m Perverting God’s Word. Moi? But Yes!

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It occurred to me recently that I’m twisting God’s Word. It says in the Book of Hebrews,

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek him. ~ Hebrews 11:6.

But I leave half that verse off all the time, because I’m terrified that I’m not pleasing God. This is the Book of Hebrews according to Sarah,

It’s impossible for me to please God no matter hard I diligently seek Him ~ Hebrews 11:6, Sarah’s Word.

That’s a hard truth to accept about myself, but there it is. Something I never want to be guilty of doing is adding to or subtracting from God’s Word! I love the Bible, more than any other book I’ve ever read or known of.

The Bible has some severe things to say about people who pervert God’s Word. Like, if you add to it then God will add all the curses listed therein to your life, and there are a LOT of curses in the the Bible. And if you take any words away from the Bible then God will take your name out of the Lamb’s Book of Life.

I REALLY don’t want that to happen! I like being in the Lamb’s Book of Life a LOT!!

Of course my version of Hebrews 11:6 assumes that I have no faith, which would be why God can’t be pleased with me, according to the real version of the verse, as quoted above. Also, I realize that I’m basing that perception of God on the fact that it was forever and always absolutely and completely impossible to please Harry, and it also felt like it was futile to try and please my stepdad as well.

An example of that futility was one time after I had graduated from a program in medical assisting. I got the highest overall score that anyone had ever gotten at that school ~ a 99.25%, and when I told my stepdad about my amazing score, all he could say about it was, “Why didn’t you get 100%?”

I felt SOOO ANGRY when he said that!!

I had worked so hard to get that score, slaving night after night memorizing volumes of material that I didn’t think I’d ever use.

And all he could say was why didn’t I get a 100?!?

DAMN!!

I think he thought he was encouraging me, but he wasn’t. What he said cut me deeply. It made me feel like nothing I did was good enough.

I had to forgive him. I didn’t want to but I had to. It wasn’t for his good, but rather mine, so I did.

This is a hard thing for me. It’s so difficult for me to differentiate between God and my father, to separate them and put them in unrelated categories. I have to detach, disengage, and disentangle God from my father in my mind, will, and emotions so that God no longer comes to mind when I think of my father. So that the only reason my father might come to mind when I think of God is because I want to pray for him.

That’s my goal, and I know it’s doable.