Category Archives: On Writing

Jul13

To Publish Or Not to Publish, That Is the Question.

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I haven’t been able to write much in awhile. I’ve been working on a post, but it’s too long, and I can’t figure out how to shorten it. I’m trying to decide if I should publish it as is and let you all read it, and hope you won’t be bored. The problem is, it contains details that I feel are important in telling the story that I’m trying to tell. I know I’ve published long posts before, but this one is longer than most.

So this post is going to be about whether I should publish the other post. Silly, I know, but that’s where I’m at. And in the process of making my decision, I may meander around a bit here, because sometimes that’s how I think. So if some of what I write here sounds irrelevant, it will only sound that way.

The battery on my laptop died, so I had to purchase a new computer. I got a really fancy new iPad. It has a separate keyboard, and a huge hard drive, At first I didn’t think I’d be able to retrieve anything from my laptop, but God has been resurrecting the battery at different times, so when that happens, I get the things I want and send them to myself in assorted emails. It’s been working quite well. There were a number of Long Dog Sampler charts that I had saved on my hard drive, that I needed, so I was able to send those to myself, plus some of the things I need so I can finish the sampler I’m working on (it’s called Pandemic, and it’s also a Long Dog Sampler design).

There were a whole lot of photos I’d saved that I really wanted, so I’ve been able to get a lot of them as well. I’m still not done, but I’m making progress. In addition, there were a number of papers I had written for various classes that I didn’t want to lose, and I was also able to retrieve them.

Another thing I’ve discovered I can do is that while my laptop is functional I can go through and justify the margins of all the posts that I wrote since I started using the iPad. This is because I haven’t figured out how to justify the margins in WordPress for the iPad ~ at least not yet. Hopefully I will before too long, because I hate unjustified margins. They look so sloppy to me.

It’s been a lot of fun getting all the stuff transferred from the old to the new, and I’m grateful to God for making my laptop available so I can do it. It’s a time-consuming task, but an enjoyable one.

At some point in the near future I’ll post a pic of my cross stitch that I’m working on. I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. It’s a huge project, probably the biggest piece I’ve ever made, but I think it will be beautiful once it’s finished.

I think I’m going to publish that post as is with only a little more editing.

See? Meandering around in my thoughts while I’m writing about seemingly irrelevant stuff helped me decide! Thank you, Jesus! And thank you, everyone for being patient with me as I figure it out. I love you all!

Mar8

I Think It’s Called Writer’s Block…

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…and I think I have it. As a consequence this may be a very SHORT post, because I can’t think of ANYTHING to say ~ which isn’t at all helpful for someone whose job is writing. Maybe I’ll include one of my poems. If nothing else it will increase the word count.

Words

So many words in this wide world of mine ~

 There must be a billion, three-million and nine,

Or maybe a trillion ~ I know not of more,

  But even a million’s enough for a door.

 

    Words full of laughter, of light, and of hope,

     Words that paint pictures for those who must grope

     Through darkness and longing ’til dreams become real

    And light in their tunnel means safety to feel.

 

    Scrivening onward, word pictures I’ll paint

     So others when thirsty won’t give up and faint.

    Words will build true homes from castles on air

     Where laughter and rainbows take place of despair.

                                          S.A. Kuriakos & Wordsworth, ©September 28, 1991

I wish there was less space between the lines, but I’ve yet to figure out how to fix it. I’ve wanted to include poetry in my posts for quite awhile, but the spacing between the lines has always bothered me, so I haven’t done it until now, and the only reason I’m doing it now is because I’m desperate for content.

So this is my very short writer’s block post. I certainly hope I can figure out what’s causing it so I can deal with it and get back to writing freely and easily!

My heart is stirred by a beautiful song. I say, “I have composed this special song for the king; my tongue is as skilled as the stylus of an experienced scribe.” ~ Psalm 45: 1, NET.

 

Jan30

More On Trying WordPress’s New Format. And I’ve Decided I Don’t Like It…

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I just discovered that maybe I can justify my margins. I hope so! I don’t like writing without them, though it’s funny, because neat and tidy margins in my writing are just about the only time you’ll find neatness in any area of my life. I’m an absolutely terrible housekeeper, so, unless I’ve managed to retain a housekeeper, and she’s coming once every two weeks, my bedroom floor is always lumpy and crunchy, and I always have no silverware ~ except for the two or three spoons and forks that I wash every couple of days, and my livingroom and diningroom always have papers and old mail scattered all over the place. My kitchen is always a huge mess, and so is my car, except for the driver’s seat.

The only places that are even remotely clean are the bathroom and Lily’s litterbox.

It seems that my hope for justified margins were nothing more than a pipe-dream. There’s a setting for it, but it doesn’t work.

RATS!!

And I tried to go back to the old format, what WordPress calls the “Classic Editor”, but was unsuccessful. I’ll have to figure out a way to do that, because I really, really don’t like this new way.

Two Days Later… Whenever that might be.

I finally figured out how to get back to the Classic Editor. Yippee!! 

So I’m back to the Classic Editor, and I’m going to STAY THERE!! 

God is SOOO GOOD!! 

Jan29

Trying WordPress’s New Editing Format. We’ll See…

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So what shall I write about today? There are a lot of things running through my mind at the moment. For instance, basketball great Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, on Sunday, January 26, 2020.

Kobe’s death has made me think of a number of things. The first thing I thought of immediately upon hearing of his death was, I hope he was saved. And when I learned that his daughter, Gianna, was with him when the helicopter crashed, my first thought was, I hope they were both saved. And then when I realized there were seven other people on board, including the pilot, and each of them had families ~ in fact, three of the people that were killed were members of the same family. Two others were a mother and daughter.

Well, I’ve tried WordPress’s new format, and I don’t like it. My main problem with it is that I can’t justify my margins. I like justified margins, because it looks much tidier than it does if only the left margin is justified.

And I don’t want anyone to think that by ending my comments so abruptly on the helicopter crash of last Sunday, with the deaths of Kobe Bryant and the other eight people, that I don’t care. I do care deeply, and I was going to write about it no matter what. I’ll probably continue my thoughts once I get back to the other editing scheme.

Now I have to figure out how to go back to the old format…

Twenty Minutes later…

I got back!! Yippee!! The first thing I did was justify the margins. Whew! What a relief!

Dec15

You are My Everlasting God and Constant Hope

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I’ve been trying to get a post written for almost two weeks, without success. I just can’t seem to get focused enough to write coherently. It’s extremely frustrating. Hopefully by the end of this post, all that will change.

So I think I’ll just start writing. About anything and everything. But thus far it’s not going very well, mostly because I’m trying to do too many things at once. Things like watching TV and writing, or playing games and writing, or looking at my mail and writing. Obviously if I combine any of those activities with writing, I’m not going to produce anything but a blank page. So I have to turn off the TV, put down my iPad, and get rid of the mail ~ and focus on the WordPress app on my laptop! Which is what I’m doing now, and why these sentences are finally being written.

PHEW!!

What a relief!!

I’m actually writing something down! Of course now, when I’m actually making progress, is when Lily decides she should come and sit in my lap, and lick my hand.

Looks like she changed her mind. Another sigh of relief. I mean, I love her dearly, but there are times when it’s better for her to leave me alone, because I can’t get anything done if she’s perched in my lap, other than pet and stroke her ~ which I’m sure is exactly what she wants. She loves being the center of attention!

As this is turning out to be a stream-of-consciousness post, I’ll continue to write about whatever comes to mind, and what I’m thinking about at the moment is that Reinhard Bonnke died earlier this week, on December 7th. For those of you who don’t know, Reinhard Bonnke was an evangelist to Africa who regularly had over a million people attend his crusades. He was called “the Billy Graham of Africa” by some because of his record-setting crusades.

The reason I’m writing about Reinhard Bonnke is because his death hit a good friend of mine particularly hard when she heard about it on Monday. In fact she was so upset by the news of his death that she texted me about it at 5 a.m. Monday morning. This friend is a solid Christian, and she knows that Bonnke is with Jesus in Heaven. She was hard-hit with his death because she’s been following his ministry, Christ for All Nations, for quite awhile. When Reinhard Bonnke retired in 2017, he appointed Daniel Kolenda to take his place as head of CfaN, and Karen has been following him as well.

When a Christian dies, I find myself thinking more about the idea that they’ve gone to Heaven than about the fact of their physical death. My reasoning is that when a Christian dies and goes to Heaven they get to see Jesus face to face,

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 1 Corinthians 13:12, NKJV.

I can’t think of anything more amazing, marvelous, or beautiful than being able to see Jesus face to face, and knowing Him as He knows me now. Can you imagine that, how wonderful that will be? It’s beyond my wildest and best dreams, and the thing I hope for more than anything else,

For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. ~ Philippians 1:20-21, NLT.

Before he died Billy Graham used to say,

“Some day you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” ~ Billy Graham Quotes

I love that perspective, and that’s exactly how I feel. I used to be terrified of dying, but not anymore, because I’m fully assured of my place before my Father and my God. I know He loves me, and I know that will never, ever change, because I know He’s always been with me, keeping me safe, protecting me from the worst of the abuse, and saving my life when it was necessary.

I never thought I’d be able to say, and mean, that God loves me, and here I am saying it with great peace and joy! I’m amazed and gobsmacked at everything God has done in my heart to heal me.

And He’s not through with me yet!

I can’t wait to see what He’ll do next…

Oct31

The Magic and Beauty of Words

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From the very beginning of time words have been used to transact business and communicate our thoughts to others. We even use words when we talk to ourselves ~ at least I do, anyway. And God used words when He spoke the universe into existence. For example,

And God said, “Let there be light…” ~ Genesis 1:3, KJV.

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit…”  ~ Genesis 1:11, KJV.

And God said, “Let us make man in our image…” ~ Genesis 1:26, KJV.

Plus God gave us His Word, The Bible, which is His love letter to us, and the King James Version is comprised of 783,137 words.

All of this is to say that words are powerful, and can be used for good or, conversely, for evil, to hurt and (emotionally) maim,

People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! ~ James 3:7-10, NLT.

We use words to describe the beauty of a sunset, and out of the same mouth, we bully our neighbor, who we perceive as being less than we are.

I would venture to say that any human being who was created in the image of God, (and that’s every single person on the face of the earth), regardless of what they look like to us, cannot be ugly, and instead of bullying that person, and saying ugly things to them, we need to speak with love to them, and be a friend to them, and if they are bullying others, then we need to pray for them.

And lest we forget, Jesus Christ the Messiah is the ultimate Word,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. ~ John 1:1-3, 14 NKJV.

Jesus is The Word, and He is beauty personified. Witness the beauty inherent in this passage from Hebrews,

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. ~ Hebrews 1:1-4, ESV.

I love this passage of Scripture, because it talks of the supremacy of Christ, and it does so with such beauty and power that I can see what it’s describing in my mind. And where it says in verse 3 that Jesus, “upholds the universe by the word of His power…,” I like to switch it around so it says, “and the power of His word.” I don’t think it’s wrong to do that, because the words of Christ are powerful. His words created the whole universe, as well as creating you and me, and He spoke it into existence out of nothing, as it says in Romans 4,

That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, “I have made you the father of many nations.” This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing. ~ Romans 4:17, NLT.

So you see, words are amazing little things. They can be used to hurt or to heal, to describe beauty or to chronicle ugliness, to incite violence or to bring peace, to speak love or express hate. It’s up to us which kind of words we choose to use: loving or hateful, peaceful or violent, beautiful or ugly, hurtful or healing.

I’d like to share the most beautiful words on love ever written, taken from God’s Word,

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT.

The cool thing about this passage is that you can ruminate on it, substituting your name for the word “love”, and you will find yourself changing to become more loving as you do that. I’ve done it and it works. God’s Word is alive,

For the Word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. ~ Hebrews 4:12, NKJV.

In closing I’d like to share my favorite thing about words in general, and about the Bible in particular, because, in case you haven’t figured it out, the Bible is my favorite Book, my most treasured Set of Words, if you will, and it’s a passage of Scripture,

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. ~ Isaiah 55:10-11, NIV.

 

Oct10

My Head Is an Oven and Words Are Boiling Over

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This evening, frustration has been building up to the point that I want to break something or hit myself, and since neither one of those options is available to me, I decided to see if writing about it would help. Writing is a better outlet for my feelings anyway, especially negative feelings.

Stuff gets pent up inside with no outlet, and I don’t know what to do with it. I certainly can’t hit myself, neither can I break stuff. It feels like I’m flying apart at the seams, like I’m dropping pieces of myself all around me as I get more and more vexed and aggravated.

So I decided to try an experiment. Instead of allowing entropy to take effect in my mind as a result of the frustration, I would try writing. I tried it a few days ago and it seemed to work rather well, so I thought I’d try it again.

This could be a whole new era of healing for me, because, as I said in my last post, Not So Bad After All, the fact that I’m writing about it instead of doing the other, not so functional things, is a definite step of growth and progress. And I love knowing that I’m growing and healing with God’s help. That’s very exciting to me, and it’s the whole purpose of this blog, and part of my reason for being, the other part being to love God and enjoy Him forever.

I think part of the stress that’s been building inside has to do with what I’m talking about in therapy with McT. Awhile ago I told him that I was giving him permission to confront me if he thought I was avoiding talking about the issues that are most difficult for me to deal with ~ the sexual stuff. So together we nicknamed those topics “the hard stuff,” and now he regularly asks me if there’s any “hard stuff” I need to talk about.

I so appreciate him for that! It helps to keep me focused, and it keeps me from wandering off into denial and foolishness, and meandering around on topics I don’t need to talk about. It also helps me to build trust in McT, because I have to trust that he’s a safe person for me to talk with about the hard stuff. I’ve never had a therapist who I felt was safe enough to talk with about the hard stuff, so I wasted a whole lot of time and money resisting therapy, and resisting the process over the years.

Fortunately, I’ve grown enough, and healed enough with God’s help, that I feel less and less like I need to avoid talking about the hard stuff, and I’m feeling like I can trust McT more all the time. So now, when I go to therapy, I can realistically pray for a productive session, and know that God will be there, helping me to talk about what needs to be talked about, regardless of how difficult it is. I’ve always prayed before my therapy sessions, but because I was only rarely fully in the game and not resisting, the answers were inconsistent at best ~ not from God’s perspective, but because of me.

Now that I’ve pretty much finished what I have to say here, I’m feeling much better. My head no longer feels like a boiling pot overflowing with words, thankfully. So I guess my little experiment worked.

Way cool and praise God!

Aug29

Writing About Not Being Able to Write

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Of course, by starting out with that title, and then writing about it, by definition, I’m putting the lie to my title, because I’m writing, which I just said I wasn’t able to do. Kind of silly I suppose, but I had to do something to make myself start producing words again.

It’s so frustrating when you have all these ideas roiling and running around inside your head, but you can’t get them out onto paper. I think the common phrase for it is writer’s block. I’ve got a list of about six different ideas that I’m working on for eventual use here, but I can’t seem to develop any of them enough for publication.

So here I am, rambling, in an effort to write something, anything, because that’s what I do. I blog. And if I’m not writing, I’m not blogging.

I mean, the purpose of this blog is to help survivors of child abuse see that it’s possible to emerge victorious, with God’s help, from the hell that was perpetrated on them by evil and selfish others, and if I’m not posting then the information I have to offer isn’t getting out there.

Of course that begs the question, am I offering information that’s actually helping? Is what I say here bringing glory to God, as well as providing anything of substantive value for those who might need it? I certainly hope so, because if it’s not, then I need to change what I’m doing here ~ or stop doing it altogether.

But I don’t want to stop. For one thing I love to write. Writing used to be so difficult for me, worse than pulling teeth, because of one of my alters, named Secret, when I was multiple. I had another alter, named The Secretary, whose job it was to chronicle the goings-on of my system ~ my internal life, if you will, and she too loved to write. But The Secretary and Secret worked at cross purposes to each other all the time, and Secret was much stronger than The Secretary, so The Secretary was always being stifled.

And Secret had good reason to keep us from writing, because The Secretary wanted to write about what the cult was doing to us, as well as about Harry’s abuse, and of course, that absolutely could not be allowed. Harry had been threatening to kill us if we talked for years, so Secret’s efforts to keep us silent were probably keeping us alive as well.

Now that I’m no longer multiple, and I’m no longer being abused, there’s nothing hindering me from writing. So if I can’t write, there must be something else stopping me ~ but I don’t know what it could be. I certainly did get a whole lot written for someone who isn’t able to write, however. Thus far I’ve written 533 words.

Pretty good, I think, considering I’m not able to write. I wonder how many I could write if I was able to write. The thought boggles the mind, but at least I’ve written something I can post. I don’t know if it’s worth anything, and I don’t know if it will help anyone, but it’s better than nothing at all.

Apr6

Secret’s Delight

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I’ve been wanting to write something, anything, for several days, but the words have eluded me, nasty things. They’ve been just beyond my grasp.

As if words were living things…

Which they’re not, but they feel alive when I can’t find them to get them down on paper. They’re certainly alive in my mind at least.

It’s frustrating when I can’t write, because it feels like the words are trapped inside with no way out. Kind of like me throughout my childhood. In fact, when I was multiple I had an alter whose name was Secret who kept me from writing. It was her job to keep things secret and hidden from me, and I almost always found it extremely difficult to write because of her activity inside. She kept the words hidden behind blank thoughts and clouded minds; in other words, general confusion ~ something I experienced a lot of back then.

Thankfully, since God integrated me in 2003, the confusion is almost completely gone, and lately, I’ve been able to write almost prolifically ~ at least prolifically for me, if the number of entries here is any indication. I haven’t been able to write poetry, which is disappointing, but hopefully that will come with time.

I love writing poetry. It makes me feel free. There’s something about being able to write like that, even though it’s highly structured (I like writing poetry that rhymes), that makes me feel brilliant and uninhibited.

Maybe that sounds a little arrogant because I said that something makes me feel brilliant. Let me explain. Poetry is something that’s fairly new for me. Most of my life I couldn’t make sense of poetry, much less write it. It was a complete mystery to me. Then in September of 1989 I went on a retreat with other abuse victims, and while I was there I met a couple of women who were survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

As they were talking about their experiences, what they were saying resonated with me, and I began to wonder if SRA was a part of my background. The thought of it terrified and horrified me. What I’d already remembered was appalling and shocking. To think that the adults in my life, who I was supposed to be able to trust, were guilty of such heinous crimes was beyond my comprehension, much less that they could be guilty of the kinds of crimes that were perpetrated on children by people in satanic cults.

So I came home from that retreat and wrote my first poem. It was called, prosaically enough, My First Pome. It wasn’t very good, but it was a start, and given that I’d never written anything remotely like that before, I think it was incredible. Here it is:

My First Pome

 I want to write poetical,

                             but how do I start?

The words are tangled up

and trapped in my heart.

If I open the door

they’ll come tumbling out,

Jumbled up letters

through an itty-bit spout.

I wrote that on October 1, 1989, and I’ve been able to write poetry ever since. Also, interestingly, I’ve been able to understand others’ poetry as well, something that just thrills me. Back in 2010 I was able to take a writing class at UC Irvine where we had to write a paper on T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets. We each had to pick one of the four quartets, and write a paper on the role of time in that quartet. And I was able to complete the assignment! In fact, I discovered things in the poem that the professor hadn’t seen! How cool is that? God is so good! I had so much fun writing that paper!

So that’s my poetry-writing history. I haven’t been able to write any poetry for awhile, but I don’t expect the gift God gave me has gone away for good. I don’t know what’s blocking it, but if it’s like the rest of my writing, I’m hoping it’ll come back once the block has been removed. I’m hoping God will show me what’s blocking it and help me get it back.

Feb26

Everything And Nothing All At The Same Time…

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This will probably be a hodgepodge of everything and nothing all at the same time. I’m having a terrible time with hitting myself, and I’m trying not to, but failing miserably.

Kim suggested a new web browser, called Brave, that promises ultra-secure browsing on the internet, plus freedom from ads, and I’ve tried it. I like it, but it’s SOOO ultra-secure that I can’t use any of the websites I usually use, because Brave blocks JavaScript, whatever that is, from being enabled, and if JavaScript isn’t enabled then the website won’t load, and you can’t do anything with it. And that includes this blog. So until I figure out the ins and outs and the technicalities of Brave, I’m going to be stuck using Safari.

And for now, I’ll have to post this as is, because I have to write about something that’s much more pressing, but I don’t want to just toss this out and forget about it. I can come back later and add more to it as the Spirit leads, and as I feel like it.