From Tears To Hope (7) And you wouldn’t want to be,” he said to me. “The person I have to look at everyday.” So I try to keep myself from that door far, far away. I lock it and then I pretend That door will never be opened again. And sometimes I even forget that it’s there. Until something reminds me to go there unaware. So I enter, while searching the empty space And I get lost there in my secret place. Carole P. Graham 2002 ANGER “In your anger, do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.” Psalm 4:4 Anger is not something we are taught to talk a whole lot about as Christians. We are expected to forgive without question, to swallow our pill, so to speak, whatever life puts in our path. In fact, anger is a very common, natural emotion that we all have to deal with, not simply push it down, deep inside of us where it smolders and keeps a low burn in the pit of our stomach. It is how we feel when we feel we have been wronged somehow. It has nothing to do with your faith. It is an issue of being human; that when someone hurts you, you want to hurt them back. I mean, here you are grief stricken, in pain and agony over what has happened to devastate your life and there he is smiling and laughing and having fun and going about his business like nothing happened. It’s not fair! While it is a human reaction, it is not the correct one to dwell on because in the end, you inflict more pain and suffering on yourself. You will become focused on things that will not allow you to move forward. If you think constantly about that person has not been hurt enough or your pain has not cost him anything, then your healing will get further and further away. I guess the first thing you need to do is to realize just where all this anger is coming from. You want to direct it at the person that you believe is responsible, and because normally we love the person that has hurt us, who is the logical person to be angry with? Yourself. Why? For a number of reasons; a part of you feels you should have known not to trust this person. If only you had known about the problem, maybe you could have “fixed” it or done something to stop it from happening. Maybe you were too weak, not smart enough, not pretty enough, too old, you just didn’t measure up somehow. One thing I have learned through all of this…you cannot control someone else’s actions, only yours. Next, you blame the person you believe to be responsible for your pain. How dare they treat you like this? You didn’t deserve it and besides, how would they feel if you did the same thing to them? To see them seemingly “get away” with it, somehow makes the anger heightened. We feel powerless to make them pay for what they have done and that makes us even angrier. As humans, we don’t want them to ever be happy again, as we feel we will never be. Every action and reaction this person has is imagined by us to be directed towards us. To somehow make us even unhappier and continue to destroy our lives when in fact it is we, ourselves, which is allowing that person to have that control. Gary, my friend in group counseling, told me this many times…”he only has as much power over your life as you allow him to.” Being thickheaded, this took a while to sink in. But when I finally realized he was right, I began to give him less power over my emotions. In doing so, the healing began to progress at a faster pace. And finally, there is God. Admit it – you are even angry with Him. How could he allow this to happen? Isn’t He supposed to love you, take care of you? Where was He when all of this was happening? And where is He now? The answer is this: God doesn’t owe anyone anything. No reasons. No explanations. Nothing. If He gave them, we couldn’t understand them anyway. God is God and He knows what He is doing. When you can’t find His hand in the darkness, trust His heart. There is a window in your heart through which you can see God. Once upon a time that window was clear. Your view of God was so sharp. You could see God as vividly as you could see the sunrise. Then, suddenly, the window cracked. A pebble of pain broke the window and God was not so easy to see. The view that had been so clear suddenly changed. You are puzzled as to why God would allow something like this to happen to you. When you can’t see Him, trust Him. Jesus is much closer than you ever dreamed. Unfortunately, when we are angry, we cannot think clearly. Allowing that anger to continue unchecked only maximizes the length of our recovery and path back to happiness. Life Though my troubles and my worries are sometimes all that I can see, I must always remember life’s not only about me. Other souls are hurting and I know it’s in God’s plan, For me to reach out and touch them, and allow them to feel His gentle Hand. When my focus shifts to comfort an acquaintance or a friend, My troubles and my worries seem to fade way, far to the very end. See, one of God’s lessons is how my walk in life is to be, I can find true happiness when I realize life’s not only about me. So what do we do with our anger? We simply place it in the hands of the one who can handle it, who is in control of the situation even though we feel as though our lives are careening down the side of a mountain and we are about to crash. God does understand, believe it or not and He won’t fault you but He will hold you accountable for what you to with your anger. If you try to punish or see that the person who hurt you is punished, you are judging that person. God is the only One who can judge and decide the fate of another. He is the one with all the details, so we must give it to Him to do with it what He renders just. We can’t change what happened yesterday but we can change our reaction. We can’t change the past but we can change our response to the past. Bitterness and resentment do not belong in our hearts. There is a point where anger stops being an emotion and becomes the driving force if left unchecked. If your source of energy is anger, then you are moving further and further away from being able to forgive. God’s love and mercy are the only chance we have of being set free. We can choose to chain ourselves to our hurt and anger or to put away our bitterness before it becomes hate. “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3 So, realize you have anger and bitterness, tell God about it and become free of it…once and for all. It’s simple really—give it up. Quit living in the past and look to the future. Yes, there are still scars, heartaches, pains; but they become minimized with each passing day. Find something constructive to do with your pain. For me, I began writing in a journal; my thoughts, poetry (some of which I have shared in this book) and daily records of what was going on at that time in my life. As I began writing this, I struggled with whether or not to include some of the things I had gone through personally in such public display. I believe the soul knows that translating all of this pain and ugliness into a thing of beauty is the path to becoming whole again. That is why it is so healing to write a journal, to take the storms and confusion that are inside and bring them into physical reality where they can become both a record and a witness to your progress. In the very act of creating, you become one with the creator. Grief makes you want to lie down and never get up again, to do absolutely nothing. We cannot fully heal until we take up the work to do this ourselves. During this time, I sent a rough draft to my daughter, who lives in Los Angeles and asked her to read it and tell me what she thought. I also shared with her about my fear of revealing too much and maybe hurting others I loved with certain details. That night, she sent me this email: I guess I am having one of your sleepless nights. I have had a few of those lately. I think I actually fell asleep around 2:30…but woke up around 3 when the phone rang. So, here I am, wide awake, and thinking about you. That's funny, huh? Who do you think about when you can't sleep? Is it me? That's weird. Don't answer that question. Ha! Anyway, I hope that right now you are sound asleep in your bed, cuddled up between three loving piggies, [our dogs] and warm and happy. I pray for that for you daily. You know it is weird how incredibly close I feel to you. I know you are there even when you seem the furthest away. I hurt when you hurt, but I am happy when you are. Don't ever let anyone hurt you or bring you down. I am so proud of you for writing down your thoughts and feelings. Don't hold back on them for fear of hurting anyone. All of your pain had a price on you and that pain may be felt by someone else who reads what you have written. Be very honest and up front and show people how to get through it. Don't be scared that it is too religious. That's how you made it and that is a wonderful message to give. I am so proud of you and proud to call you my mother and best friend. I will call you later today or call me if you wish. I am not the least bit tired....Best friends always...piece of cake... Love you forever, Mandi Armed with her love and encouragement, I began to write down my journal entries, poems, comforting bible verses and all of the things I had been through over the past three and a half years without reservation. This alone has been probably part of my best therapy. Remembering, at times, has opened up the wounds and exposed them again. It’s then that I pray and count on God to once again hide me beneath the cross and show me love, grace and mercy so that I can be reminded of how far I have come and where I once was. The lowly deceiver Satan doesn’t have a prayer against my God. Satan is powerless against the protection of Christ. When Jesus says he will keep me safe, he means it. Hell will have to get through Him to get to me. Jesus is able to protect me. When He says He will get me home, He will get me home. I know I can count on His word to be true. And of course my counselor and therapist have to kick me in the rear end occasionally and tell me to get on with my life. As for me, getting on with my life, means writing things like the following: There are scars deep, down in places No one can see, except me. Not only physically but mentally as well I allowed him to hurt the little girl I would be. And now the price I’m paying is way too steep. Why didn’t I fight, scream, or yell out for help? Where was my courage, my voice, why couldn’t I tell? I covered his sin for him and hid all my scars My attacker, the one who once I thought hung the stars. Daily, I live, struggling sometimes to breathe. Praying for sleep, afraid to, because memories come back, in my dreams. She was only eight years old And her older sister the only one she told. Now he comes again, but she’s older, he’s much more bold. And she shakes and trembles I shake and tremble… Within my soul. As he lives each day free and I somehow become numb from the toil. Carole Graham Sept. 2002 “Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” God understands even when we forget the verses of this familiar song and waits patiently for us to come to Him. He wants to heal our wounded heart, he has the perfect prescription but we have to take the full dose. To not do this, is to prolong our pain and suffering. So having a heart to heart talk with him and being honest with him, voicing our anger, will allow us to turn it over to Him completely and lift the burden from our shoulders to His. I remember standing in church for many Sundays after my perfect world fell apart and telling myself that I knew it could not be God’s will for my family to be torn apart, yet that is exactly what happened. What I didn’t realize then was that it was not His will. But it was His love for me that would ease the anger with Him, me and the one who had hurt me deeply. And in the end, allowing Him to be Lord of all of my life, not just the part I chose to allow Him into, was going to save me. Releasing everything to him was the beginning of the healing process that only God was capable of. HEALING I have read that part of surviving the loss is telling your story. In my studying and researching for this document, I read somewhere that Elle Wiesel, a survivor of a concentration camp, said this: “Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story, that is his duty.” Even though my loss was the loss of my husband and family life that I had known for over 20 years, I had to reaffirm the life I had lost somehow; the experiences we had shared together, favorite family stories, to somehow believe that everything was not a lie. It was real, the life we had together and I was happy, whether he was or not and he could not take that away from me. We had lived together for nearly 20 years and all of it could not have been a lie. There were happy moments and the best part was that out of the relationship, two beautiful, loving, worth everything on God’s green earth children were born. And that was worth every bit of the pain I still feel from time to time. “Healing takes great courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.” Tori Amos One of the things people often forget when they hear someone say they are “depressed” is that for the most part, when people say that they are really just unhappy with a situation in their life right then and they want to be happier. A person with real clinical depression is very different. They know they are unhappy, swallowed up in the pain every waking moment and think it will never get any better and have a deep since of hopelessness and helplessness. Watching those that seem to have joy, freedom, and happiness in their lives is painful for them as they long for those same feelings. They feel as though they have been pushed down so many times, it simply isn’t worth the effort to try again. They are not worth the effort. Also, during this pain, a person can know what to do, what to say, to make everyone think they are alright when on the inside they are dying. They think everyone is tired of hearing about it, listening to it and just want them to “get over it”. And sadly enough, many times that is true. I feel as though there is a rubber band inside my stomach. Winding tighter and tighter, about to snap. I try to hold my breath so as not to put any more pressure on it. But it keeps getting tighter until I feel as if I’m afraid to breathe sometimes Or the dam will burst open and everything will come pouring out of the floodgates. So I pretend it’s okay. And no one knows. Because they really don’t want to. They don’t want to know my thoughts, Even I don’t like to know them or think them. So here I am… Like a toy helicopter propeller, Being wound tighter and tighter Only to be released to fly aimlessly in no direction. Carole Graham 2003 We can never fully understand what other people are going through in their lives just as they cannot understand our pain. Looking at each other, walking down the street, in the grocery store, at the mall, at church…we don’t know what each individual is going through at that particular time in their life. It’s like seeing someone out jogging in the middle of a pouring down thunderstorm…we think, “what an idiot”. But what we don’t know is that when he started jogging, there was no sign of rain. Plus when the downpour started, he was two miles from home so all he could do was continue to run. He had no choice but to run but he did have a choice about his attitude about it. He could choose to smile and enjoy the refreshing, cleansing sensation it had given him or try to find shelter and hide until the storm passed by. By choosing to run, he is doing what is making him happy, whether people think he is crazy or not. They don’t know what is on the inside. Haven’t you ever noticed how kids like to play in the rain? You may have no choice but to run in the rain sometimes but you do have a choice about whether you enjoy it or not. Sometimes you have to choose happiness. I stand there watching me in the mirror. Sunlight reflects off of the glass as darkness looms behind me. Helplessness stares back at me as I stand there and watch. Painful memories, torturing my soul, eat away at my mind and body. A moment in time turns into forever as I press against the mirror, Trying to find a way to escape this hell I’ve become accustomed to. My silent screams grow louder, but no one can hear. I place my palms over the cold glass, against hers. She looks at me with sadness and pain, her eyes as big as the ocean, Remaining dry, while mine are wet with tears. My hands slide off the glass and I fall to the ground. As I fade into the darkness, she takes advantage of the moment She arises from me and takes control. On the other side of the mirror, I can do nothing but watch. Carole P. Graham 2002 Before, this happened to me, I remember a friend in college that was truly depressed and going through a terrible time and I sat up with her a couple of nights when she talked about dying. At the time, I didn’t think she meant it, but thinking back, I wonder. Normally, you don’t say things like that or think them but when you do or you hear someone make the statement that they want to die, never, ever assume they are not serious. Even though you can’t tell, they may be reaching out to you in hopes that you will truly listen and realize that they are drifting farther and farther away from the grip they have on life and are afraid that slowly they will fade out of everyone’s life unnoticed. Don’t ever look “through” someone and say you understand because you don’t unless you have been through this darkness, this pain, this unending void where your life used to be. I have been there and I can tell you first hand, the idea of not feeling at all is much better than facing the pain each day. My Cry to God God, allow me to love all of my selves, all the parts of me I don’t know. All of the parts of me I don’t accept or love at this moment. For they are me, they are all me, whether they are shadow or light. I want to accept them and forgive, for in forgiving, I wash away pain, Start anew, without remorse, knowing you’ve forgotten what they did. Let my past offenses stay in the past; allow me to look forward, not back. Help me to help myself to stop drowning in self pity and judgment. Allow me to accept myself with all of my faults and flaws. Help me to realize it is easier to judge and mistrust than to love. For if I love myself, commitment, freedom and dreams are possible. Help me to open the windows to my soul so that I can see beauty. A new life, a new chapter, a new book; Allow all of the pages in my book to be sacred, loving and satisfying. Chase away the ghosts of the past, the voices within, taunting me, They don’t belong, keeping my soul from returning from the darkness. Strip the demons that wait in the night of their abilities, Help me not to withdraw into a place where my vulnerability exists.
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Copyright © 2003 Carole P Graham |