Courageous

In the last few months to years of my life I have noticed it spinning out of control. Now I never have had control of my life, I never have because at the age of 7 years I turned my life over- I gave it to God. It has never been my life to live, not that I haven't fought him for control more then once.  I have been struggling with a bunch of stuff lately and in the last 24 hours it has come crashing down on me all at once. I have always been able to pick myself up and move on......

As a child  I over came many things. I remember with clarity the day my Grandpa Lavelle fell off the step of the truck and had a heart attack and died. You see I was there right across the yard and he was my Grandpa and I was his little princess. We lived right in the yard at the time and I spent more hours on Grandpa's knee "smoking" a pipe with him listening to him then I did with anyone else. After that day I was lost in the Walkup family, I was very young and didn't understand, and through no ones fault except grief no one noticed or explained. I remember many of my uncles trying to make up for Grandpa though. Uncle Bill painted an old trike up all pretty for me and I yelled at him because it was the wrong color. I screamed at our dog Dixie all the way home one day as she literally pulled me by my dress back to the yard, I had walked down the road and the ditch was full of water my toy had fallen in the ditch and that dog wouldn't let me get it out. That dog saved my life without her I would have drowned in that ditch. I kept pushing the limits. I was headstrong and had a Mother and Father who worked to many hours and had two younger children to care for, they did the best they could trying to make ends meet and raise a family. As I grew circumstances made me stand up to bullies and then go home and cry because I was too scared to use the restroom at school or eat in the lunchroom. I have always been a contradiction just ask my Mom.
I have never found it hard to find strength for someone else. To hold them up to make sure they get what they need. To stand up to others for undermining or picking on them. For me to stand in front of someone and protect them and shield them help them to overcome and grow strong again has never been hard. Its standing up for myself that is the impossible. I constantly ask God for strength. I constantly battle internally for the confidence in who God has made me and why I am here. Some days are easier then others.
I wrote yesterday in a blog and I literally poured out my heart in a personal nature because I felt ready to explode, most days are not like that yesterday just was. I do not know why I wrote it all down and posted it even because usually those little self doubting are saved for my journal where no one can read. Now do I regret what I said? No, it is exactly what I was feeling at the time, but everyone should remember we all have moments of weakness and we all have bad days. Just we don't all write about them for everyone to read!
As I look back on the last couple years I realized all I am starting to write about it the bad times... maybe it is me working through old stuff that keeps coming up or its just me venting to get it out so that I can continue to give to everyone around me. I am not sure the reason but I realize I need to be stronger then that.
I am stronger- I am a woman who has taken in her dying in-laws nursing them until the last of their days- I am a woman who survived high school opening my locker to find girls and guys underwear covered in ketchup and the word SLUT written all over, I calmly collected my books and attended all my classes for the rest of the day- I am a woman who over came a teen pregnancy scare, a road of personal destruction because I was so hurt by others in my life- I am a woman who held her head high and functioned so no one would know how devastated I was inside- I am a wife, who others told on her wedding night that I was making the biggest mistake of my life- I am a wife who still loves her husband 23 years later and have been faithful to him- I am a mom who was told I must have had an affair because were we never supposed to have children- I am a mom who survived 75 hours of labor and flat lined on the table giving birth to her first born son- I am a mom who sat for countless hours breathing for and with her child during asthma attacks when they weren't sure he would live to the next morning- I am a mom who gave birth a second time against all odds to a son who they told us would die in the NICU before I was able to even get there- I am a mom who checked herself out of the hospital against doctors orders and went to be there and hold her dying son- I am a mom who nursed that child and within one week had given him my strength to live against all odds the doctor called it a true miracle- I am a mom who they said would never have a child and I had four- I am a mom who sat in the middle of a flood with her baby who had RSV and stayed with him day and night holding and climbing into the tent with him to let him know he was safe and could sleep because I was there to make sure nothing happened to him- I am a mom who had held her children through the nights and supported them through everyday- I am a mom who BELIEVED no matter what I was told that my son was brilliant when they told me he had brain damage- I am a women who took in others children and loved them with my whole being because they didn't feel lovable- I am a woman who when called in the middle of the night picks up the phone to talk to the high, the drunk,  and the scared because I CARE- I am a woman who goes without groceries to buy a plane ticket for a child who says "I can't stop taking the drugs no one cares enough to help me stop" and I say just get on the plane I care enough to help you stop- I am a woman who drops everything because my Mom needs help- I am a woman who moves back to an area so that I can be there for those who need me- but most of all I am a woman who rely's on God everyday to give me the courage to do what I need to do.
Yes, at times I forget and am exhausted and scared that I am not enough. It is human nature but what I forget is not that I am enough but that GOD is enough through me.

WHAT IF?

I remember you and recall you without effort, without exercise of will; that is, by natural impulse, indicated by a sense of duty, or of obligation. And that, I take it, is the only sort of remembering worth the having. When we think of friends, and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy -- that it is built upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them.



Anonymous


Have you ever had one of those days that you just can't shake the shadows? I have them a lot... I second guess everything I have ever done or said on those days, and believe me when I say I have an excellent memory and can recall every single one of my faults even when they weren't necessarily my faults in a situation that went bad.  I am one of those over critical people that rack my brain over and over again and ask myself - what if I had said this or done this instead. I spend so much time grieving over my errors that some days I forget to live. I forget that I am a good person, although I am human and I make mistakes and I act out of hurt and anger. I have been told numerous times I carry the world around on my shoulders and I want to fix it so bad I tend to take all the blame and shame. I don't know if this is entirely true, you see I am far from perfect and I do make just as many errors in life as any one else, probably more because I am also stubborn and bullheaded. I try to see the best in everyone though and am working on seeing the best in myself too- which is far harder to do then seeing it in others. I am also very naivete. Yes I admit it I am not of this world and have never been. I do not get sarcasm and putting others down as a way to lift them up. My sons are GREAT at it! They have a dry sense of humor and get all the little innuendos but I do not. Consequently I walk into the jokes all the time, this especially confounds my sister she just doesn't get how I do not see it, but I really don't. My brain doesn't work that way, I take those jokes as mean spirited. I have learned to not be so sensitive and to desensitize myself but to this day I still have to remind myself that it is all in 'fun'.
I am also one of those people that tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Opening myself up and trusting until being squashed like a bug under someones boot. I never have thought anyone would have any reason to want my ideas or be jealous enough of me to want to just bring me down and hurt me. I have learned that lesson over and over and over again in my 42 years of life but I still don't seem to be able to 'get it' in my head because I keep walking into it to this day. It started when I was little with things I don't want to discuss and continued through school and my last girl birthday party with my 'friends' loading their suitcases with my possessions at my overnight party. Girl's seem to be the worst. I do not understand that. As the female population no one else understands us or our need to be caregiver and secretary and lover on days we just would like to be selfish. Women of old used to rely on each other to confide in and support and keep each other sane, they helped each other carry the load, supporting and uplifting. Why is it now that if you try to help its viewed as trying to undermine them? I know I have had plenty of experience in this area and have had my ideas and kindness thrown back in my face more times then I can count but I still continue to put myself out there.
At least until recently, the last 4 years of my life have been some of the worse I have ever endured and I find myself keeping busy, super busy in order to avoid letting anyone in or having friendships with anyone ever again. I am not this person I have become. I know I am not and I don't want to be but I am not sure how to trust anyone ever again. I am still dealing with the fall-out of the last six months, my whole family is. It is a difficult road right now, but in it all I can not tell you how lonely I am. I have Paul, which is amazing but I really miss having that person I can call, weather I am crying and need some advice or I am happy and just want to share my good news. I know I could probably solve all of this if I wrote two letters and sent them. I could have my friend back and I could probably have my little girl back too but for me to open myself up like that again and give them the power to stomp on me again. I just am having a terrible time doing that. I have forgiven them, I also know that part of it is my own fault. I know God wants me to mend broken bridges too but I am not strong enough.
So I have these bad days, where I wonder what if.... what if I was a different person? What if I was stronger? Braver? Smarter?