Looking Toward The Skyline

I’m on the phone right now listening to my little sister getting cussed out by our parents. They are pissed off with her because she had to move back home because of her husband. I can hear the hurt in their voices and the dissappointment but they are releasing it in anger towards my sister.

I’m sitting here and I’m listening and my heart is hurting because I feel like I am getting cussed out too. My little sister lost her job, her car broke down, her husband left her and then came back and then kicked her out. Not to put her out there, but she is going through. In the midst of going through she has this crazy faith and I am so amazed.

She was able to receive a blessing last week, a random woman she met on one of her job interviews needed a place to stay for a week and my sister opened up her home. When the girl got the job offer she had been waiting for in another city, she gave my sister her car. It’s a nice car too. So not my sister has transportation while she is looking for another job.

It’s crazy because I feel so bad that I can’t help her. I can’t even help myself right now. Listening to my parents cussing took me back to my childhood days. I…I never could take that type of aggressive confrontation. Those negative words seeped into my soul and caused me to hate myself. My sister says it made her stronger but it had the opposite affect on me.

I don’t think of myself as weak. I just don’t have the fighting spirit. I can stand up for myself but not with curse words going back and forth or fist fights. I don’t know how to do any of that. I’m never gonna yell insults back and forth, even in anger I won’t say anything that I think will hurt your feelings because I just can’t demean someone like that intentionally.

Just hearing their tone and their words brings me to a place that I don’t want to be in again. I don’t know why I can’t be like others and fight back in the same manner. All I do is run away. I don’t tolerate it. I leave. It’s all I can do. I’ve been told so many times that I was worthless and no one was ever going to want me and all kind of garbage and now I know that all that was a lie but…their raised voices reduced me to that scared little girl again, just trembling and wishing I could get life right so that they wouldn’t yell at me anymore.

I hate aggression, but I am aggressive sometimes. Only when I have taken it and taken it and taken it and then I explode. But that hasn’t happened this year so far, I’ve simply learned to walk away before I get to the point where I’m boiling over.

I’m still trembling now and I can’t help but to think about the e-mails I receive from readers on a daily basis. I wonder who you guys are talking to. I wonder who you are looking at. I wonder why ya’ll say that I inspire you and encourage you with my life when I have nothing to show for this painful journey so far.

I think I’m having a down moment, please excuse me, you know I’ll be back up again soon but right now..I just wish I could SEE how my life could possibly turn into a success story.

I think I need to remind myself of how Shawna shows up every so often with a bag of groceries for me. That’s a blessing from God.
I need to remind myself how my friend gave me $2,000 for the down payment of my car. That’s God.
I need to remind myself how people are connecting to me all across the country and are praying for me everyday. That’s God.
I need to remind myself that I have been all alone, traveling with no money and no one, yet, I have been safe everyday. That’s God.
I need to remind myself that my sons need me to be strong. I need God.
I need to remind myself that trouble don’t last always. Thanks God.
I need to remind myself that I have friends who love me and HAVE loved me for decades. There’s gotta be something good in me to have earned such great friends. That’s God.

Yeah…I’m okay. I’m better than okay. I’m tearful right now but I have to expect the magnitude of my blessing to equal the depth of my sorrow.

My destiny is just on the other side of the mountain. All I have to do is make it to the top. All I have to do is focus on the skyline and I will get there.

Then…when I pass into that beautiful place where God’s face smiles at me all the time, I’ll forget. I’ll forget all about this day that I am feeling so defeated.