Dear Antonio

Dear Antonio,

Last night, I realized something that I've tried to deny for the past few months. You helped save me. When you entered my life, I was on the verge of self destruction. I never admitted it to you because I wanted to be that woman who had her life together and who you could flawlessly love without witnessing the dirt on her hands. Our relationship came as sudden and surprising as a snowflake in June and ironically we were formally introduced in June. When we met, I never gave you a second glance. You were off my radar and honestly, trying to get to know anyone at that point in my life was the last thing I was thinking about. But there you were, unexpected and present in my life and neither of us knew what that handshake would mean.

When you approached me months later about dating, I was more than hesitant. There were so many things stacked against you and I knew that with my background and freshly healing heart, the odds would be stacked up against us together as well. It took me a whole day to even realize you were interested in me and I threw everything I could at you so that you would find me unappealing. Yet, there, in the midst of all my negative and amplified characteristics you said something so cliche yet so needed, "I could treat you like the Queen that you are. You could be missing out." I don't know why coming from you it was like I was hearing those words for the first time and in reality I kind of was. No man had ever told me I was a Queen (I knew it though). No man had ever publicized that I deserved better. Suddenly, there I was handing you my phone number.

Even though our love formed fast, our relationship formed slow. You were clear you didn't want a commitment and I didn't want to rush into an "official" relationship quickly. However, as soon as we had a conversation about informing those around us that we were dating, I fell for you quickly. My love for you was fresh and I didn't know how it would grow, but I knew that it would. We prided ourselves on our privacy, taking the time to have quality one-on-one time, and being purposeful in sharing "us" with others. Here I was completely out of a failed marriage and for the first time in my life I was not only witnessing a healthy relationship, but I was half of it.

Now...here is where you saved me.
At the hands of other people I was allowing myself to decrease and any time I began to doubt myself, you loved me without question. I need to explain to you how your love for me has changed my life. You willingly prayed for me and my kids at the beginning of our relationship. You reminded me to focus on God and took time to fast with me. You didn't have to, but you did. When I cried over the pains that other men had inflicted on me, you hugged me and apologized for things you hadn't even done. When I got angry and didn't know how to express myself, you let me be okay with just crying for "no reason."
You call. You set an alarm and wake up every morning just to call me. Your voice calms me.
You play with my hair. You learned to play with my hair. Even though you haven't quite perfected it the way my mom used to do it, your effort is enough for me to love you more.
You support me. You do more than support me. You've found a way to include yourself in my life, into what I'm passionate about and you do so willingly and without making me feel like less of a woman or less of a mother or less of a person.
Your presence reminds me that it's possible to to have a custom made love.
You make me coffee in the morning.
You make me coffee at night.
When you did something that hurt my heart, you genuinely apologized and made sure I would never have to endure the pain again, and I never did.
You go on walks with me (even if you have to walk behind me because I'm being stubborn).
You chase me when I try to push you away because you know it's not what I really want.
You accept my apology when I realize I've been an idiot.
You love me even when I'm cranky (which can be often sometimes).
You let me stare at the stars.
You were constant and imperfect. You made mistakes and taught me that being human is okay. You taught me that men could have pride and not be prideful. 
You held my hand.
When I felt like I couldn't hold onto life anymore, your hand was the umbilical chord to God.

 
All these actions, these verbs, are ways that you've loved me and your love helped save me from destroying myself.

God saw it fit to place you as an interruption to where I thought I wanted to be in my life. I'll never be able to clearly explain to you how grateful I am that you took a chance on me, even with seeing me with all my scars and bruises and baggage. Even my bad days are good because I have you. With you I have vision.
With you, I am home.

Finally: The Truth

A week ago God spoke to me so clearly about how He wanted me to use my gift of words. At bible study, I kept hearing Him say "Today is the day, it starts now, " and "Truth. All of it." It's taken me a full week and an opportunity to write for a local girls' healing movement to finally let it seep out of me the way He's asked. When I began to write this post for the "No Scars" movement, I was asked to write about how healing from relationships that have scarred me has helped me grow as a woman. I began to write very...passively. I read back over the colorful words I had crafted together and realized that this wasn't what God had instructed me to do. He had given me very clear instruction, so clear that the enemy heard it too and tried to shut me down through "family." So I deleted the FULL three paragraphs I had written and over three days managed to finally begin my journey into the truth of my life. My truth.

This is also the prologue to my book (or a rough version of it). I hope my words touch, move, and ignite you in ways that even I was unprepared for.

Read.
Enjoy.
Comment.
Share.
Repeat.

I’m 30 years old. I have two beautifully weird and unique children. My husband cheated on me multiple times, emotionally abused me (whether he knew it or not) and continues to verbally bash me. We are now divorced. My father is in prison for molesting a little girl and I mistakenly feel as though I could have stopped him, because when I was a little girl, he sexually molested me. I lied when I was twelve and said I had forgiven him, but in reality, I didn’t know what forgiveness was. I was beat, abused, belittled and abandoned over 90% of my life. Now, at 30 years old, I am the best ME I have ever been and I would be incapable of becoming this woman if my husband hadn’t repeatedly cheated and my father hadn’t molested me. God has given me this grand purpose to help heal the damaged young girls around me, to uplift through the use of words and inspiration and He knew that in order for me to be as open as He needed me to be, He would have to open me up. Yes, it hurts to be open and exposed. Because like a wound, I was open and exposed to the elements, but now… I have been healed and the scars left over from those open burdens are reminders that God chose me. Out of all His children, He chose to use me. At the time, I didn’t understand. How could He allow my father to visit my room nightly and tarnish my perception of love to the point that I was incapable of loving anyone without hurting myself? How could He allow my husband to bring another woman into our bed repeatedly and lie to my face? How through all of this, could He still put me a position where I wouldn’t leave my abusers? How could He allow His daughter to cry out to Him night after night and seem to ignore her cries? I was confused most of my life. Burdened with the idea that men only loved a woman if she did what he said. That our jobs as women are to give sexual pleasure and omit any personal hope of happiness. I lost myself in the men around me and the men around me were lost in the world. I was in a dark place and I was helpless, faithless, numb and unaware that any of this was happening.

I got pregnant at 21 (after a miscarriage at 17 and an abortion at 19). Did I mention I was lost? I was deeply in lust with my boyfriend and the idea that I would finally have a family. I agreed to marry before my son was born so we would have at least “done one thing right.” I had no idea how serious marriage was or how to make a marriage work. I had never recovered or dealt with the molestation from my father and at the time he was still present in my life. My husband knew of my past sexual and physical abuse and needless to say, had a deep dislike/hatred for my father. Meanwhile, my husband’s constant need to entertain other women had already begun. As a young, insecure woman, I ignored the signs began a cycle of forgiveness and excuses for my husband’s miniscule and growing exploits. After all, the way to keep a husband and his love was to forgive. Wasn’t that what I was told to do when I was 12? The two “most important” men in my life, the two men that were supposed to be constantly loving me had both began and continued to mentally kill me, and I didn’t even know it. It wasn’t until five years into our marriage that my husband slept with another woman. Just some random woman he met at a club while the kids and I were away at my little sister’s graduation. I didn’t find out until a month or so later, when the woman tried to contact him again. I broke. My insides, my chest, my heart, my soul, my self-worth, my mind, my hands, my entire being broke. The only thing I knew to do was “forgive” and move on “for the kids.” So that’s what I did.  I had no idea that I was now broken and functioning as less than half a person. I faked happiness. I posted pictures to social media of our perfect family; husband and wife, with two children (a boy and a girl), going to church, serving in the church, and living the best life. Behind closed doors I became mean, bitter and gradually detached myself from the people who were closest to me. I couldn’t let anyone know what I was slowly realizing; I was dead inside. The wounds of my past were no longer small stabs to my chest; my husband’s infidelities and lies had been the last fatal shot and I was dead. Over those first five years of marriage my severe Stockholm’s syndrome (an unhealthy bond with an abuser) to my father began to overflow into my relationship with my husband and I began to identify him in the same way. The more my husband misused our marriage, the more I felt he loved me. He would lie, watch porn, flirt with women, exchange phone numbers with them, create dating profiles, go to clubs when he was supposed to be out of town and I would get angry…and “forgive.” I didn’t know it then, but the more I was being hurt, the more God was exposing me. All this time I was forcing myself to have a relationship with a man who never knew how to love me while God was steadily waiting on me to allow Him to take over my life and love me more than any man ever could.

So here I am a grown woman, but a baby in my relationship with God. Even though I have been saved for years, it wasn’t revealed to me until recently the purpose for my pain and the magnitude of why I’ve been exposed in the way that I have. The unhealthy and tumultuous relationships with the men in my life have been the dirt of where my foundation was built. When a house is built the first thing the construction workers do is tear up the ground. They bull doze whatever building was already there, because it’s weak and needs to be taken down. Then they tear apart the ground, shovel and plow into the dirt and remove all the unwanted rubble. After all this is done, they grate and level the dirt before applying the stronger foundation. This is what God has done in my life, in any life of a young woman who has had to endure pain at the hands of an abuser, molester, cheater, liar, and/or fornicator. I was torn down because I was weak. I wasn’t going to be able to withstand or hold in the new spirit that God was going to house inside me. My shell, my THEN spirit was too fragile and ignorant to understand and maintain the strength of the spirit that He has placed in me now. During the tear down I was confused and angry with God for allowing me to be victim so many time, for demolishing my childhood. I blamed Him for so many things without understanding that He wasn’t at fault. But I’m human; it was the only emotion I knew. Looking back I realize that he CHOSE me. Out of all of His children, He chose me and set me aside to do powerful things and make monumental movements that others are not able to even fathom. He knew that none of that would have been possible if I was still the same fragile house I had become. From all of this, all this rubble and destruction, God was able to rebuild me more beautiful, spirited, and indestructible than I could have ever imagined. If I had a choice of going through it all again and becoming who I am now with the inspiration that has been rooted in me currently, I wouldn’t hesitate to welcome it all again.