Posted in Uncategorized on November 14, 2022 by Her Broken Wing
What story does your Christmas tree tell?
The whisper of the Tree
From little hands, the gifts of a child. Broken macaroni to broken legged gingerbread men. “To mommy and daddy with love from our child.” This home established in 1994. First Christmas 1984, 1987 or 1995. Gifts from our childrens school years.
Our tree whispers giggles of our children up way too early Christmas morning running to see if Santa ate his cookies or did Santa come. The tree sees and hears everything.
It sees all the love poured into the last minute assembling of a toy as we try to put together in frustration (yes) with love and excitement. Oh to see their face!
It sees the excitement between our own surprise gifts to each other. Wee early mornings in the still darkness of the day.
Yes, our trees tells many stores but if you are in our house embrace the love, listen to the whispers but many stories are sacred to the family.
And yes our tree is dusted off early as we are one of those!!! But after all memories have started!!!
Get ready for another season of memories because of our gifts poured out because of Jesus Christ.
Posted in Uncategorized on September 16, 2021 by Her Broken Wing
In the midst of horrific pain,we, in the darkest part of our souls, try to grasp just a piece of the pain as if to take away their agony. But really we are too scared. What if that were me? We are vulnerable. It is just too dark.
Truly, we cannot take away the pain. It’s too immense of an emotion that no one can even sense what that person really feels.
Oh, we want to do something…anything! But it doesn’t work that way.
We can’t begin to understand even a minuscule of their emotion. Nor do we really want to. To see that kind of pain is just too much and we turn away.
But then it transpires. Courage. Prayer. Love. And most of all, God.
God didn’t do this but we blame him. It just happened. Nonetheless, His shoulders are big enough to handle the sorrow. We don’t know why this took place, this day, this time. But He is the only one that can mend the spirit. Bring us back to a new “normal.” Life has changed course.
Posted in Uncategorized on September 9, 2021 by Her Broken Wing
Hey guys been awhile!
I have 12 years clean and sober. Life has been a journey. I mean like really.
I still attend AA faithfully. I have worked the 12 steps numerous times (not that i want to)! But i develop resentments as life goes on. people, things, places but mostly people.
Even though I attend AA this has become more of a God thing to work through. (Mark 11:25)
Recently, my doctor told me of all the things i should do to improve my health. I felt cared for. Why is it he can make suggestions but when my spouse does, I blow up in flames? ”They” say don’t sweat the small stuff but I do. And those small things build on top of each other like a skyscraper!
I have one right now. But the more I think about it, it is not him. It is me. He’s a godly man but pisses me off. yes Connie, look in the mirror.
Resentment robs me of my life life’s choices. it really robs me of peace and serenity. When i choose to be free, i can love. A Godly love.
Its all about forgiveness. And that my friends is all about serenity.
I can’t believe it’s been 10 long years since I earned (and I mean earned) my sobriety. When I first started AA, I sat in the back of the room, I was angry. I was in denial. I was also forced to be there by the Nursing Board.
Before, I remember lying in the bathroom floor begging God to take this addiction from me. I remember thinking that if I could just get sober, life would be perfect (But be Gentle)! I sat in the back of the AA, when I heard one of the old timers say that days ahead would be some of the hardest days. Little did I know how right he was.
I had to learn how to find emotions I never had. I also heard,” you think you’ve hit bottom, watch out, those bottoms have trap doors.” At the time I did not know what they meant. I do now.
How did this happen? I was a hospice nurse. I was a good, dedicated and a caring nurse. I worked 40 years as a nurse until I lost my job. No going away party. My Nursing identity was my shattered. I was so devastated. I was lost. I mean as the AA group said, most either get a DUI, end up in jail or die. But I only lost a job. I didn’t do those things. But I was told, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” Yes thinking back!
Yes, true my heart and my soul had died!
Looking back like forever ago, I had migraines so I was given prescription drugs. The doctors gave them to me. After all, I thought it was ok, right!? I’d started with one pill, then two, then I don’t know how many I took. In my mind I made up headaches, pain,etc. This went on for years.
Then one day my boss called me in her office. “If you need, we can help you..”. Another day she said,”if you need help I will help you.” I was still in denial. But I decided to call my friend, he said the same, it’s time to get help.
How did I meet my friend? Working at hospice and not unusual, I attended a patient’s funeral. There was a man in front of me. He turned around and said, “Well, I guess you were her nurse ? ” He said, “I guess you are caring, compassionate,and Christian —with sarcasm? “ I got defensive. ” Yes I am!” Then he pulled out a card. The card had small flames on it. I knew it, he was a Satan worshipper.
I looked at it. It was a 12 step recovery program. I didn’t know much about that. But I did know God was sitting next to me.
I told the man after the funeral, ” hey, I have a “friend!” So I asked more. We arranged a meeting to talk about my friend. I met him at McDonald’s to get more info for my friend. We talked and then he said, ” What are you taking?” I busted out crying. I had be drinking and taking ” Prescribed meds” a long time.
Later I thought, (I was at least sober the day my dad died!) There was a long time of grief, shame and guilt. I hated myself. My dad warned me. I had let him down.
My dad died years ago before he knew how bad it was. At his funeral, I had written his eulogy —sober In honor of my dad. I was a daddy’ girl, well, so was my sister.
My sister picked out the song, “To Sir With Love.” (He had taught us so much about being a lady. Other than being a mean deep sea fishermen. He tried to get me from a (Tom-boy to a lady.) I had someone read the eulogy, I wrote Sober as I could not do read it. He deserved the words from my heart. I, however, knew I could not read it.
Not that it matters (well, yea maybe it does). I was told that, 3 of my grandparents where alcoholics ( my grandma died in the DT’s at age 53.) I’m going to respect my parents anonymity. One day, my dad told said, ” Be careful.” Ah I thought, I won’t do that. Never say never! How, did it happen? So tenuous, I’m sitting in an AA room. The disease is cunning, baffling, and powerful. I hear my dads voice.
The day I revealed my addiction, I devastated my family. I went into out patient rehab. Reported to the Nursing Board. Lost my job. Did I mention how angry I was. Later I realized I was angry at myself.
With my tail tucked, I walked through the doors of the beginning of a life changing event. The nursing board was a 4 year program of a weekly nursing program and the rest which consisted of seeing an addictionologist, a counselor weekly, a nurses group weekly, AA 3 x week, and random drug test that I had to pay for. Oh gosh I could go on. I was incensed .
I had to get a sponsor (someone to walk me through me through the 12 steps and the program), I went to AA at least 3 times a week. (The 1st 90 days I went everyday. It’s called 90 in 90.) My sponsor said 3-things, 1.) the disease is outside doing push-ups waiting for you and 2.) secrets keep us sick ( rigorously honest). 3.) and one drink is too many and 1000 is not enough..
Resentment, was an understatement of transformation of my soul. Finding my spirit. I mean it was everyone’s fault.
Today I look back, 10 years later, this was hard work but it saved my life. It saved the convergence of my family. It taught me how to live and feel. And I’ve met some of my best friends from this group. They get me.
I know to change playgrounds and playmates. I also know I had no one to blame but me.
Posted in Uncategorized on October 19, 2018 by Her Broken Wing
There was a quiet girl down the street. Average girl. You wouldn’t notice her in a crowd. But in her young age, she was more concerned with the other girls. She tried not to let the sting of being sometimes picked third,forth even last but never first to the team. She was Mediocre at best.
She wasn’t the smartest. She didn’t get awards,scholarships or recognition for any of her works, art or music. She secretly thought it was good. It just wasn’t to be. She was Mediocre at best.
She wasn’t the prettiest. There was always someone prettier. She felt inferior to her friends that were smarter, cuter. Parties, “I’m sorry you are not invited.” Her body image was less than. She hated who she was and was mad at God that He had not made her special.
To her mediocre meant failure.
She dreamed of a prince rescuing her so that others would see. See that she was special.
At night, her mind would Dance with the stars. She would dream of being special to someone, something.
But she had a dark secret that kept her from being “like the other girls.” One she promised to never tell. One she was too ashamed to tell. Even as a small girl,she knew it was wrong. Was it her fault? But she was so young. So yes, she wasn’t like the other girls. She carried her secret through her life. She had begun to realize she was not special like she once thought. She believed the lies.
As she grew up, the secret grew with her. And she grew less. She learned though by happenstance one evening as she sat off in a corner that there was another world. One drink made her high and for a while she forgot her pain. But she didn’t stop at one. Two, three. And before long she was singing karaoke with the rest and felt like one of them. And the boys … the boys had started talking to her. Finally, she was special. One even said he would take her home. How special she felt. She felt like a princess again, like when she was little…before…,it happened. Even if just a short time, she let him walk her to the door. But then he began to get pushy. He wanted to come in. She said no. But he was stronger than her.
Once again she carried a dark secret deep within her soul. “What is wrong with me?” She begin to self-loathe. She began to not care. She thought God had forgotten her.
But she had found a way to drown out the pain privately where she couldn’t be hurt. Or that is what she thought.
At first, she just drank on weekends. With time, she started drinking a night or two during the week. Eventually, she was drinking everyday. She was having a hard time focusing at work.
Her world had spiraled. She had lost everything. The few friends she had. Her job. Her dignity.
The world goes by really fast while I am just stuck in a motionless trance. I expect others to dance my dance. And when they do not, I fall deeper into despair.
When I am depressed, I cannot see anything past my thick heartbroken goggles of sadness. I cannot see past my pain. My world is skewed through my own agony and not the reality of God’s beauty.
I am, though, just the shadow on the wall. I am not light nor darkness. I vacillate between both worlds of good and bad. Feeling like I have fallen from grace and condemnation to hell.
Help me crawl out of this misery and the way the world has had its way with me.
May God shatter the glass from my goggles to help me see a reflection of His face, to bring serenity to my soul and to bring me to the light of this world.
Sobriety did not promise me serenity. Serenity is a place I must achieve on a daily basis minute by minute. It’s not a passive job either, I must be active in its goal.
As much as I lived and breathed my addiction, worrying about my next fix or drink, the same energy must be spent in my recovery.
But you are God alone. All things through Him! Phil 4:13
“He quieted the wind down to a whisper, put a muzzle on all the big waves. And you were so glad when the storm died down, and He led you safely back to harbor.” (Psalm 107:23)
My family’s vacation was incredible, but being at the beach always is. For it is God in His purest form. The waves speak to me in the rarest form. The air brushes against my face as if speaking a whole new language. The midst of salt air rises from the waves and touch my skin in an amazing newness. Just smell a newborn baby, touch their skin, caress their hair all the while closing my eyes in this venture. My senses come alive.
This is what it is like when I allow God to become my senses, when I let Papa embrace the beauty of all He created.
Just call me Mrs. Kodak. I love my pictures. Here is one of the pictures I took while I was on vacation. It is a picture of a lonely wave. But it is a pretty significant, a picture with amazing powers. For this picture depicts a beautifully calm sea with one very lone wave with a very large wave riding its last ride into the shore. What a contrast! For the day before, the seas had been very rough.
As I look at the pictures, I can actually smell the ocean, hear the birds and feel the wind against my face. And I think about the one lonely wave making its wave shore–to his home!
The wave does not think about time. Oh no! He’s not on a schedule; he’s only on God’s time. He’s living in eternity. As I watched the wave, I notice how at peace he lives his last moments. As if with all his strength he has, he bellows up and rolls. I hear him. He is a witness to his Savior. He lives out the purpose of his being without question. And as he rolls onto the shore, he surrenders with such peace.
He is “Led safely back to harbor.” (Psalm 107:23)
What a similar story. My drug addiction, just like the rough seas. Then rolling back home with such peace to sobriety.
“Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21) as we stand before our Abba.
So I am the child of….and an alcoholic…and a drug addict. yea, well so most days if you ask me how I’m doing I will say ” just fine” with seething sarcasm. I usually don’t realize I’m doing it.
Some (a lot of) my days I carry a chip on my shoulder. A bad attitude, victim mentality, and much of the time I think the hell out of something. So…isn’t it ironic that I would end up in Al Anon? I have two parents that are alcoholics, well were, my dad past years ago but he might as well be alive, the scars are there. So it’s no wonder I have the “disease of attitude”.
My attitude presumptively is, “I will be happy if______. I will be happy when_____.” I think this goes back to the empty promises my parents made me or silently made me or I wished they had made me. I will be happy “if” but the “when” never comes.
When I first came into the rooms of a 12 step program, I heard about a “Higher Power.” I thought, “I have a God”. But where was He when I cried for so many nights as a child? I was a victim. Poor pitiful me. It kept my spirit occupied with bitterness towards others and myself. It kept me from getting better. I lived this victim role because it served a purpose. Not getting better would make mean I had to be responsible, accountable and even grateful for what God has done in my life. After all, God was not a terrorist. (Pg 35, Courage to Change). But was I ready?
I don’t have to live a victim anymore. Nor do I have to fear the world opening up and sucking me into the center core. My what ifs and when’s are here. So is my serenity.
And life well it just is…
me
In no way, do I represent Al-Anon nor is this an Al-Anon endorsed blog. The opinions given are strictly mine. Take what you like and leave the rest.
(FYI I worked Hospice for several years as a nurse, these are some of the supernatural stories)
(Revelations 1:8) 8″I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Some of you may say what does this have to do with Recovery? Everything. I’m getting there. So…
One of my nurses shared this story the other day so I only hope I can do it justice. She cried as she told me the story. I now know why. This story fills me with hope, compassion and promise.
Her patient told her last week that he was going to die soon, actually he told her which day and he was right. This little man had been sleeping a lot in his last days but on this particular day woke up to share with his family this extraordinary story. One that will give me an incredible burst of faith for years to come not that I needed it. Or as I like to call them “A Holy Spirit jolt.”
Anyhoo! The story…
“There are so many hands, I just don’t know which ones to take hold of,” the patient cried. His wife asked him to explain what he was talking about. “Mom and Dad are here holding their hands out for me. And so is my brother.” “I need you all to move away from my bed because you are blocking them from taking me Home. As the family moved away, a bright and shiny light moved into the patient’s direction. He then said, “There is Someone here now named the Omega, He’s sitting on my bed. He has come to take me. His hands are reaching for me.”
This patient had not been a Christian very long and did not know the Bible all that well. His wife went and got her Bible and read to him, “I am the Alpha and the Omega…The First and Last…” (Rev 1:8). The patient’s eyes grew wide and he smiled —before closing them for the last time.
His hand reached out… and he touched the Hand of God…
The disease of addictions steals, it robs and it destroys. It sucks any and all resemblance of life as we know it.
Andrew Solomon’s book Noonday Demons describes the absence of depression is vitality. I have strived most of my life for some sort of normalcy but due to the fact I have never had that (normal), I did not know what to look for or feel. I would not know if life was ordinary or not as my striving for life I had wished for would ever seem on some occasion—attainable.
But today, the Sun arose once again as it faithfully does every day. Its warmth and penetrating rays, however, could not reach me. My world goes cold.
Even my bones are cold. I shiver to stay warm still on the hottest day of the year.
The arid pain blurs my desire to move, to breathe—the involuntary muscles of my body are now an agonizing effort. My world goes cold.
As in Harry Potter’s Dementors – “it sucks out all the happy-all the good memories are gone…” such a life and her circumstances.
Days become weeks, weeks become months and eventually the months become years. My years pass by. I am saddened by the darkened area I live and its daily dance of the Sun’s silhouette as she comes in my room. The Sun teases me by the shadows on the wall. The Suns outline waltzes all around my room as the Sun creeps through the sky as if spying on me. It is some ritualistic ceremony. This is only a reminder of what I am missing in my world. The Sun’s ghosts I know are demons and they tease me.
Is this depression in the likeness of death? Or is this lower than death?
An escape from the reminders of child abuse, rape, murder all wrapped up into a cocoon that has failed to metamorphic into a new life. God talks about new life. (2 Corinthians 5:17) But I cannot shed the old me. The old life overwhelms me.
A leap of faith! For me it is much like diving into a pool that is void of water. Dried up faith?
No, not really.
I hold onto hope. Hope of not even tomorrow but just for today.
Hope that the specters on the wall become reminders of freedom from my walled off prison of my mind. A new birth? Maybe so. Maybe hope is the new birth spoken of, I do not know.
But my hope today is that I dance with the shadows on the wall.
My story. This is my personal experience. I have been wounded and broken and shattered. I was picked up into the hands of the Father Almighty. I am a Christian…A Mom, a Nurse and a wife. I am also a sister, a daughter and an Aunt… Thus the story told, I have a disease, one I did not choose—Drug Addiction. However, may-it-be—I am His,
THE STORM DANCER
Storms.
Storms of life.
These storms can cause devastating consequences. Many of these storms are of our own making. Intensity rules and angers flare. After the thunder, there is rain. I see the torrential downpours. And as the rain begins to fade, the sweet-scented smell of rain fill my senses. I can smell the rain. Time passes and surpasses my understanding of what has been and what is to be. Soon, the rain trickles as if playing to the tune of Mozart and I am mesmerized by its tranquilizing effect. I hear the Song that my Heavenly Father is singing to me.
My senses are alive. I can feel.
I breathe—slowly.
I awaken—soon thereafter to a silent world around me after the rain has long stopped. It would take some time before I really would grasp all of the unfolding events of the storm.
The person I had been had died, she had left during the storm—tragically. The death of self was an explosive aftermath. The realization of truth was as explosive as a volcanic eruption from a Volcano that had slept for thousands of years. The pressure was phenomenal.
Good,
Bad,
And just indifferent at times.
Mindful—from a long rainy night, I mused over the details.
I prayed.
Morning came and the Sun peeked in through the window. It was timid and reluctant to reveal itself to me as if one more change might cease my beating heart.
The pain was gone—not that I was ok with my life’s happenings but it was better than it had been in a very long time. I was free. I could breathe.
Would I become another Storm Dancer? Will I rejoice in this new birth?
I will dance in the reminiscence of the storm.
I will become the Storm Dancer.
…for I am His beloved child
Her Broken wing 