Archive for the Uncategorized Category

The Dance Of Despair

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on October 19, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

 

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

me

The Loney Wave

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on October 1, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

 

“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.

The lonely wave….

me

The Disease of Attitude

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on September 10, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

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.

 

In The Hands Of The Omega

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on August 2, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

(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…

For the Omega… The First–The Last…had come…

Come, Lord Jesus.

Living the supernatural

Me

Noonday Demons

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on July 14, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

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.

(Written by me August 2014)

In Him

me

The Sands Of Life

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on June 26, 2018 by Her Broken Wing
Psalm 139:17-18How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” Were I to count them, they would out number the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

How do you kiss the wind?

Or

Embrace the warmth of the Sun?

And what is it like to hold someone you love as their life passes by like the sand sifting through the fingers of a small child lost in play for hours at the beach.

Even if we tried to hold each grain of sand, some bits would slip through our fingers. We may hold on tightly vowing to never let go but eventually the winds, the water and our toil cause us to drop each granule of sand we believed to have held tightly in our grasp. And the specks of life, the ones we so dearly love, fall back into the hands of the One who owned them all along.

I am trying to grab the wind and hold on tightly to the force of nature given to me by my Abba. But I know the days are short for my Papa is calling one of His children home soon. My precious daddy is going to be going home and each moment I have I want to hold tightly the last grains of sand representing his life; this will always remain precious to me.

But I know that eventually the last piece of sand will fall from my hands and Our Papa will call. And my Papa will brush the sand off my hands and pick me up and hold me like a child not ready to leave their place on the beach, their place of comfort.

And in my sadness, I will just rest in the arms of my Papa….

To my sweet daddy….I love you (1940-2008)

To my sweet Papa, I love you

me

When Grace Rains

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on June 4, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

“Yes, but…!” Luke 9:61

Would I run to Jesus on the water when I can’t even believe ….

Do I follow You with true abandon, Abba Father?

Or am I Peter, do I deny You in public places? And love you to pieces In my quiet time?

“Yes,but…”

But what about my friend, Jesus? I can’t even manage my life, so what’s it to me what goes on in her life. Focusing on her life takes away the pain of my shattered and fractured life. So, this rolls around in my head with sometimes a bitter taste in my mouth as it rolls off my tongue.

It’s easier to gossip just a tiny bit, “bless their hearts.”

But really, I’m just a mess most days. Sunday’s best I sit in the pews. By Monday, I’ve lost my “religion “.

Speaking of, what about my drug of choice, (Oh don’t act all self-righteous), We all have one, a drug of choice that is. There are drugs, alcohol, shopping, shoplifting, pornography, gossiping, road rage, adultery the list is mighty. If I didn’t hit yours, it is there. Just ask Jesus to show you. And don’t try throwing a stone at someone, it just might come back at you.

As a recovering addict, I missed His grace. Or so I thought. I lived with so much shame and guilt I believed in Satan’s lies. Truth is when rain falls, it falls on us all.

Yes, but…

His grace falls.

me

All The Kings Men

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on May 25, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

I sometimes think whoever wrote children’s poem suffered  from major depressive disorder. If not, then I can totally relate to this poem anyway. As a matter of fact, I can associate with a lot of the childhood characters I grew up with.

There is Eeyore, OMG, he was sad all over–and was probably clinically depressed. I felt suicidal just watching poor Eeyore. Seriously, something bad must have happened to Eeyore as a child like he ran off a cliff with a bus full of kids or something.

And then there was Charlie Brown. He was dealt with a heavy dose of real life. Charlie Brown demonstrated the struggle, pain and downright misery of childhood. He never received a Valentine’s card. His dog could not remember his name. He was always picked last for the team. Basically, Charlie Brown is a loser.

And last, there was Olive Oil, Popeye’s girlfriend. she had one of cartoon’s first eating disorders. She was an anorexic. She never even ate Popeye’s spinach (unless forced to when she was completely unconscious due to some villain–like many of us with eating disorders will do)

It is no wonder that so many of us are screwed up. Look at the cartoon characters we grew up with. Adults that were most likely crazy (OK clinically diagnosed) wrote the scripts. And thus predisposed us to what would inevitably become our future. No, I’m not saying the cartoons caused this…just saying that our world in which we lived in…

“All the kings horses…” The Doctors, Psychiatrist, Therapist could not put us back together. We became society’s misfits–living in hell within our soul–tormented constantly.

Gloom and doom. Our vision skewed by our depression glossed glasses.

For even on Eeyore’s happiest day (Birthday) he could not muster up a happy sentiment. For maybe, I am not much different. I always wait for the shoe to drop and if it does not, I will perhaps throw the shoe myself.

If it isn’t enough to worry…I worry about tomorrow when today hasn’t even passed. Old Mother Hubbard was so poor her cupboards were bare. What will I do if tomorrow doesn’t provide? Yes, I worry.

And then there is us alcoholics. Homer Simpson. “Beer” the cause of and solution to life’s problems.” He kids that beer is for daddies and kids with fake IDs.  My husband says the difference between alcoholics and drunks…one goes to meetings. I go to meetings. I am an alcoholic, recovering drug addict.

The Lord says, Worry not. Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

I try to believe… to trust… I even pray about it… Mark 9:24 “…I do believe; but please help my unbelief.”

Today, I stumble, I fall and I wait. For the King—Jesus to put me together again.

me

How Will I Die?

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on May 17, 2018 by Her Broken Wing
I’m an addict, I can never be forgiven… Right?! I feel less than worthy of being able to do God’s work. How stinkin self-righteous that is! I know more than God?

(Luke 23:39-43)39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[a]

43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

John 3:15)”…that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”

As A Hospice Nurse, I heard that question often. But this particular  time I will hold onto the question with a whole new meaning and a special love.My sweet patient looked down at the floor wringing his hands, finally having the courage to ask me “the” hardest question, yet. I could sense something had been bothering him during our last few visits. I could see it in his eyes. “How will I die?”He is an intelligent man, spoke 7 languages but lost that ability due to cancer, so I knew he would expect the details. As I began sharing the process of dying, I could feel “A” presence overtake us. I may perhaps say that God filled the room. I just know it. He took over the situation. Peace filled the apprehensive uncertainties that crept into my mind.Nearing the end of my explanation of death and dying, I told my patient (and friend) that one thing I have noticed was that all my patients are given an incredible peace in the perfect time nearing the end. However, my patients thus far have been Christians. Well, maybe exaggerated a bit. I have heard stories of patients passing that were not Christians that were less than peaceful but I have not personally experienced it so I could not share that.He then said, “Well, I just might be your first.” First what?, I asked. “First nonbeliever .”  HmmI felt my heart just sink into my toes. I had given him several Christian books to read and he had “enjoyed” them so I just assumed…. Now, he looked at me with such sadness. He told me that he wasn’t worthy. Well, I sure get that. He had never led a life that God would be proud of. He did not attend church much. And the list grew. But he said, “I’m not a bad person. I just didn’t work for God.I asked him if he had read the Bible or parts of it. And then I asked him if he believed in it. He said, “Yes.” I asked him if he believed that Jesus was the Son of God and again he said, “Yes.” So I did have a foundation to work with as I talked to him.We went on for some time, God giving me the words, scripture and the peace to share. I finally asked my patient if the thief on the Cross had time for works, church and all the things he had listed and through his tears he cried, “No.”

The words shared were…Supernatural… and from our Heavenly Father…. I was a partaker.

He said, “I have some thinking to do.” And I asked him what he felt he needed to think about. I said, “Would you like to receive Christ as your Savior now? I can help you do that and I would be honored.” He nodded yes. There we held hands. His mom, a Godly woman, sat across the room. And we prayed to receive Christ.

I believe I heard Heaven rejoice.

Interestingly, as I shared this with my family (of course, leaving the name confidential), my 12 year-old son asked if we were going to baptize him. Well, duh! Why didn’t I think of that? So this week our Chaplain is going to baptize him. I’m not sure who is more excited, him or me.

How will I die? My sweet one, you won’t—you have eternal life now!

living the supernatural

Me

The Year of Color

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on May 6, 2018 by Her Broken Wing

The pain was born inside. Instead of letting the hatred become stagnant and making me stronger, it left me divided. More like pieces. More like a tiny million little pieces.

For so long my world was a hazy gray not because there was no color in resentment, but because my heart beat cold, odorless blood that ran through my veins, especially with things that have stroked my soul painfully.

My calloused heart blocked out any rays cast from the sun. It seems forgiveness  eluded me when it came to the shadows of my past. Had I sinned? Absolutely. Then this scripture came to me, “Then they reminded Jesus that adultery was punishable by stoning under the Law and challenged Him.” Then judge the woman so that they might accuse him of disobeying the Law.” Then replied, “He that is without sin among us, you let him cast the first stone at her.” John 8:7

Resent who? Maybe me. After all, I am terminally unique meaning my sins are greater than yours. Making my relationship with God that much closer. Resentment is a toxic feeling that can eat at my mind little by little. I have found that living in dysfunctional mind games it’s like a drug, it is a high.  

Whether it is good or bad, it’s there. Since mine is usually painful, it starts, anger flare. So I’m super bitter, which is usually the case, I spew my inner hurt and anger. And sometimes I say things where the person I resent can hear. I try not to be blatantly  ruthless or cruel. No, I’m discreetly mean.

Recently, there was a situation that had occurred. I was “nail-spitten mad”. It was later that I realized it wasn’t so much the person I was mad at but my spouse for making light of the situation. SMH

Resentment wears many different masks in the battle for compassion, needing validation.

“Resentment is like a poison to a relationship. It kills off the yummiest part of intimacy-namely, empathy” Psy. today

In AA there is a resentment prayer. I pray for peace, health, happiness and prosperity for the person I have grown to resent. I pray until the animosity has lifted  or lessened.

I give it to God. “Why do I carry my burdens to the cross but I never leave them.” Romans 8:1

And pray til my world carries bright hues of colors. Auras of happiness. Forgiveness.

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In my year of Color

Connie