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Use Your Weapon

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on May 22, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I discussed with a dear friend the other day some concerns regarding addiction. She wanted to know more about alcohol and drug dependence, specifically. Ironically, I recently had become aware of how little people really do know about this illness. My friend is dealing with someone in her family that is chemically dependent.  Although she does not suffer from chemical dependency at this point, she does suffer from a type of addiction–food. She is obese. She also understands how susceptible she is to many of the disease I will mention and addiction as well.

Most people just do not understand this illness so they become the sideline spectator. It’s like when I sit on the sidelines of a football game. All of a sudden, I become the expert referee, coach and player when truthfully I don’t know much about the game. My outbursts come during many excitable moments of the game. It is easier to yell from the bleachers and say, “Just don’t do it” especially if you really do not understand the dynamics of this game (illness).

I have a great personal interest invested into this disease–for many personal reasons other than just myself but I will leave it at that. So recently I did some research and found an article on addiction. I also consulted with several medical professionals who deal with this malady on a daily basis.  I have developed great faith and trust in the information the physicians provided regarding “Indulgences of the chemical kind!”

Thus, one of the first things counselors and addiction researcher’s stress about drug and alcohol dependency is that it is a disease, not a simple choice. Though people may decide to try drugs or may be treated for chronic pain, consequently an addict is born at the first pill. Addiction is now a physical and mental need.

“There IS a point in time where it IS a choice – but that window is very narrow,” Most of the time, people do not even realize they are addicted to the medication until they are at a point of no return or usually still in treatment for their ailment, said Wyoming Valley counselor James Crossan,  a recovered addict himself.

Crossan leaned forward. “People don’t pick  drug addiction or alcoholism.” Dr. Charles Dackis explains addiction as a disease of the brain’s award center– Kind of like food, pornography, the constant need for Atta-boys, church over-achievers and the list is infinite.

Is addiction hereditary? Yes…it can be… but it doesn’t have to be.

Do not let people tell you that you cannot beat this, you can. If you have failed a million times, who is to say you were to make your miracle at a million and one? People can be cruel, they will use our disease as a weapon against us but God uses our weakness to strengthen us. (2 Corinthians1:3-5; Matthew 11:28-20)

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2Corinthians 12:9)

Use your weapon!!

Beautifully Awkward

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Signed By God

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on May 2, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I have made some really dumb decisions over the past years. However, most of the decisions I have made in my life have been based on my security scale rating for that day. I can tell you it has never been very high.  If I was feeling rather low (which was most days), my choice in any matter, would tend to run on the self-destructive side. The result was either me trying to sweep the left over crumbs of my behavior under the rug or just pretend the situation never occurred.  Out of sight, out of mind!!

It really took most my life to figure out that my poor decisions equaled the level of my insecurity, thus, causing total misery. Early on in my drug use, I made every attempt to stop.  Every morning when I woke up it was the same conversation with God. I promise to do better. And I did mean it– But as the years rolled by, I eventually quit trying. Why bother, it was the same story every morning. Shame had overtaken me. I fell deeper and deeper into depression.

Once I quit trying, I realized this only compounded my wretchedness. I could no longer see God’s face. I was too ashamed of myself and what He thought of me.(I did not know He could still see my face. I was like the small child closing their eyes so their parents could not see them. I was no different.)

I have heard it said ( I believe Beth Moore), “Pain is easier than purposelessness.” I understand this now. I had lost my purpose in life…

I was no longer a wife to truly speak of…I was no longer managing our home. I slept too much.

I was a terrible parent. I was missing my children s functions at school while they are so young.

My identity as a nurse was gone.

Everything I knew… was gone.

I was no longer fearful of any type of pain… In a sick sense, I felt I deserved it. When I got sick or hurt, I welcomed it and I challenged it because I felt like it was warranted as my punishment.

So now that I am on a journey of healing, I am better but I still have days that I struggle with the security scales… I have days that I base my acceptance of how others receive and perceive me.  I am still learning to turn this over to God and leave it in His lap… for good.

I have to understand that those around me are on their own journeys and however I may have hurt them in the past or that it may have nothing to do with me,it may just take time. I have a tendency to want things back to normal….a sap. But then do I really? For to go back to where I was, would mean death.

So today, I come as a blank slate before God…. I let Him write my life with His words…

In the Hands of God

Beautifully Awkward

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Beautifully Awkward

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on April 27, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I remember when I was in my twenties; I walked out of the church and for absolutely no apparent reason fell flat on my face. It felt like I was in one of those cartoons and I was going down in slow motion. When I hit the ground, all I could think of was–Did anyone see me! Let’s face it—I was never given the gift of grace in a physical sense at least.

Years later, I was running with some friends and as I went to kick a rock, I missed the rock, went flying into the air and twisted my ankle, again—not very graceful. My friends pulled me aside into a pile of leaves while they went to get the car, little did they know they left me in a bed of ants.

Oh, my stories are endless.

Unfortunately the humor eventually began to fade. These past few years when I began to have more and more car accidents (fender benders mostly), my family just assumed it was my typical lack of grace. We laughed it off initially.  But in time, my husband began to get concerned and he started probing into my stories, just not too deep. I think he was afraid of what he might find. And I was not going to tell him. I’m not sure I could.

One night a show came on called Intervention. It was about drug-addicts and helping them come clean. The husband on the show discussed how many car accidents his wife had recently had and how he believed her stories in the beginning.  She tried to pass the accidents off as being distracted with the children. For a while, he bought into her stories.

My husband watched the show intently.    I… Held…My… Breath.

I will never forget the look on my husband’s face. I knew then he knew. It wasn’t long after that before everything about my nightmarish life came bursting forth from the darkness (Eph. 5:8-14). And I have never seen such a horrendous obsession destroy someone –who had everything– in such an unbelievable force and swiftness. It left me breathless.

And I was down for the count. I had fallen from grace. I was as awkward as the day I fell in front of hundreds at church .

And now, I wondered—did anyone see me fall!

And then as I was as low as I could go, I looked up, and there were these beautiful hands reaching for me…And I heard Him whisper– Beautifully Awkward –you are my daughter.

Given a new grace…I have come to love myself so that I may now love you.

Beautifully Awkward

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In My Father’s Hand

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on April 24, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

In my Father’s hand, I sit…I wait.

I pray.

And I am thankful for the life He gave back to me.

In a sense, I have been born again.

My wings are broken beyond repair in such a way they are irreparable.

I cannot fly, nor do I wish to.

I rest

I will be back in a few days…

(and thank you my friend at Little Red Hearts for doing this picture for me)

God Bless

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Drowning in the Sea of People Pleasing

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on April 22, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I remember when I was younger and I went out for a swim. The waters were a little rough that day but very inviting. So I decided to take a swim and soon I lost track of how far I had swam out. The winds had picked up and so did the waves. The undercurrent was also getting rough so I decided to swim back to the beach. As I began to swim back in, I began to kick harder against the waves. I realized I was having trouble because of the worsening weather conditions, so I starting to assess how I could get in to the beach without drowning. Within seconds, out of nowhere, a man came up from behind me hysterically flailing around in the water and grabbed a hold of me. He was in a panic. At this point, we were both going to drown.  I had seen in the movies where the person hits the flailing person in the head and knocks them out so he/or she could drag the other person in. Well, I don’t think I was going to be able to carry that off. I didn’t have the strength to even hold my head above water. Thank God, someone saw what was happening and saved us both.

My life has been a lot like the time in the water, except I believe I have become the flailing person. I have held onto people in my life to the point of drowning, all for that last bit of approval. I was living in the sea of people pleasing, drowning in my own fears. Over and over again these past years, I have been faced with almost an identical situation. It has taken me F.O.R.E.V.E.R. and a million drugs to realize that there is something more important out there for me. I have also learned thus far— that I have to let God show me what those things are in which I have spent my life running from. I can be very stubborn and it has cost me almost everything, including my life.

Little did I know I would have to lose my life in a sense to gain it (Matthew 16:24). There is was a particular person in my life that wreaked havoc.  From the very first day I met her till the day we parted ways, it was pretty much a nightmare.   She is a negative, conniving, and undermining of what people do or tried to do. She is a major gossiper; and well, she is just downright evil.  Everyone talks about her and how bad it is (even her boss) but they buddy up with her so they can stay on her good side– Myself included. Basically, she is an adult bully. And I would get so angry at times, I wanted to tell God just to beat her up.

For some reason, I felt it necessary to grab a hold of her struggles and sink with her. I grabbed a hold of her own sinking vessel, as I had the lame idea that she could somehow rescue my identity– Pull me to shore.  What a bizarre and warped idea– I know– but I kept searching for my self-worth in all the wrong places. It reminds me of the country and western song, “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” I would say that was fitting.

Why do I do this? Well, that is something I am working on now (for my journey is young—as all of us) but I do know it has nothing to do with this person.  She is only a symptom of a much bigger disease. And now that I have removed her from my life, I am much happier.  One of my many lessons God has revealed is that although I do need to learn to love everyone, I don’t have to like them. The biggest change in my life came when I started praying for this person. She obviously needs love.

I heard a friend say today…

It’s not in the finding of God but in the daily seeking…

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Mirror Mirror On The Windshield

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on April 13, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I ran into a “friend” the other day at the grand Ol’ Publix while I was listening to some Grand Ol’ Opry music playing in the background and trying to focus on my much-needed grocery shopping. Fate would have it of course as this would be the one time I chose not to wear make-up, looking my very worse. Why does this always happen? I Knew the minute I jumped into my car, I would look in the mirror to see how bad it really was!!

Anyway, I hadn’t talked to my friend since she tried to help me find a job. She must have felt bad because she tried to avoid me. Make-up or not, I was going to take her down approach her. I was curious to what had transpired since our last conversation.  Truth is I had been hurt. I would rather someone call me and tell me ‘no’, than not call me. It’s the not knowing that drives me crazy.

Today, she said she had been thinking about me and was still working on the Director of Nursing.  But as of now, the Director of Nursing was firm in her stance that she would not hire another “Impaired nurse.” When those two words rolled out of her mouth, they came with such might; it felt like an army of terrorists, they shot down every last humbled soldier in my body.

Humbled!   Humiliated! Stripped of my dignity…My identity had always been that I was a great nurse. And in a split second that changed. I became “damaged goods” because of a label, a disease—treatable if monitored like any other malady but at this point who cared.

Standing in front of my friend, speechless–“Impaired nurse”—echoed in my head!! I’m not sure I heard anything else she said. A visual before me of someone on crutches, bandaged up and quite retarded. Although I have been known to fit this description on occasions, I don’t think this is a true account of my disease …

Looking up the definition, this is what I came up with for I.N. (impaired nurse) — Impaired nurses are considered the victims of chemical substance abuse such as alcohol, narcotics, drugs or any other substances that support mood alteration. Notice the word “Victim.” Nowhere does it say moral defect, flaw in character, a criminal, or traitor to the profession.

The unspoken definition is we are fragile merchandise; tender spirits, high achievers and we are victims to a disease that just needs to be managed. Yes, some of us have committed crimes by diverting (someone who steals drugs from patients, pharmacies or other sources)drugs, or come to work intoxicated.  But guys, that is the drugs—the disease…having been clean now, I am appalled myself at things I used to do. I needed help. I need help. I will always need help.

I am learning through my experience the employer’s standpoint. They fear litigation which often makes it easier to not bother with saving a great nurse with many years of experience.

The current punitive system creates barriers to reporting and keeps impaired nurses from getting help. This is distressing. Sadly, if I knew what I know now, I would have definitely gone a different route. I have been persecuted for a crime of saying, “I need help.” The system in place is not a true “advocacy” program.

As I got back into my car and looked in the mirror (remember I had to check on my make-up situation or lack of) and it finally hit me, I was seeing where I had been and I don’t want to forget that. But it is time to move forward, shift gears, to drive and to change the course of my life, maybe I will find something even bigger.

Someday I hope to be able to change the world’s image of us—the impaired nurse, God willing.

For today, my saving grace to this new passage was and will be filtered through my Father’s hand for He is working this to His good…Romans 8:28

Today, I am a better person for it…

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Li”e”bility

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on April 11, 2010 by Her Broken Wing


(Job 34:6)  “Although I am right, I am considered a liar; although I am guiltless, his arrow inflicts an incurable wound.’’

I still remember the haunting pain caused by a friend’s parent that became one of the many chisels which broke my spirit. I didn’t understand why it hurt so badly then. Today, that same pain has come back to life, 41 years later.

I was with my friend and his parents, we were listening to Three Dog Night on the radio when the song, Liar, came on; their dad said, “There is so&so, they are singing about you, /—ME in other words– /she’s a liar.” My friend’s dad wasn’t kidding around either. He looked through my soul like he knew something I didn’t. I subconsciously thought then how I would never forget that look.

At the moment he called me a liar, my world stopped. The pain was so severe, tears welled up in my eyes and I had to turn away, but I did what I learned early in my childhood years—laughed it off and made a joke of it.  I prayed the day would soon be over,  hurried home, and I told no one. Telling someone in my home, would only put my shame and embarrassment under a microscope. My parents would ask, “What did you do to cause this?”  It was always my fault. So, I went to my room and silently cried myself to sleep.

Fast forward some decades later, “She took those pills from her patient.” My world started spinning, and I was 9 years-old again, the same pain and embarrassment as a little girl. I wanted to run home and hide. I couldn’t laugh it off this time as not a soul was laughing. Everyone was looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“Well, did you?” My supervisors asked one more time.

The truth is—I did not take anyone’s drugs but I abused mine. So regardless–I was a liar. I learned fast that as a drug-addict, you are automatically considered a liar. They go hand in hand. Your credibility goes down the toilet. Because–we are!

How did my friend’s dad know as a little girl? … Why would the memory come flooding back in my mind like a damn breaking loose?

I was a liar.  (Jn 8:44)

I ran home, buried my head in my pillow and cried buckets—and there wasn’t facing any  dragons or demons for my children, I couldn’t be their hero, I had my own villains and I couldn’t seem to manage them.

In reality, I have lied to a lot of people through the years, especially my family. My spouse would ask me over the past year, “Are you taking drugs?” and I would look aghast, “Of course, not.”

“Liar”—Three Dog Night– ran through my veins…cold, calculating, and numbing … I had come to a point that I could lie and no longer feel any remorse. That is a scary place to be.

You can plug in any disease here–drugs, alcohol, pornography, food, lying, anger, work, shopping and really anything that takes away your worship from God or causes you to lie or “fudge” the truth a “little”.

We are prisoners to our own cell. Locked away from the place where we think God will meet us.

So what happened?

One morning, I woke up and got out of bed. Just like every morning, I prayed but unlike every morning, I heard Gods whisper, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (Jn 8:32)

It was nothing I did, but everything He did…

As always, To Be Con’t

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I Regret To Inform You

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on April 8, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

“Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13b)

Another day came; and I just lie there in my room listening to the bustling of life continue on without me. I was too tired, too drugged. I couldn’t get out of the nightmarish cycle I was living. Not only did shame eat away at my soul but the prevailing emotion of regret. I had lived with such sorrow over my life passing me by. The life as I knew it could be.

We all have had serious regrets in our life time. But when we feel are responsible for our own destiny, it makes the pain worse. I remember as a child, how strong the emotion of regret could be. I recall how magnified my emotions were as child? Just like the time I was on a scavenger hunt and walked right by the prize only to have someone walk behind me and find the reward. How devastated I was.  I had tremendous regret, “If only I had looked closer…” As a child, the sting of regret could linger for a long time.

My pain the past ten years was no different. Maybe because I had been in the habit of numbing myself, I am just now able to experience feelings–good and bad!

Regret attached itself to my soul and has not easily let go.

The law of nature is clear; we cannot be in two places at one time. If I live in my regret, I cannot move forward. For a long time, I just didn’t get that. I would perch myself on my pretty little throne of self-righteousness (see my addiction was still in the closet) as I tried to fix whatever current issues were most pressing–usually determined by–what caused me the most pain! I dealt with this by sending out letters (or emails) to those that hurt me. Maybe if I could make them feel bad, they would feel bad enough to come to my place and beg forgiveness. After all, this (“this” being –anything and everything) wasn’t my fault. Or I would play the self-pity card game, come, sit at my table and I’ll serve us tea and cookies.  Soon, no one wanted to join in any “my reindeer games.” My friends and family had a life. I was on my own island… The Island of Shame and Regret.

In my loneliness, through my tears and whispers, I began to cry out– Father Almighty. It was because of my extreme brokenness and my nothingness that I finally knew what it meant to give it all to Him, but all I had left was a worn-out, broken and shattered resemblance of a shell of my life.

So I did.

Gave it all. Piece by piece…crumb by crumb. (Drugs and all)

That night, I slept.

I dreamed.

I woke.

I was released from the bondage of regret. The scales of shame covering my eyes fell so that I could see.  I finally understood—the scripture:

“I was blind and now I see.” (Jn 9:6-7)

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In Search Of Me

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on April 5, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

I know I have talked a good bit about shame. But shame became the obsession in my life that kept me from freedom. It is one of the most powerful emotions known to mankind. It is a binding entity to our spirit that won’t let go. It is present in the healthiest of people.

So why is shame like a cancer that if not taken care of will grow and take over our soul? Because it comes from Satan. But he will present it in its pretty little package making it look like we deserve it. Sure I brought this on myself. I am the reason for all my troubles. This isn’t a disease. it is a character defect. I am a moral failure.

“I just can’t help you” may have been the most painful words I have ever heard. When I was coming forward to get help, most of my friends and family stepped up to the plate. But there were some very important people who did not. And those words “I just can’t help you” or even just the silence (which is sometimes worse) cut through my heart like a knife. I was left standing there bleeding. The pain was at times almost too great. When the words hit my soul, I bit my lip as if I could stop the tears but my eyes would fill with tears. My pain seeped through my eyes. And soon, I couldn’t stop the pain. I began to cry rivers. And then the ugly heaving chest thing began. Snorting, and all that stuff. It’s really ugly!

Why were those words so painful? They knew! Why does our exposed life revealed send us unraveling? Was I embarrassed, had my self-worth been challenged, yes but also my weaknesses had been exposed and put under a microscope. Were they saying, I’m not worth saving? Or she is one of those.  Tickets were free for those that wished to see the woman, who had fallen from grace. “Did you know that she…?”

Can you just imagine the pain? I sat alone for many days, wondering if life was worth it. I had reached true brokenness. I understood disparity in its pureness.

Shame had become a backdrop to my life now. I had been robbed of true happiness and joy. I had been robbed of the abundant life. (Jn 10:10)

Until one day I woke up and my hungry soul needed food. Searching for  morsels of life, I found something.  My facades were not working any way. God kept sending people and situations my way–so just maybe God did love me. Soon, I found a few more crumbs of God’s Word. And they tasted good. Those few bites increased my desire for more.

And my search began.

Her Broken Wing Princess

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And The Rock Rolled Away

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on April 4, 2010 by Her Broken Wing

HAPPY EASTER...

The Daughter of the King

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