Monday, March 31, 2008

Pushing through the pain

4:31 PM by Christi Bowman

About a month ago, Seth Barnes came to speak in Chicago. I believe God sent Seth to Chicago for Kevin and I! He spoke that day On dying happy...and he had three points. His first point to dying happy was to dream God's dreams, and his second point was to push past the pain that can make it impossible to fully live out God's dreams, and experience true joy. As Seth said those words, tears started rolling down my cheeks...I know a lot about pain. I knew that I had been dreaming God's dreams...but was I ready to deal with the abuse in my past? I wasn't sure...and I didn't even know if I was capable of pushing past it. I did tell God that He would REALLY have to help me with this one.

My daughter had spring break last week, and I decided we would go to Nashville, Tn to visit my parents. Nashville is a very hard place for me to return to. My parents moved there my SENIOR YEAR in high school. There were MANY things wrong with that situation, and it was there that I started to grow up and see reality for what it really was. Before this, my mom was my best friend. She knew everything about me...I told her everything, I would ditch dates with friends, and dates with boyfriends to hang out with her...I would have just rather been with her. I didn't start out doing anything hardcore, but I was raised in a pretty intolerant conservative Christian household...where anything outside their norm was unacceptable. My mother was VERY intolerant of the changes I was making, and I began to see our relationship as unhealthy. This woman was SO controlling she would tell me how to dress, how to look, who to date, and how to play games...with EVERYONE. Her favorite sayings were "when in Rome do as the Romans do"...or "Be all things to all people". My mom was a HUGE advocate of masks..."never let anyone REALLY know who you are" she would say to me. She used to use her "friendship" against me, and act "hurt" if I disagreed with her, or questioned her and her motives in any way. I began to see how controlling she was and always had been. She was my "friend" as long as I did what she wanted me to do...and the second I began thinking for myself, her "friendship" was withdrawn. The withdrawal of her love, and acceptance created a HUGE hole, and sent me QUICKLY looking for ANYONE who would take her place. I fell in with a wrong, but very accepting crowd, and did MANY things to hurt her after that. She has never forgiven me, and has never allowed our relationship to heal...and to this day brings up a past that I would give anything to be allowed to forget.

My dad was, and still is a mean and ANGRY person...a VERY angry person. Most of the childhood memories I have of him are of him yelling his head off. I mostly just tried to stay out of his way. His nickname for me was Tubby Tina. I was anorexic through junior high and high school partly because of him. He would ALWAYS have something to say about my weight...ALWAYS. My 90 something year old grandpa lives with my parents now, and my dad SCREAMED at him on several occasions while I was there...once for wearing his bathrobe in the house. He constantly does his part to remind me, whenever I am around him, of how much I hurt the family by my actions at 18 continuing through choosing my husband over them.

My parents, when I was much younger, put my brother and I into a VERY abusive daycare setting. There, I was physically, sexually, and emotionally abused. We would BEG our parents not to send us there. We would carry on at the door where we were "lovingly" pulled from our mom only to be screamed at and hit once the door closed. We were hit for spilling, hit for having accidents...given impossible rules to follow, and hit once they were broken. I remember my brother being sent home black and blue...but we ALWAYS went back. The man used to keep me locked in his bedroom for hours...and touch me before spanking me. We were told we were ugly, dirty, rotten, useless, and good for nothing. To this day my brother and I will talk about how awful that place was to go to...and to this day my parents deny that anything ever happened. My mom will say "Pat and Lucy loved you...they went to church with us...they would NEVER have hurt you. It has been so long you guys don't even remember...you have created this in your head", and that is the end of the discussion. My parents are allowed to talk about, make fun of, and belittle my past...and yet I have been continually shut down when I want to talk about how they have hurt me...so yes...it is hard to return home...but occasionally I do it.

This visit was no exception...it was stressful from the beginning. My dad made me feel bad when I wanted to make the room my baby was sleeping in darker. The next day he made a big show of a LOADED weapon he carries on his person...by DROPPING it on a hardwood floor...in front of my children. Next, they FORCE my 18 month old to sit in a high chair and SCREAM at Chuck E. Cheese...the WHOLE time we were there. I couldn't rescue him b/c they invited an acquaintance of theirs to talk to me at a different table about some things our kids MIGHT have in common. After that my mother LOST my kids at a PUBLIC park, by not paying attention to them when I wasn't there. I could go on, but you get the point. You may be asking why I never said anything to my parents while I was down there. My parents and I have a VERY strained relationship. There is ALWAYS tension. I used to get mad and scream about all the dysfunction...and call it like I saw it...but that would leave me an emotional wreck...and I would deal with it by getting REALLY drunk. I decided it never really did anything to them, and it just further hurt me...so I have instead decided to settle for a very surface relationship with my parents, and ignore everything...but I was VERY bothered by this visit, because the insanity is reaching the children.

Before the trip to Nashville, I had finally discovered relationship with God, and have become truly happy. My close friends who had seen this change in me warned me not to go to Nashville, but duty is duty and so I went anyway. While I was there, I had a hard time communing with God...it was definitely not what it was at home here in Chicago...and I kept asking God why. I was VERY shaken by the instantly resumed emotional abuse I felt from my parents...I felt like I was being sucked back into the insanity that I have worked so hard to overcome, and separate myself from. By watching my parents interact with my children, and scream at my helpless grandpa I was reduced to the abused little girl who was not allowed to have a separate thought of her own without losing the love of the only person she trusted. I relived every second of my childhood through adult eyes, and saw my parents for the emotional abusers they always have been. I believe that God knew it was my time to push through the pain. I have been battling addictions, because of feelings of worthlessness for YEARS now. Now I know why. I feel like I was sent through hell so I could better understand myself, forgive myself, accept God's forgiveness, and let go. From that experience I feel like I have come back a free person...knowing that
I am free from my past... God is enough!
I am free of struggling for love I'll never get... God is enough!
I am free to forgive... God is enough!
I NEVER have to go back there and experience that again.... God is enough!
GOD IS ENOUGH!
I think pushing through the pain is painful itself...because your not hiding from it...your dealing with it...facing it head on...but God sends you through it...and he goes with you...even if you can't feel him...because he knows there is freedom on the other side.

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