Tag Archive | Granndparent

When You Were Seven

Jun12

This past Sunday our Community Hour Class began its summer session; “Proverbs; Making the Wise Wiser”.

During the introduction, we were each asked to answer a couple of questions around our table.

These questions were meant as kind of an ice breaker, and a lead right in to the topic we are studying.

Well they were ice breakers to be sure, but to me one of these questions was so much more.  It sent me on another journey, into the background that makes me who I am.

All of the time I have spent on introspection, I would like to think that it is all finished.

As we have spoken of in a previous post, it will not be finished as long as we are here on this earth.

However, our Merciful Father in Heaven will allow no more than we can handle at any one time.

Each journey into our background and back out again, carries with it another piece of healing, filling in the puzzle that is us.

English: Puzzle Svenska: Pussel

Have you ever been putting a puzzle together and many pieces go together quickly?

Have you noted that in the very same puzzle, some can take a long time to place?

Each of these remaining pieces needs to be inspected.

They perhaps need to be held in your hand, and placed and replaced until the proper

place is found.

If you do not enjoy the process, you probably will never finish the puzzle.

The question we were asked, seemed very innocuous at the time it was asked, but the more I reflected on it, the more I could sense that this would not be over, just because the class was.

This pieced would have to be investigated closely.

Here are the questions;

* How many lived in your home when you were seven?

* Who was the warmest person in your life at that time?

Harmless questions right?

Well as the others spoke their answers, I sought my own answer to the question “Who was the warmest person in your life at that time?”

What I soon realized, was that I could not remember even one “warm” person in my life.

Were people supposed to be warm?

The only thing that came to my mind was that during my very young life, we used to travel every Sunday to my Grampas house in the country.

While there, I would climb the apple trees in his orchard and visit the hay mow in the barn.

Life was peaceful if only for a short time.

After dinner, I can recall clearly, sitting on my Grampas lap in his big comfy chair, eating popcorn out of an enamel roasting pan and watching Lawrence Welk.

I believe that was the safest, coziest, warmest spot I ever knew.

When the show was over, it was time to load up and go home.

My heart longed for our return the following week.

Those visits came to an abrupt end, when there was a misunderstanding between my Father and my Grandpa that got me a beating that today would have landed me in the hospital and my Father in jail.

Father never apologized and Grandpa would not let him return until he did.

I never got over the fact that it was my fault that we could not visit any more.

My warm person/spot was gone.

Grampa came to town to live with us several years later, after my Grandma died, and my Mother and Father divorced, but our relationship was never the same.

I knew it was my fault.

I didn’t find out until much later why it had changed so drastically, and that was that I had grown up, and he didn’t feel that hugging or snuggling with a girl my age was proper.

So NOT my fault.

But the damage was already done.

So.  After class, I was compelled to come and go through the family photos left here by my Mom.

There I found snapshots of brief moments of family life.  Brief shots.  Brief smiles.

I also, sadly, noticed that in nearly all of the photos of that time period, the smile never went to the eyes.

That sounds strange maybe, but it was there.  I saw it.

Here are two photos I found of myself.  In one of them, my favorite one, I was four.  See the light in the eyes?  They twinkled.

I think this may have been before I found out I was defective.

See the second photo?  Age seven.  Sad smile.  No twinkle.

I’m still processing what I see.

I’m still examining every piece.

With God’s help, and His alone, I will be able to fully place the truth, and go on to another piece.

Ladies and Gentlemen; here is the truth;

YOU ARE NOT DEFECTIVE!

AND NEITHER WAS I!

Psalm 139:13-16 (NIV1984)

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

 

Do not be afraid of the process.

Join me in placing the pieces where they rightly fit.

Let us hold God’s hands together,

And believe the truth.

John 8:32 (KJV)

32 And ye shall know the truth, and (He) the truth shall make you free.

*

Are You a Good Girl?

Sep7

After my mom and dad were divorced, and after my grandmother died, my grandfather came to live with us.

He needed to be needed and we needed the financial help. Two problems were solved at the same time.

I didn’t have much to say to him, but I always liked having him around. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t yell or hit me either. Ours was a quiet relationship.

There was one question however, that he would always ask me.

I truly never understood why he kept asking the same question over and over.

I never asked him why he kept asking.

I always felt shamed by my dad whenever I asked questions.

Just one simple, confusing question.

“Are you a good girl?”

So here’s the story.

Mom had to work to feed all of us, and she worked hard. She worked long hours to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, even with grandpas’ help.

I was just about eleven or twelve then with lots of free time on my hands.

I made up for my dad’s absence with acting out in school. I never stood still and never ever stopped talking.

In my earlier years, I acted the same, that’s a different issue, but at least I got my school work finished.

Now I only did enough school work to get a passing grade.

My classmates never gave me any time without tormenting me about something.

This only agitated me more and brought on more activity and loud talking. Kinetically speaking, I was all over the place!

It seemed the principal’s office would be my second home.

My mom was at her wit’s end. She didn’t know what to do with me.

She called my bio-dad. He said he would be glad to help her out.

So I got all packed up and shipped off to his house.

The dynamic at this house was very different.

Although the number of people was the same, I noted closeness between the kids that I had not known with my own siblings.

Bio-dad had a girlfriend too. She seemed only about twenty or so to me.

Even at my age, I knew her to be very young as well.

It seemed odd to me, but I didn’t know why.

By the third day of my arrival, I knew that my time here was to be like nothing I had experienced before.

Stories of odd occurrences were told to me by the other kids that lived there, and a harrowing incident with a puppy took place.

These other kids, my half siblings, appeared nonplussed by the whole stream of events.

This all seemed quite normal to them, a part of everyday life.

I had to wonder what kind of a normal this was.

Little did I know that abnormal for me was about to get worse.

Early morning visits from my bio-dad were my new norm.

I would tremble and shake with the fear of his appearing, and his making me do things I did not understand and that caused me great pain.

I was a hopeless child in a circumstance I had no power to control.

In all the stories my half siblings told me, this one was not included.

I’ll never forget the words he said to me.

At sometime during my visit, an older half-sister of mine found out somehow that I was there, and she contacted my mom and told her to get me out of there.

I do not know what she told her exactly, but I didn’t stay there more than a month, but alas, it was already too late. The damage had already been done.

I had no understanding about what was going on, but at the same time felt guilt for leaving, or for being taken back out of that place.

The guilt was for the fact that even in my naïve little heart, I knew that the others would be back in line after I was gone.

I had no opportunity for a while to see my Grampa, but sometime later, when I did, there in the kitchen, by the frig, he asked me that fateful question,

 “Are you a good girl?”

Instantly my eyes hit the floor between us.

I finally knew what that question meant, and I really wished I didn’t.

Has something taken place in your life that you were powerless to control?

Do you feel guilty?

Do you feel shame?

Do you wonder where God was?

Or why He allowed it to happen?

Of course you do. You would not be normal if you didn’t have these questions.

I have some things to say to you;

You are not guilty.

    The enemy of your soul saw to it that you would be overpowered by evil.

The shame does not belong to you.

              It belongs to the one that was party to such evil.

Know that God was there.

              It’s a bit inconceivable and a bit maddening at first to realize that He

              could have allowed it, that He knew about it.  That it was not a surprise.

You can be mad at Him if you want.

He is big enough to take it.

Then you will have a choice to make.

When you’re done being mad, you can crawl up in His lap, and He will show you just how important you and all of your history are to Him, and to someone else in the future who will need your help.

OR

You can walk away mad, and perhaps someone else will not be helped because your voice, your special voice, was the only one their ears could hear.

God was in the same place when His Precious Son Jesus was crucified on the cross. God knew, and Jesus did too, that the future of countless many was at stake, at the moment of Christ’s torture and death.

Evil tried to overpower Him, but it could not win.