I read a simple statement today that got me to thinkin' about how I view my prayer life. In a book I'm reading it said that "Expressing thoughts and feelings may help us feel better, but prayer is not simply a divine therapy session. In prayer, the God of creation gives us direction."
I believe it is important to talk to God about how we feel, and what's going on in our mind. Lately though, I find myself stopping after I complain, or cry, or vent. I've forgotten how important it is to ask God for his direction, how to handle the pain, what's next in my life, etc.
God is soo much more than a sounding board and I need to remember that!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
It is what it is
*This is a rated R post for sexual content*
For the last few months I have been reading thru Captivating with a friend, have been doing devotionals from a book called Fearless, and recently began counseling again. My life is saturated with digging and prying, and finding the causes of the wounds.
I have had amazing counseling sessions and then I have had ones where it was like running up against a brick wall. I have had the most disturbing of dreams, that I believe came from God, and then again I've had nights where I slept so very peacefully. I still am not able to attend a church service (just the so so one that I am required to bring my children to every Sunday morning).
Today, instead of working backwards (looking into my childhood to explain my life now) my brain started to relive and be completely absorbed in my california life. My internship in California brought about many of it's own struggles, but none of them were as hard to recover from as the relationship that occurred while I was out there. One of my "wounds" and "self talk" and "fears" is that if I am not offering a man physical pleasure, he will not stay around, and that it's the only way I can hold his interest. No wound was pried into more, than that wound. I went 4 months without having many friends - male or female - and then a lady finally set me up on a date. We spent the whole evening hanging out, talking, listening to Christian music and when it got time to be dropped off, we started kissing. THe next night he came over late and spent the night and we had sex, let me rephrase that, he penetrated me. I had said no, when he had made the suggestion - but an hour later, there he was, on top of me- what was I to do? I felt like crap, i cried, I couldn't sleep - it had been 4 years since I had actually had sex, and now in one night that record was gone.
Despite talking about it with him, it happened again. Yet, I continued to call him, he brought me lunches and dinners. We went to the movies and the beaches. He came to church with me every Sunday morning. After all, it had to be consensual cuz I never said "no". I was tired of it, I wanted something real, something meaningful. He told me that he loved me, and wanted to marry me and blah blah blah. We did good for like a month, and then after a long talk about not wanting to anymore, that I was afraid, he said he understood. That was, until the next day. I asked him to stop, I said no -nicely- but he still got what he wanted. All in that moment I simply wished i was dead.
Every little fear from any previous relationship all came rushing forward. I had let this happen, it was my fault, I deserved it. All my years of being a teenager I had wondered what it was like to be raped (cuz my cousin was continually raped by her boyfriends) and when I was younger, I thought that if something traumatic like that happened to me that maybe it would explain the rest of my depression.
Well here it was, it was rape. I lost the energy to fight. He never left a mark on me, he never hit me, but he did take something from me that I wasn't ready to give him.
In all my insecurities and my fears, I stayed with him. Sure we argued about it, sure I said I felt like I was raped but of course he didn't agree.Of course we argued daily when I didn't want to kiss him, when I told him I didn't trust him, when I told him I didn't love him. But every day he was there, and he kept calling.
So, it is what it is - I was raped. I never told anyone. How do you tell someone that? I may have told one person, and that person didn't have much to say.
Why does it matter? It matters because I can't move on from it. It matters because I'm still stuck in that place, in those fears and emerged in that wound. I haven't forgiven him and I haven't really moved on. Instead I've had sexual escapades with guys from my past to try and fill that hurtful void, I've watched other people having sex- to feel their pain and get pleasure without doing it myself - and I've held onto shallow relationships in an attempt to find meaning again.
In the last few weeks I have tired - I've stopped talking with guys who only want to talk about sex, I've taken phone numbers out of my phone, and I've told a few people to stop calling.But removing myself from the situation is not really enough. All I've done is escaped and avoided the pain. I'm not sure how to face the pain and move forward.
What is it going to look like to forgive and begin to move forward? Forgive him, and forgive myself? To de-saturate my brain from these thoughts and images? To take back the life I was meant to have?
For the last few months I have been reading thru Captivating with a friend, have been doing devotionals from a book called Fearless, and recently began counseling again. My life is saturated with digging and prying, and finding the causes of the wounds.
I have had amazing counseling sessions and then I have had ones where it was like running up against a brick wall. I have had the most disturbing of dreams, that I believe came from God, and then again I've had nights where I slept so very peacefully. I still am not able to attend a church service (just the so so one that I am required to bring my children to every Sunday morning).
Today, instead of working backwards (looking into my childhood to explain my life now) my brain started to relive and be completely absorbed in my california life. My internship in California brought about many of it's own struggles, but none of them were as hard to recover from as the relationship that occurred while I was out there. One of my "wounds" and "self talk" and "fears" is that if I am not offering a man physical pleasure, he will not stay around, and that it's the only way I can hold his interest. No wound was pried into more, than that wound. I went 4 months without having many friends - male or female - and then a lady finally set me up on a date. We spent the whole evening hanging out, talking, listening to Christian music and when it got time to be dropped off, we started kissing. THe next night he came over late and spent the night and we had sex, let me rephrase that, he penetrated me. I had said no, when he had made the suggestion - but an hour later, there he was, on top of me- what was I to do? I felt like crap, i cried, I couldn't sleep - it had been 4 years since I had actually had sex, and now in one night that record was gone.
Despite talking about it with him, it happened again. Yet, I continued to call him, he brought me lunches and dinners. We went to the movies and the beaches. He came to church with me every Sunday morning. After all, it had to be consensual cuz I never said "no". I was tired of it, I wanted something real, something meaningful. He told me that he loved me, and wanted to marry me and blah blah blah. We did good for like a month, and then after a long talk about not wanting to anymore, that I was afraid, he said he understood. That was, until the next day. I asked him to stop, I said no -nicely- but he still got what he wanted. All in that moment I simply wished i was dead.
Every little fear from any previous relationship all came rushing forward. I had let this happen, it was my fault, I deserved it. All my years of being a teenager I had wondered what it was like to be raped (cuz my cousin was continually raped by her boyfriends) and when I was younger, I thought that if something traumatic like that happened to me that maybe it would explain the rest of my depression.
Well here it was, it was rape. I lost the energy to fight. He never left a mark on me, he never hit me, but he did take something from me that I wasn't ready to give him.
In all my insecurities and my fears, I stayed with him. Sure we argued about it, sure I said I felt like I was raped but of course he didn't agree.Of course we argued daily when I didn't want to kiss him, when I told him I didn't trust him, when I told him I didn't love him. But every day he was there, and he kept calling.
So, it is what it is - I was raped. I never told anyone. How do you tell someone that? I may have told one person, and that person didn't have much to say.
Why does it matter? It matters because I can't move on from it. It matters because I'm still stuck in that place, in those fears and emerged in that wound. I haven't forgiven him and I haven't really moved on. Instead I've had sexual escapades with guys from my past to try and fill that hurtful void, I've watched other people having sex- to feel their pain and get pleasure without doing it myself - and I've held onto shallow relationships in an attempt to find meaning again.
In the last few weeks I have tired - I've stopped talking with guys who only want to talk about sex, I've taken phone numbers out of my phone, and I've told a few people to stop calling.But removing myself from the situation is not really enough. All I've done is escaped and avoided the pain. I'm not sure how to face the pain and move forward.
What is it going to look like to forgive and begin to move forward? Forgive him, and forgive myself? To de-saturate my brain from these thoughts and images? To take back the life I was meant to have?
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