Seeing through a glass darkly - or "get right with God"

In early 2010, my husband, now ex, told me he felt it was time for me to "get right with God".  This was part of an ongoing litany of how "broken" and "flawed" I was.  He said I needed to untether electronically and get away to really pray about my life, straighten myself out, and learn what it means to be a godly wife.  He magnanimously agreed that it was worth a three day getaway out on the Oregon coast for me, myself, and I to spend time with God.  So... I went. 

When I returned home three days later, it was after having had an epiphany, and I came home clear in my mind of truths that had gotten lost in my nearly 30 year marriage.  I was at peace for the first time I could recall in many many years.  

Even he noticed it.  He effusively praised the changes in my spirit... at first...then it shifted to anger. But then he didn't really understand what had taken place during my little get away that March of 2010.  

Let me tell you about that weekend where I walked in bracing winds near Cannon Beach.

Yes I prayed, I cried, I tried hard to get past the noise of all the things I had been hearing about me for so many years.

• You smell - you don't bathe enough, you don't use soap, your towels stink, why won't you take care of yourself.
• You don't do anything right - look at how you left lint in the dryer 20 years ago, you could have burned down the house
• You are fat - you lied to me about your athletics - you said you ran cross country, look at you now, you are no athlete.  
• Your hair looks like a mess, get a perm - that perm is smelly and looks terrible, fix your hair!
  
• You don't take care of the house, so we won't consider new furniture - since it's clear you'll just let it fall into shambles.
• You are a bad mother, how could you dare scream at your two year old (24 yrs old in 2010)....

The list had no end.   These tapes played back year over year over year.  A good Christian wife would obey her husband and would fix these flaws, but even when changes were made, I was told that it didn't count, that I was still fundamentally bad for all of the would haves-could haves-should haves that littered our world.  

I looked at the blowing sands, the clouds scudding across the sky, the line of mist that shrouded the shore line, and I prayed more, I cried more, read my Bible.  I sat in the hotel cottage - resting mind and soul, to listen, to ponder, to consider...

And then... I woke up... spiritually, emotionally ... to the LIE.  I finally saw that this wasn't about me.  This wasn't me that was broken.  I was being ABUSED.  Beaten and battered by words.  Words of destruction, demeaning, tearing me down day by day.  I read the passage about "seeing through the glass darkly" and knew that the glass was now clear.  

I prayed more, I knew finally that I was a child of God, and that "in Him there is no condemnation" - that the distortions of my identity were the sin, that my character had systematically been under assault as a way to make my husband feel powerful and in control.  That this was not how God sees me, nor what He intended for me.

So yes. I drove home, at peace, with clear boundaries defined about who I was, and who I was not, and that NO ONE had the right to demean me, tear me down, or destroy me.  I would stop the LIE, I would no longer be a party to it.  Either we could move forward, or we could not, but the destruction of my very soul would stop.

Two and a half years later, I stepped over the threshold and started my life over. I walked away from a thirty year marriage, and from the abuse.  It took me five more years to stop having panic nightmares of being terrorized and tortured, of trying to protect my children and myself from the never ending onslaught of how flawed I was or they were.  

A fellow victim of the same man, later said "I'd been physically abused before, and it left bruises, those healed, even if the injuries left scars, but wow... the psychological abuse is one hundred times worse - in part because the scars are so invisible."  She was fortunate.  She left him after only 6 months.  

I am thankful to be wholly loved, cherished, and adored now.  By God, and by a truly good man.  It's never too late to stop the cycle.

When will we learn... COVID doesn't care what we want

 

It's not fun being the purveyor of uncomfortable truths. 

 

Our state decided to unmask and remove controls ... about 2 weeks ago.... just as BA.2 is popping up. after 4 weeks of FLAT line yet at still elevated numbers - no decreases from Omicron, we're now UPTICKING - almost 3000 new cases this past weekend alone. Over a thousand case per day in the 5 days since. 

We just won't learn. 

 

I was asked at one point - when do i consider it appropriate to remove the restrictions. We haven't hit the lowest number of last July (64 cases per day) and we need to be BELOW that daily number for 4 weeks AT LEAST before we stop fooling ourselves with this nonsense. 

 

It's very very clear. cases go up every time 2 weeks after we unmask, deaths follow three weeks after the upticks.... its VERY predictable. 

 

Wear a mask and you will save lives. It's that simple.

 

I'm ANGRY, I'm SAD, I'm tired.

 

I want to see my grandson, I want to see my wonderful children, I want to have my long overdue wedding with my loved ones present. 

 

That can't happen because people don't have the fortitude {or shall we say they feel too entitled) to accept that masking and shutting down community by community for a 4 weeks stretch is truly the only way to stop this virus that doesn't care at all what your political, religious, or other ideologies are. It's a virus, it propogates when we let it. The economy will recover, but lost lives never will.

 

Vaccines help - but they won't stop this train wreck that is happening. Masks DO!

 

This country is rapidly approaching 1Million deaths due to this virus - most of which could have been prevented by universal masking.

The Diplomat and the Vatican

 

After my mother and my stepfather had divorced, my half-sister Nira and I would end up traveling overseas multiple times per year to visit her father and his family.  Just before the first trip to Italy to see them, my mother sat me down at our kitchen table and informed me that she needed to give me some important lessons.  She laid out table settings on our scratched-up hand me down table and I was instantly confused.  She put down three forks, two knives, three spoons, two plates and a wide soup bowl, along with three drinking glasses.  She proceeded to explain to me that at meals I was to use the utensils from the outside in and then from the top, but that was not all.  I was never to cut with my fork, nor was I to switch which hand I held the fork in.  She had me practice cutting food, using my knife to position food.  It was all so complicated.  Even soup had to be consumed properly.  She told me.  “Never tip the bowl to you – and never draw your spoon towards you.  Instead, fill the spoon by drawing the spoon away then bring it to your mouth.  Then when you are nearing the bottom of the bowl, tilt the bowl away from you.”  This coming from my hippy mother was so very strange.  We barely survived day to day financially yet here she was giving etiquette lessons to an eleven-year-old.

Shortly after that, Nira and I went to Italy to join up with Nira’s grandparents.  On these trips to Nira’s family, I was sent as surety for my half-sister Nira, who was nine years younger than me.  My presence ultimately assured that at the end of our visit that both of us would return home as my mother feared that there would be a likely kidnapping of Nira by her family.  To many in Nira’s family I was to be tolerated.  I was “that woman’s child”, but that was not the attitude of Baba-Jun (grandpa dear). Baba-Jun always was kind to me, he always made an extra effort on my behalf.  I realize now that it was because he was not born into affluence – he had married “up” and understood far better than his wife did the struggles of poverty and what it took to fit in. I only vaguely understood what he was doing in Italy, in Rome, I knew he was an ambassador, but what that meant was unclear, until one morning, when things started to make sense.

Baba-Jun came to the breakfast table one morning, and as the butler carried dishes to each one of us to select from, he said that he wanted me to come with him for a ride.  This was a first.  I had frequently gone out with Homa-Jun (Homa dear – she chose not to be called Grandma in any language) during our visit, but this was the first time he had invited me out and he deliberately had not invited any others to join us.  After breakfast we took the elevator to the garage and got into Baba-Jun’s limo.  I was all eyes wide open.  Little flags fluttered on the hood of the car, and the chauffer navigated the tight streets of Rome, pulling up to a gate, guarded by two of the fanciest soldiers I had ever seen.  They wore bright gold, blue, and red striped billowing outfits and wore steel helmets topped with red feathers.  Baba-Jun turned to me and said, “These are the Pontifical Swiss Guards, and we are driving into the city state referred to as the Vatican.”

I looked up at the arch covered roadway as we crossed the gate. Once inside we had walked around for hours with him pointing out various things that were only seen by few, explaining that we were in areas not open to the general public. I had not been exposed much to Christianity but suddenly I was struck by the opulence, the regaled formality of everything around us, and knew that somehow this was sacred ground. Until then I had not understood that the Vatican is a city, within the city of Rome, that is its own nation, ruled by the Pope, and that just like other nations, there are ambassadors who are assigned to represent their nation to the Vatican. 

This was Baba-Juns job, and he had shared it with me… only me. He was a diplomat in more ways than one.

Full Circle - an interesting ending

As some of you may recall, I had an embarrassing incident several months ago in the nearby town of Holliston. Due to being startled badly, I had been very rude and unkind to someone who had only intended a kindness, primarily because I had been terribly frightened at the sudden approach from behind and the opening remarks by a stranger that seemed threatening. time has passed, and while on our routine walk, again, a red car approached, this time from in front of us, and the driver rolled down his window just as we realized it was the SAME guy. He waved and commented on how wonderful it was to see a couple like us (suggesting our evident 60ish ages) holding hands. he went on to say how he and his wife of 48 years had held hands till she died and how much he missed her. We exchanged pleasantries and he finally drove off, as I felt that we had come full circle, we laughed and laughed at the turn around of events. Small blessings