Past collides with present

We had a family of nine live with us for three months. It kept my mind off of myself. I did continue with the counseling until my 12 year old stepped on (really jumped on) a pickax. At that point I was focused on getting his foot healed and didn't go anywhere for a while and then Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then winter kicked in with a vengence and I couldn't drive the hour to my counseling sessions.

Spring has arrived and we are busy with all the details of building a house. My husband is also looking for a job, so that figures in. I whine around in my mind and on this blog about not having the time or money for counseling. I am homeschooling my children and tutoring 2 others. So that does take up time, but the real thing is that I'm just scared to face up to how I'm allowing what happened in the past to still mess me up in the now. I function as though I was hatched as an adult and am disconnected from my own self. Maybe I'm just thinking weird here. I try really hard to live now without the past intruding.

My 11 year old just figured out this year that the grandma she thought was my mother wasn't really my mother. She added up the grandma's and had too many. I only tell them the good stuff from my childhood. Sometimes I slip and say something along the lines of, "You have no idea what it means to have to be perfect all the time! I don't expect perfection!!!" My 14 year old was complaining that I expected her to be perfect all the time and if she wasn't she got in trouble. The "trouble" she got into is that I give her a short lecture about why she should have done x the way or when I told her to. She says I yell at her. I told her that I have never yelled at her in a glass throwing volume. That was a slip. I've never told my kids about the screaming and dish throwing my mom did. I've never even told my dad.

I was really mad when my daughter said the same things to me that I thought about my mother when I was growing up. I am not the pyscho my mother was! Proof point: I calmly discussed her complaints, but inside I was furious. She couldn't tell how mad I was. My husband couldn't either. I did good.

Is self-medicating really that bad?

I don't have any problem with drinking and don't see it as a sin like I did when I was a baptist. Maybe the way I use it isn't right, but maybe it is. It doesn't make a merry heart or help my stomach but it does help.
Chocolate, sweet tea, wine coolers, vodka smoothies...they all do the same thing for me. I think the vodka smoothies is the healthiest because of all the fruit I use. Fewest amount of calories and sugar to take care of major times of stress.
I drink a very small amount in social situations, but can down 4-8oz of vodka in a smoothie or oj when I am in extreme stress. Is that wrong? why or why not?
The idea of using med's causes some serious stress reactions, but I can get the same effect the meds would have using vodka but without triggering.

Not doing good today

I'm not doing so good. The last counseling session put words to things that I don't like to think about. I'm just on the edge of needing to sit with a bucket. I've barely got out of bed today. I got up to have breakfast with my girls at 11:30. They made biscuits and heated up yesterday's gravy. It was good southern food.

I'm supposed to be making a big batch of pumpkin muffins for tomorrow night. A potential pastor is coming to town with his family to meet with us and another family to see about starting a church. I just want to go somewhere, like deep under the covers, and not come out until they are gone. I am feeling so sick.

I'm so tired from trying to be normal for everyone around me...
I usually pull it off or have a good excuse to explain why I seem a bit off. When I can't take it anymore, then I try counseling. It makes it worse, yet I die by little bits when I just push it down and shove it back into boxes. I can't keep doing what I've been doing, but this counseling is scraping off the top layer as it oozes out of my boxes and looks at it and the looking hurts.
It hurts so much that I don't dare feel anything or think about it as me. If I did then I think I would cry...and not stop. It would be the scary crying, the kind that doesn't even care who sees or hears when I'm crying, but beforehand is so scared of the idea of anyone seeing. I don't know what the word is for that kind of crying. I just know that I melt and can only hold onto one thought.

So this is what working through trauma is like. I learned a new word last Thursday or at least had it directed towards me. I have been edgy, jumpy and nauseated ever since. I also read Christa Brown's book, This Little Light,  http://christabrown.wordpress.com/my-book/  yesterday and I didn't have enough sense to put it down until I finished it. I knew it was triggering for me, but I couldn't stop reading it anyway. No one to blame but myself.

Forgiveness and Dry Heaves

Last Sunday's Sunday school was on Ken Sande's Peacemakers book. Toward the end the focus was on forgiveness. I fought down nausa as long as possible and then fled to the bathroom with, thankfully, dry heaves. All I saw was me standing in the hallway with my teacher telling him I forgave him, again, when I was told how bad I was sinning by refusing to forgive him, again. And then to prove to him that I really forgave him I had to go to the "place where the abuse took place" again. This repeated over and over and over and over and over...

For six weeks I held out and didn't forgive him and go to the "place where the abuse took place" and for six weeks I stood at the wall for the 45 minute recess. He would stand there and tell me that I knew what I had to do to get off the wall.

The things he said to me...

I was such a forgiving child; and now just hearing it taught at church gives me the dry heaves. It has no relation on whether or not I have forgiven him. It doesn't reflect a bitterness on my part. It is a completely undesired, uncontrolable, physical reaction to past trauma. I wish I knew how to shut the videos off without shutting myself off.

http://sapn.nonprofitoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={492898A3-4F42-4A60-A5C1-4B75EBCA384A}&DE={4B0CF029-1207-4404-9699-2864F0991A27}
Criminal Statute of Limitations for Child Sexual Abuse
556.037 R.S.Mo. (2007)
556.037. Time limitations for prosecutions for sexual offenses involving a person under eighteen
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 556.036, prosecutions for unlawful sexual offenses involving a reason eighteen years of age or under must be commenced within twenty years after the victim reaches the age of eighteen unless the prosecutions are for forcible rape, attempted forcible rate, forcible sodomy, kidnapping, or attempted forcible sodomy in which case such prosecutions may be commenced at any time.

-----------

Wow!!! What a gift, and I thought the statute of limitations had run out.
It can never run out. Not that I want to back off, but...he can still be brought to trial for all the times he raped me.

My question is this. Do I have to prove what he did to me? There were no "witnesses" that stood by and watched.

Denial? or protection

Who am I kidding? My 93 year old grandma doesn't even have a computer!!!

My kids? I don't know. How do you tell your kids something like this?

Everyone else? Shame?

I'm trying to breathe, hands sweating etc.


Yesterday I called a lawyer(I knew him when we were in grade school and college)
I also called the Independence Police Department and
and the Kansas City Police Department
--somehow my police report is missing but the record that it exists remains
--puzzling
I talked to 2 new friends that hadn't known any of this before, they know now.
I talked to the Metropolitan Organization to Counteract Sexual Assault(MOCSA)
I "chatted" with an old friend on facebook, she now knows

I think I'm doing pretty good, for a chicken.

I bought chocolate and hot tea. The chocolate is gone already:(

I think that for now I am as public in as many places as I can be and still hold together.

Using My Real Name!!?

Well, I finally took the plunge, overcame my fear, or maybe I only overcame my sense of self-preservation because I finally joined the rest of my generation and got a facebook account using my real name. My abuser also has a facebook account. I blocked him; hope it works.
He appears to have left the South and moved west according to his facebook info.

On my facebook wall I wrote that I was looking for other victims of a teacher I had had. I went to a medium to large size Christian school and then on to Bible college with some of the same people and I am now feeling like a bug under a magnifying glass. I have now just put out a huge advertisement and flashing neon lights about the fact that I was abused in some serious way and I sincerely hope that it pays off and he is brought to justice because this really sucks.

Here on my personal blog I will maintain anonymity except to an extremely small number who know me in real life.(about 4) I'm not sure if it's more to protect myself, or my family. I lean towards thinking it's for my family(grandma and my kids). I don't want my kids to know everything or really much of anything. My mom and I get along now, mostly because I threatened her that if she didn't treat me like a human being that her grandkids would never even know she existed, and she lives over a 1000 miles away. We talk on the phone and I enjoy it now. She acts like the past never happened. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

Second Grade

I read Robin Hood so much that by the time I was eight years old I could act out all my favorite parts. For some reason I had difficulty getting any friends to play the part of Little John or of Robin Hood to act out their first meeting and battle of staves. The creek was there and so was a nice log laying across it. No one wanted to end up in the creek or to be hit with a stick, even if we choreographed it(Ididn't know the word for it but that's what I was doing) The coolest thing was that the neighborhood we lived in was called Sherwood Forest. My mom was the sheriff of Nottingham, but she didn't know it. My dad was King Richard, but he didn't know that either.



In school my teacher thought my dad had been stationed overseas in England because of the way I talked. Nope, I'd just read too much of Howard Pyle's Robin Hood and also George McDonald's Back of the North Wind. Accents and speech patterns stick to me from books I read and really get into.



This was the same house(actually duplex) where I lived out the part in A Little Girl's Story where my mom said she was leaving me. We only lived there a few months. I learned how to look up things in the encyclopedia. For some reason my mom decided that I should look up 3 -6 words/topics in the encyclopedia or dictionary every day. I kicked and fussed over it but I actually liked it. As long as I was looking things up I wasn't getting yelled at. I still like to read encyclopedias and dictionaries. It's one of the good things I remember about my mom during my growing up years.

Being Findable Online and Fear of Rejection

I've been going to a Bible study for the last couple of years. I sorta stopped going much this past year. We were going through a book that I can't remember the name of and the next week we were going to be reading and then talking about a chapter that covered rape. I couldn't go that week or the next, and I've been sporadic in my attendance ever since.

Well the lady who hosts the study is the sister in law of a guy I slightly knew in high school and we ended up going to the same college and hung out a lot our freshman year. He is now a lawyer and he was always a real decent guy. I want to be a person easier to find online so that former students/victims of slimeball can get in touch with me and we can stop him. So I was thinking of a good email address and searchable info I could use but then I thought I should check it with a lawyer to make sure I wasn't shooting myself in the foot for later prosecution of him. AHA I thought, I know a lawyer, sorta. So I called my friend that hosts the Bible study and stumbled around to ask her to ask her husband to ask his brother my question. The joys of giving background info...not. Anyway I can now add another person on my list of people who know. I didn't tell her specifics, but enough so that it's easy to fill in the blanks. I did tell her I had an odd question. I'm getting better at this, maybe I can talk to Dr C halfway intelligently and not have to look at my talking point notes when/if he calls me back.

I did ask her to not advertise it. I'm not sure how she can ask my question without her husband knowing who she is talking about. I got her cell # from him tonight, and then she is going to go home and ask him this question. Oh well. It is what it is. -----I just called her and told her that I had called H and got her cell # from him and that he's not stupid, he can put 2 and 2 together and it's all right, so don't stress over me saying don't advertise it. She assured me that it won't go any further than them.

I think they had already been talking from what all she said to me, but I'm not sure.

Last July(2008) I had been told in some kind of confrontation thing, by people I thought were my friends, that I was all kinds of awful and they were quite specific. One of the things that I was accused of, was hiding behind past abuse as an excuse for not trusting and being open with these very new friends. They put us out of their lives and said that after I had gotten help and changed and fulfilled a list of requirements that the men would get back together and see if I was qualified to be allowed back in their lives.

You know, for someone who is terrified of rejection this was very severe. I didn't know it was possible to stay awake and cry the whole night long until the sun rises. I cried beyond tears. It hurt so bad that I never even wrote about it after the verdict was given.
I had tried so hard to trust and I had opened up to a certain point and where I was most vunerable is where they plunged in the dagger of rejection and unworthiness.

We have made some new friends since then. I have been quite aloof and kept most recent pains and intense past pain to myself. I don't think I come across as aloof, at least it is an acceptable level if they do think so. I am so afraid of losing our new friends that I am always amazed when I see acceptance and tolerance of differences and forgiveness, but yet I still haven't risked them knowing my personal past pain or ours as a family in what we went through with one of our children.

Trying to start up counseling again

I haven't written anything since April...anywhere, or at least I don't remember doing so. I had a good time in Florida, I think. Underneath all the smiles and laughter were other things. I'm not sure which is real. Can both be real at the same time?

I'm supposed to be blogging through Bold Love. I haven't touched it in months. It was too much for me. I guess a self help sort of book that I'm going to be brutally honest with myself as I read it is going to require someone outside of myself to get me to actually do it. Evidently I don't have much self-government when it comes to hard things, I keep running.

Off and on since April I have thought about counseling and some of the stuff I talked about with Dr. A. I stopped seeing her because of that stupid letter she wanted me to write. I couldn't filter out what was pyscho bull and what was valid. I just shoved everything back in boxes until my child was ok and we had basically recovered from the last major rejection of us as a family and me as a person by our then newest friends back in July 2008. That still hurts but it's scabbed over nicely. We have had two major rejections of us since we moved here. I don't handle rejection well. It brings up all kinds of gut reactions and I hate it.

The last few months I keep thinking about going to see Dr C. He's Christian, even if he is baptist. Hopefully he can help, he reminds me of a former counselor I really liked. As long as there is a project or problem to solve then I stay busy and I don't think about things. Right now we are trying to get accepted by a denomination and then get a pastor sent to us. It's really stirring up fear of rejection and I don't like it. And that's on top of things starting to ooze out of my boxes again.

I called tonight and left a voice message for Dr C. I called after hours on purpose. I couldn't talk for real today, but this was a good in between step. If he calls me back then I'll see if he will see me or not. He is not with the counseling group he was with. I can't find him listed anywhere but as a pastor at a SBC church. He may not do any counseling outside his church. I talked to him once already about a year or so ago. He probably won't remember me, but I still can't do the "let's find a counselor" thing. Starting from scratch and having to say things is torture. I can disconnect and be fairly dispassionate about it, yet at some point and at some level I know I'm talking about things I'd rather die than go through again. Shame kicks in and bout drowns me in it's suffocating weight. It's just a matter of when. It could be when I make eye contact, or when I walk out the door, or when I get into my car to leave or sometimes it really gets bad when I come back the next time and have to look at their face before I have the chance to settle in and not look at them; it doesn't really matter because it always comes and I have to remember to breathe and force myself to not care and yet still be able to talk. It's really hard.

Numb Again

I'm not going to see Dr A again. At least I don't think so. I'm going to see someone else. I will try to call tomorrow. I'm tired of sinking back into where I was. I don't know how to get out of it. I can't seem to get it together. I am more organized now, but more of a mess on the inside. I feel numb again and can't snap out of it. I'm afraid that I will never make it to prosecution of JM. It's all I can do to stay busy and forget. When I slow down, I just get depressed or even more often just hollow. I'm not really here, but I don't know how to get here and live. I try to fake it and am "sick" to cover days when I just am too worn out to continue the charade.

I am going to Florida with a friend later this month. She is not a friend to be quiet with, we will be busy and noisy and talk a lot even about serious things, but not about the emptiness of being trapped behind walls; we will have fun and it will take the edge off, but the numbness of existence will return to me afterward.

I am so tired.

A couple of years ago I was on my way out of the numbness and was learning to lean on God. Not doing so good now. I'm all out of friends. Ones that I have left or call friends are either ones that I don't want to risk losing by being too transparent or are ones that I don't trust that much anyway. I have been so often rejected in the last 2 years that I am extremely terrified of letting anyone else that close again. I guess people just can't handle my daily type troubles let alone the hauntings of the past. I'm safer cocooned behind my walls wrapped in the numbness of isolation, but I know it's not right. For now I can do nothing else. God help me.

Update and letter writing

We have moved once again, but this time it is to the land I've always dreamed of. Some day we will have horses and cows, but for now we have chickens and too many dogs. The children are settled in and enjoying life. My child who has caused my many tears has made a great effort to be a part of the family again. My marriage has yo yo'ed back and forth under the stress; but it has settled into familiar patterns again. I'm not sure if that is good or bad:) Anyway we are determined to remain married and to enjoy it. Some days it's more work than others.

I have over 50 tomato seedlings trying to grow. I think they are too spindley. Hopefully they will thicken up over the next 4-5 weeks. Onions: I have planted a whole bunch but I don't really know what they are supposed to be doing above ground.

I haven't been back to counseling since the counselor wanted me to write a letter to my dad; I didn't have to give it to him, but still it wasn't something I wanted to do. I guess I'm a chicken because I told her I didn't want to but haven't gone back since, to face her with it not being done.
She wants me to blame him for not being able to trust him and tell him about what was going on at school. I don't blame my dad. I blame the teacher and I blame my mom for being my "Mommy Dearest". I was screwed up, but my dad was the only one who was there for me without being needy himself. He may have talked to me too much, but for the most part he let me stay a child. No such luck with my mom.

I'll call tomorrow and make an appointment again and stand my ground against letter writing to my dad. Easier said than done. When I get mad I cry and that makes me mad and then I cry...I think she will make me mad.

A Little Girl's Story

A long time ago there lived a little girl, who was hurt by the things her mother said. She knew her mother didn't really love her because she never smiled at her unless she did something especially good. The little girl knew that as long as she kept being good and working hard that her mother would smile at her and like her for at least that moment. She lived for the smiles and the nice things her mother said when she did a good job. Most of the time she just tried to stay out of her mother's way. She learned to walk quietly, play quietly and never cry even when she was hurt. She had an invisible friend that she talked to and played with. Eventually her mother became angry and told the little girl she couldn't talk to her invisible friend anymore because it embarrassed her. So the little girl stopped talking to her friend out loud and holding hands. Her invisible friend went away because the little girl wouldn't play anymore and pretended the invisible friend wasn't there when other people were there. The little girl was sad that her friend left her alone.



The little girl also had a dog and loved that dog for many years. She talked to her dog and cried and dried many tears in her dog's coat over the years. She was careful that her mom never knew how much she told her dog or how much she loved her. She never did get her friend back but instead she created a whole group of people for a story that she told every night when she went to bed. The story lasted from the time she was five years old until she was twelve. By the time the little girl was twelve she knew that no one would ever come to rescue her and so she ended the story.



The little girl needed rescuing. She needed it for a long time. But who rescues little girls who don't look hurt? No one. When the little girl was eight years old she made her mother angry and her mother told her she was leaving and never coming back. The front door slammed and the little girl cried for a long time. She finally climbed up on the couch to look out the window to see if her mother was coming back. There on the porch sat her mother. The little girl decided that she needed to learn all she could about cooking and cleaning so she could take care of things when her mother left someday for real. She worked very hard for a long time. Her mother was never pleased with anything she did, it was never good enough. The little girl was growing up on the outside, but was growing old on the inside. When the little girl was ten she realized she could never make her mother happy with her and gave up trying. She did what she always did and worked hard, but she had lost hope. She did what she did to avoid the screaming and endless lectures; but of course it wasn't good enough for her mother. She learned so well to hide all traces of emotion from her face and body. That wasn't quite right, because it brought down new tirades and harder beatings. So the little girl adjusted and learned to keep the expression on her face that her mother expected her to have during the screaming sessions. She learned to cry enough and at the right point to satisfy her mother that it hurt enough when she was beaten. The little girl went through a stubborn phase where she refused to cry and declared that it didn't hurt. That didn't last long and it really hurt the little girl. She learned to cry even when she was still able to take it, because it would stop sooner if she cried just right. She never told her daddy about anything her mother ever did or said.



When the little girl was eleven she had a teacher who was kind to her and said nice things to her. He picked her to help put up bulletin boards. That had always been the most envied classroom helper job in school. But to the little girl who didn't look so little, it became the most dreaded. She did tell her mother that she didn't want to go to school anymore and wanted to tell her daddy that she didn't want to go but her mother forbade her to say anything. By the end of the school year the little girl was a shadow of herself. She still hasn't found the rest of her. She says the rest of her has been killed and the remains will never be found. The little girl's wishes are for the teacher who hurt her to be punished so he can't hurt anyone else again.

Go figure. I have a therapist.

God's timing is incredible. Just yesterday I was saying that there's no one to counsel me because $100 an hour is not an option. I'll stay messed up if it cost that much to put me to rights. :(

Well today I took my son to his appointment with yet another therapist. I didn't have any hope that it would help, but it was "recommended" by the pysch hospital he was in. I've learned the hard way that recommendations aren't optional, they are mandated, no matter how much they claim otherwise. So I took him. I drove up there 2 hours to get him from the children's home and then got lost downtown and couldn't find the place. I hate new places!! I called and the receptionist talked me in. I hate feeling stupid.

I think the session went very well. Z actually talked. He wasn't nice, but he did talk a bit. Eventually he decided to go to sleep. It wasn't that long of a session, a 50 minute hour. Well Dr. A and I talked some more and somehow, I am trying to remember how, she asked me if I had been abused. She's really gooood for that to "come up" in conversation. For the life of me I can't remember how it started going that direction. I found out that a federal law has been passed that gives me 7 years instead of 5 years to prosecute. I need that extra time. This year has been consumed with Z issues. I have more time now.

She also asked/told me "Who in your family abused you? You didn't tell about the teacher so someone in your family must have primed the pump that you didn't tell." I just sat there looking at her, dumbfounded. I never did answer her. I started messing with filling out Z's paperwork some more. She said that abusers who threaten kids lives, if they tell, are cowards. (Maybe that was the point where she asked about me?) She said she could tell by the look on my face that I didn't know that. I'm in my 30's pushing 40 and I didn't know that. I still don't think I "know" that. I don't believe it. I do believe that he was scared to be found out, but I also believe that he would kill me if he could. I believe that he tried to set me up for that when I was 19. Cowards can kill. I'm still afraid.

I'm not sure how much Z got out of his session, but I got a lot. So much so that I called back twice this afternoon. Once was to find out what she was. She's a pyschologist. The second time was to actually talk to her to see if there was anyone like her near where I lived. She said she is one of a kind and laughed. We talked for a bit about if there was anyone closer and equal. She asked if it just clicked when we talked. I said yes. She has another office 45 minutes closer to me. She gave me the number and said to tell them that she sent me and approves it. Dr. A said it's hard to get in because she is really busy, but that would get me in. I called the office and evidently I'm out of the area they are supposed to take from, but since Dr. A. sent me they would take me. I have an appointment in 3 weeks. The receptionist asked insurance type questions and then asked the question I hate to answer. What is the presenting problem for you to see the Dr? Dancing around the answer didn't help. She asked if it was depression etc. I said no. Eventually I had to answer "childhood sexual abuse". I can write like crazy and be very verbal in my writing but to actually say it with audible words is something very different. I'm really amazed that I was able to talk to Dr. A without too much stuttering. I didn't freeze up once, but then again it wasn't about me to begin with. Maybe that helped; but I think she is just really good. Also I'm in a place where there are people that I see on a regular basis that I'm learning to trust because my being here is permament and not temporary. That's really suprising considering that in the past year I've had a good number of people drop me. The last batch that drop-kicked me was especially vicious. Why do I keep trying? I don't want to be alone in a crowd or in my life.

I trust the pastor of the church we are now attending, although he knows nothing of my specific past. He's seen us at our worst, family wise; or at least close to worst. He hasn't seen us on the edge of divorce, but he is seeing us through a major crisis with Z. What's worse? a suicidal, thinking about divorce mother, crisis point in discovery concerning childhood sexual abuse; or a homicidal, suicidal son? It's almost a toss up in stress levels. I'm not sure which is worse.

I think 2 weeks ago Pastor D asked me about hope. The basic idea of it was if we were hopeful about the placement we are working towards for Z. I told him we don't hope. I refuse to hope for anything, it hurts too much when it doesn't work out. If I don't hope then it's ok.

I'm thinking that's not really biblical. But I don't really care right now. Hope is too scary. And that's the problem with this appointment that I have coming up. I'm trying not to hope, but it's really hard not to. Do I thank God for hope or get angry because I'm getting hopeful once again? Anger fights off fear and tears, which are by products of hope. I'm scared to look at this again. I think it was 3 lawyers that turned me down to prosecute my case. That makes me feel that what I went through isn't seen as any real big deal. But it was and is.

Blogging through Bold Love

I started reading Dan Allender's book, Bold Love, last night. I've read the foreword, the introduction and the first two chapters so far. I began to read faster as I saw myself in these pages. I couldn't see the words on the page for the tears in my eyes. I had thought I was handling things ok, but I realized that I'm not. I have either been on the edge of crying or crying for most of the day. It's hard to drive around like that. Casting Crowns has a song called "Stained Glass Masquarade" that fits me so well. I was listening to that and crying. Everything hurts. Whenever I think I can't possibly hurt anymore, something else happens and I find out that I can hurt worse than before. I'm so tired of hurting. I just want it to be over. I dared to reach out today to someone that I end up being around pretty often because of our kids. I think she won't hurt me with the knowledge she now has of our family. I hope not. "Hope" is what hurt and pain is before it happens.

Reading through a book quickly isn't going to be that much of a help. Just because I can check it off some list in my mind of things I've tried doesn't mean that I really tried. So I decided that I'm going to slow down and blog my way through this book. It's cheap counseling. I can't pay someone to listen to or counsel me, but as I write I do eventually think through things well enough to distill it down to more concise questions that I can pose a few at a time here and there to people.

I have the 1992 edition of Bold Love. I think there is a more recent version, but this is the one I picked up somewhere. I will give chapter and page number as I go along.

Help Me Prosecute a Sexual Predator

I talked to a lawyer, actually went through a small string of them, this past summer. What it comes down to is that I have great info and diaries but without someone else with a similar experience it is not a case that can be won.

So it's left up to me to either hire or be my own P.I. and find other victims/survivors of this scumball of a teacher that was mine in 6th grade in a well-known christian school in the good ole state of Missouri.

He's been in other states too. Anybody out there? I'm running out of prosecution time. He's taught for over 20 years and even been a principal and it's always been in christian schools.

I'm not asking for vengence. If you want that it's between you and God. I don't want him to continue to hurt children. My class was the second year he taught. I've learned a lot lately about sexual predators and even at his fresh out of college age he was very good at what he did. With hindsight I can see his techniques, and they were not those of an amateur. I don't believe he has stopped and statistics will back me up.

Please help me to stop him for all the children he must have already hurt and those that are his future or present victims.

Acting the Turtle

Do you ever realize that you're probably wrong about something, but you just can't let go of it? I've a few things right now that are that way. It's always been easy to excuse because the other person is a lot more to blame than I am.

What I'm struggling with right now is that I'm keeping people at arms length or farther because somebody recently dropped me and backed off like I came down with leprosy. It's not that I'm so thin-skinned that I can't take it. It's more the timing of and that it seems to be the story of my life.

How do I look to Jesus and not people and yet still have biblical relationships and real fellowship? I understand that people will disappoint or outright hurt me in various ways. I want to minimize the damage by acting the turtle. I don't want to be a box turtle and keep everybody completely out and I don't want to be a snapping turtle and scare everyone off. I'm thinking I'd like to be some type of sea turtle or giant tortoise; approachable, but not everybody's dinner.

God's Hug

Things with my son have settled down for now. I wish I was grateful, but I'm not. I'm waiting for the next thing. What will hit me next? I've just got my balance back from reeling in the shock and agony of what the last six months has brought to my family. I now understand the phrase "anguish of soul". It is a pain so intense that you can't think where to turn. I never would have thought that pain that wasn't physical could hurt so bad.

Eventually I did turn to God. I also tried to turn to people in the church who were praying for us. That didn't work out. I wanted someone I could see and touch to be there with me through that time, even if it was just on the phone. For some reason I thought that at least they could listen and pray for me as I had to live it. I was living it, and they couldn't even handle hearing about it. So much for people coming alongside.

I did find someone who was there on the phone, for the times I needed a person who understood. She had a son like mine, she understood my pain, she let me talk and cry. She prayed for me and our family. I've never even seen her and we don't even live in the same state, but I've cried into the phone with her countless times in the last six months. She could handle it, because she's lived it.

I haven't talked to her for a while now. I need to call her again, just to talk. She was God's hug to me.

What is the Gospel?

I've been hearing for the last six months how the gospel needs to be the center of my life. I need the gospel beyond salvation. It needs to be "the main thing". Live out the gospel, I'm told.

I just don't get it. How can the gospel be the center? What does that mean? How does the gospel effect me past salvation? I know what the gospel is, at least I think I do. How do I live out the gospel? What does that look like? What does it mean to live out the gospel?

Grace used to be just a word to me. I don't think I can explain it very well yet, but I'm recognizing it more in my life. I've experienced God's grace in my life and am increasingly aware of it. Grace is so much more than a word to me now. My life is so much richer for having grace as God's action in my life.

I hear christians talking about the gospel and it's not just a word to them. It really means something. There is a depth and richness to their understanding of the gospel that I don't have. Is it something that can be taught and learned or is it another gift that God gives in his own time?

How can I love my unloveable child?

What does unconditional love look like when the "performance" is so wretched?

How do I make a distinction between accepting him but not accepting the behavior?

I have a hard time with living like I know that God loves me even when I mess up. I most often live like I have to earn God's favor by my actions. Underneath what I "know" is what I actually believe at my core. I know that God loves me by his choice, but really believe that my actions determine whether He "likes" me.

That's the way I parent too. I love my kids but don't like all of them. I choose to love them, but their actions determine if I actually "like" them at any given time.

Do I have to like my kids in order to truly love them?
How do I love a child who is so awful without seeming to either reward or ignore his behavior?
How can I demonstrate love to my child even while disliking him.

Guess what yesterdays sermon was about.
Yep, one of the points dealt with our relationship to God as Father. I've been chewing on it ever since. Three of my kids are great and teachable and want to do right; but one is not. (Read that as understatement of the year) I would be insufferably proud of my parenting skills if I didn't have the one. I've learned that I don't know it all. I've learned that I don't even understand my relationship with God as my Father. I am still bound up with legalism in my parenting. I don't know how or even if I should do things differently. Is is okay to be legalistic in parenting? Should kids have to earn approval by their actions? Do I tie up my approval of what my kids do, with who they are? I think I do, but should I?

My "one" is not allowed back at church unless Hubby is there. How do I explain that to him? For now I'm not. He doesn't even know. I told him he can go with Grandpa on Sundays and mow the grass etc. to pay back the mirror he broke off his car(a genuine accident, not rage)

How does that fit in with God's love and acceptance of us in spite of what we do? The "one's" acceptance at church is based on his actions. That's the way life is. But shouldn't the church reflect how God relates to us instead of how the world relates? This brings up the idea of covenant children. Since Hubby and I are christians where does that leave our children? Are we to view them as part of the covenant and treat them as such? At what point do we concede the point that perhaps a particular child is not included and should be treated as an unbeliever?

I wish I understood more. I just come up with more questions.