by Victoria -

A Love Song

I wrote this way back in 2010 when I was exiting a bad relationship.  It always amazes me now when I read these old posts from another life, for that is what it is to me now.  God has changed me and my circumstances so much in eight short years, that my past abusive relationships truly feel like a life-time ago.

Why do I get tired of giving in, backing down? Isn’t that what love is?

Maybe I just don’t know how to really love someone else, or, maybe I’m not very lovable and it’s my fault.

Yes, that must be it. I’m not enough – kind enough, or smart enough, or giving enough to warrant his respect.

Respect – is that what I really desire? Do I deserve respect, or do I deserve just exactly what I’ve been getting. I mean, anyone who knows me knows that I’m far from perfect. I mean I don’t always keep the house clean enough, and I forget to fold the clothes, and I fail to get a bill paid on time, sometimes. I’m really a lot of work for him, at least that’s what he tells me.

I guess that means I deserve to be yelled at? I deserve to be called names, and told I’m worthless, right?

I’m pretty used to the way it hurts. My heart is very acquainted with that particular pain. That’s just life, you know? If I were really smart, and really beautiful, and a better person, then I’m sure he wouldn’t need to say those mean things.

He’s just trying to help, right? He wants me to be better than I am. He knows me and he says he loves me. So, that should make it alright for him to do anything he wants. At least, that’s what he tells me.

I don’t know where I’d go if I left – I don’t think my family would want me back. They must see the bad things about me that he sees too. So, I guess it’s best to stay where I am and try really, really hard to make him happy.

Maybe someday he’ll be happy with me, and then I can be happy too.

———-

One sad day there was a young woman who found herself lost in the woods. She wandered around, stumbling over roots and stones, scratching her legs and bruising her feet. She cried out in terror over and over again for someone to come and help her, but no one answered. No one came.

She eventually found what looked like a path of sorts, so she carefully followed it, and after a long while came out of the woods into a beautiful meadow covered with golden flowers that smelled sweeter than anything she had ever smelled before.  The young woman had never seen a field so full to overflowing with such beauty. It almost blinded her.

She should have been afraid, because she didn’t know where she was, but she wasn’t afraid at all. She listened for a while to the bees and the crickets, felt the warm, soft breeze caress her face, and watched the sun as it moved across the cloudless blue sky touching everything with life.

While she was standing there in that peaceful place, she thought she heard a still, quiet voice on the wind. She strained her ears to hear it more clearly, and suddenly heard a voice that sounded strong, yet gentle whisper oh, so softly, that he was watching over her.

A sob caught in her throat, and as she fell to her knees, that comforting voice began to sing a song to her of how much she was loved, and how beautiful he saw her, and how she was one of his most cherished creations. As the hot tears streamed silently down her face, the song came to an end on a fading note of hope.

As a parting gift, the wind softly stroked her face as if with a caressing finger.

When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the meadow, or the woods. She was in her own home, surrounded by her own things. She turned around and looked at herself in the mirror. For the first time in many years, she saw herself just the way her Creator saw her.

Beautiful and loved and cherished.

She was never the same again. From that day forward, she began to grow into the beloved treasure that she truly was and now knew herself to be.

by Victoria -

Paradise and healing

The intensely bright sunshine, glancing off the sparkling emerald green water, made it almost impossible to see. The day was quite hot and humid, but the breeze fingering my hair was refreshing, even though I continued to sweat. I took a deep, shaky breath, closed my eyes, and tilted my face to the sky. The glare from the ever ruffling surf didn’t matter. I was deep inside my own head working on something, seeing only what was going on in my mind’s eye anyway. I do this a lot. I have a hard time staying out of my head, actually.

I’ve written stories and had conversations in my head all my life. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to determine when I’m with someone if I actually had that conversation with them or if it was one of my flights of fancy. I’ve rewritten the endings to books and movies countless times. I’ve had so much practice over the years I can be so deep inside my thoughts I won’t be aware of anything going on around me.

I’ve recently relocated from Michigan. I grew up there never liking the winters because of the cold, and not liking the summers much because of my hay fever as a child. Although I did have the unparalleled opportunity of living in Arizona for a few years a short while back. My last winter in Michigan seemed so long and brutal I was not-so-secretly hoping to be somewhere warm for the next season. And here I am. I think God got tired of my whining and said, ok ok – I’ll let you go to Florida.

He’s actually pretty good at putting up with my whiny attitude. He’s very patient with me while I learn to act like a grown-up.

Digging my pink painted toes deep into the warm sand, I experience once again that familiar twinge in the pit of my stomach. The sadness that won’t let me be. I can see his beloved face. I can feel him. His scent surrounds me, and the emptiness he left behind cripples me. How safe I had believed myself to be in his arms. I foolishly thought it would last forever. I shake my head, trying to dislodge the mental picture, but it insists on returning, along with the accompanying sorrow. And now here I sit on this beautiful beach of chamois-soft white sand with my chin on my knees and my arms around my legs and tears once more sliding down my cheeks, as I rock back and forth unable to contain my pain. Crying shamelessly on a beach most people refer to as Paradise. This grieving has to end sometime. It just has to. The empty aching follows me everywhere I go, and there are days I want to lie down and die just to make the hurting finally stop.

But I can’t lie down and die, because there is still work to be done. My job here isn’t finished yet.

“Suck it up, sweetie.” I speak these words out loud. “There’s lots of people hurting much more than you, so get over yourself and find someone to encourage.”

At that last voiced admonition, I’m on my feet and dusting myself off. I pick up my discarded flip flops, give them a good shake, and make my way back to my car, sinking a little into the sand with each footstep, leaving a visible trail of where I’ve been and where I’m going. I only live a mile or so from the beach, so it’s a short drive.

I look in my car’s rearview mirror, taking stock of my appearance, dry my eyes, now puffy and red from my weeping, put my sunglasses on, then give my head a good shake and force a smile at my reflection. Just breathe. One last nod of my head, and I’m heading back to my new home.

Those gentle and mesmerizing sounds of the emerald water swooshing in and then retreating, over and over, is always soothing to my spirit, and the constant low roaring helps to give me that feeling of solitude I so long for, so I come to the beach to sit for a while as often as I can. Or I walk slowly along the water’s edge with the white foam tickling my feet letting the sounds and the smells and the gently sinking sun whisper peace to my soul. I can feel myself healing down deep where it matters.

Back in Michigan my stress level had reached its limit and I hit the wall – physically and emotionally. I couldn’t eat for days and then didn’t want to eat. No desire. No cravings. At least for food. My desire and cravings were for him.

Love has a scent. It is rain in the air. It is wildflowers in the field. It is
life pushing through the dirt.

The crack and pungent burning of a close lightning strike.

A screaming gale-force wind hurtling freshly broken branches into
the maelstrom.

It is beautiful and gentle and rough by degrees with passion and wanting
and satisfying.

A complete relinquishing and total possession mutually given, mutually
accepted.

My happily ever after, so far, isn’t so happy or ever after. And my memories in turn comfort and haunt me all at the same time until I fear I will go mad.

However time, as the old saying goes, heals all wounds. And every day, as I spend time focusing on the good, slowly releasing the bad, I can feel myself growing stronger. I’ve been smiling more and crying less. I count that as progress.

Learning the lessons I need to learn and moving forward in anticipation of my next adventure.

And my happily ever after? Well, I don’t give up on dreams that easily.

God always seems to have something up His sleeve.

by Victoria -

Darian

The insufferable days run together. Why is it always dark, or does it just seem so? The chains cut his arms and legs, making them slippery with his own blood where they dig in deeply, biting through his skin, especially when he struggles against them. But he refuses to feel the pain. He stinks and can’t remember the last time he bathed. His animal ferocity is known far and wide and he relishes the abject fear in the eyes of those unfortunate enough to cross his path.

When did this never-ending nightmare of evil begin? Sometimes, but not often, he is able to reach far back into his hazy mind and remember fragments of something different. But the details are fuzzy and fleeting. And it’s just too exhausting to try. So he doesn’t usually try.

Darian is hated by everyone in his village and the surrounding countryside, with good reason. Whenever he’s able to free himself from his bonds, the soldiers invariably find him, catch him, and chain him up again in this horrible place full of dead men’s bones. This unclean place where the dead still walk and dark spirits torture him. His captors throw scraps of food from a safe distance. Darian lunges and struggles against his chains when they come into sight, and he loves the way they jump, startled, suddenly afraid. Throw the food and run. He screams obscenities and laughs at them, cursing them for their cowardice.

And the chains. Darian is always able to break free of them, eventually. They haven’t found any yet that will hold him for long. He compartmentalizes the pain, refusing to feel it as he strains against them. What will he do when he breaks these new ones? Steal some food first off. Lots of it. And God help anyone who gets in his way.

Something interrupts his reverie, jerking him back to the present. He strains again with all his strength against the chains, suddenly feeling them break apart. Freedom!

He hears something. What is that sound? Voices. But these are new ones Darian hasn’t heard before. Some new game, maybe?

As the small group of men walk into sight, Darian, now free, quickly runs toward them. He loves to smell their fear when he looms up in front of his unsuspecting victims. They’re usually too terrified to run, so remain rooted to the ground, mouths agape, waiting. Waiting to see what he might do to them.

But not this time.

Who is that man in the front? His calm stance clearly identifies him as the leader. All eyes in the group turn to him. Darian senses real authority emanating from this man. He can almost see it. What is he saying?

“What is your name?”

Suddenly Darian is on his knees as an unseen hand forcefully throws him down and he hears his own voice, sounding strangely guttural in his ears, replying, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

Eyes suddenly open wide and jaws drop. A nervous murmur spreads through the men gathered around their leader.

And then everything happens at once. That voice again – issuing a command that cannot be disobeyed.

Darian watches, as if from a distance, his own body contorting violently from a seizure. He falls heavily to the ground, roiling the dust at his feet, and at the same time he catches the unmistakable sound and smell of a herd of pigs running hard as if from an unseen specter. He watches mesmerized, as they run, unheeding, straight off a cliff plunging to their deaths in the water far below.

Darian’s eyes close and a heavy sigh escapes his lips. And then his mind goes empty.

The next thing he knows, he’s sitting on the ground fully clothed, and that man – someone called him Jesus – is smiling at him. What happened?

Jesus talks with Darian in a gentle voice filled with compassion and yes, there is, unmistakably, love in his eyes. Darian suddenly feels himself smiling back. And there is a joy bubbling in his heart he can’t remember ever feeling before. Inexplicable.

The conversation ended too soon for Darian’s liking. He wanted more.

“Please, Rabbi, let me go with you. Let me follow along with you.”

But Jesus tells him no. “I want you to go tell everyone in your village what wonderful things God has done for you.”

Delivered. Released. Forgiven. Darian knows he’ll spend the rest of his life finding the right words.

He owes Jesus so much.

This story, of all the stories about Jesus and his miracles, has always made me wonder this – why did Jesus take the time to cross the lake to help this one man? Why this man? He was wicked and violent. Darian had hurt many and had done unspeakable things.

But Jesus saw value in him. Value where no one else saw anything good.

Jesus waded right in – right into the middle of Darian’s mess and pain and evil heart, and changed him. Loved him. As unlovable as Darian was, Jesus loved him anyway.

No one had asked Jesus to come to the region of the Gerasenes and fix their problem. There was no emissary sent out to beg for Jesus’ help. Darian’s mother hadn’t sought out Jesus either, urging him to come and help them. And Darian was an ongoing and very real problem for the entire community. But they didn’t ask.

Jesus came anyway.

Why?

What did Jesus see in Darian that was invisible to everyone else?

Jesus saw what Darian could be. He saw value where everyone else saw a throw-away and a problem maker. And that’s what he acted on. And that’s what Darian responded to.

Value. Seeing value in others is another way to love.

The homeless person on the street corner. The convict, lonely in prison. The co-worker with different beliefs.

No matter where you are. No matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter.

We, too, need to see the value that God sees.

We know what Jesus would do – because he already did it.