The three yellow cars

When I am down, God throws me a little joke. It is funny - silly, playful, funny. I can only explain it with that God is kind of telling me "relax, you are OK - I got your back". And he does it in the way that I can't do anything else but to smile.

Today it happened, again.

God shows me three yellow cars within minutes. It is always three, like the Divine Trinity: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - or as I like to see it: The spiritual, the mental and the physical (in my world). And it is always yellow - like the color of gold that is the color of the Divine.

Today driving to work for a meeting a yellow car drives by me, then an orange car, then a school buss. I laugh out loud and said: "that was not three YELLOW cars, that was only one". Sitting by the light only a few seconds later, waiting for it to turn green, the second yellow car drives by. I smile and I said "ok, you got two! I am not counting that orange car..." 

I pulled into Starbucks not even a minute later, sure I was going to see a third soon. And yes! behind me in the drive-through line a yellow car pulls up. And I felt a smile not only on my face but in my heart. God was once again telling me that I should not worry because he has my back.

I know this may sound so silly - but to me it is so clear.
And the beauty is that I chose to believe :)
Well, I not only believe - I know!

Giving thanks

Tonight in church I will stand up and verbally share this note of gratefulness that I have been working on over the past few days. I wrote it in a way so that the people that know what my struggles have been like will understand and for those who have their own struggles will be able to relate in a way. It is not the time and place to share the details of my story, just the gratefulness of how I am standing here giving thanks...

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Through the many years of darkness in my life You planted a seed in my heart. 

You whispered gently to me to not give up. 

You, in Your own magical ways told me You Loved me just the way I am, as I am. 

The seed You planted in my heart started to sprout earlier this year and day by day the flower of Love keeps growing bigger, stronger and more colorful. 

God, thank You for the Love you have brought to me through every soul that dared to hold my hand and be here for me. 

God, thank You for the fire of courage you lit inside of me and for the light of hope you held in front of me to help me step out of the darkness. 

God, thank You for the exciting future you have in store for me.   

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Righteousness and Peace kiss each other

Since it is Thanksgiving week right now I figured I would share something on the lighter side. I am a Pinterest fan! (ok that was not what I wanted to share - but the story starts here...) I go on Pinterest on a regular basis, some weeks multiple times a day - you know waking up, bathroom breaks, going to bed, when you are slightly bored, when an idea just hits your head and you cannot let it go until you have done at least some investigation... etc. You get the point.

So, in the middle of all the darkness I have been through over the past years. Close to 8 years to be exact... I was also held up by some crazy force that kept telling me to fight! It told me to even if I locked it away, to not forget whom I was. Ever. So I did. I locked myself up but I didn't forget her. And finally she is starting to come out... humbly and careful but she is on her way out... And she is a force of LOVE.

I stumbled upon this 30 day challenge on Pinterest over the weekend and when I did my soul just smiled! It was exactly what I needed to do... (I added my own part to it too but still).

I encourage you to do the same, no matter where you are in your life because if you start to look at things in a different light (perhaps) things will start to change for the better. You know, it is the law of attraction - positivity attracts positivity.. love attracts love... happiness attracts happiness...

Sorry, I am babbling. Here is the 30 day challenge:

DAY 1 

Name and write down three new things you are grateful for when you wake up. 

Continue for 29 more days.

[waking up focusing on the positive can be a great start of your day as positivity feeds positivity]  

My own addition: Write down one of your most significant prayer for the day.

[remembering your prayer will easier identify that they actually came true...]

DAY 2

Write down one meaningful thing that happened to you in the last 24 hours. 

Continue for 28 more days.

[when you start you will find so many little things in life to be grateful about]

DAY 3 

Reach out to someone you know and praise them. 

Continue for 27 more days. 

[you know what it feels like being told by someone how special you are to them, return the favor!]

DAY 4

Start doing cardio for at least 15 minutes a day. 

Continue for 26 more days. 

[exercise releases endorphins do I need to say more?!]

DAY 5

Start meditating for at least 5 minutes a day. 

Continue for 25 more days. 

[deep breathing keeps us relaxed, provides oxygen to the blood and helps clean out toxins]

DAY 30

You made it! We hope you will keep these habits going beyond the challenge! 

I put the writing part of this challenge on different colored post-it notes and I post them on my wall in my bedroom. When I have completed the 30 day challenge I will buy a journal and put them all in there... It is visual and exciting and my wall is growing of positivity!

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"I will listen to what God the Lord will say; He promises peace to His people, His saints... 

...Love and Faithfulness meet together; Righteousness and Peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and Righteousness looks down from heaven."

-PSALM 85:8, 10-11 

 

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Self realization and Self healing

On the path of recovering from my abusive marriage I picked up a book called "You are Loved. Embracing the Everlasting Love God has for You" by Sally Clarkson and Angela Perritt. A book that turned out to be a DIY Bible study... (I guess that is how God forced me to buy my own Bible - it is pink by the way) 

All chapters have hit right at heart and there was one chapter in particular that stood out to me. The story wasn't based on the same reality but the words were mine... every single one of them. So I have below re-written Sally's story from chapter 3 "Satan wants to steal and destroy our confidence in God's unchanging love" with my own heart and soul behind it...

Picture from CandieInk on Etsy

YOU ARE LOVED
Moving to this country and marrying my husband was enlightening at first. However, with every day, a shadow seemed to creep more profoundly over my heart. 

A realization that “I was not worthy” that I was inadequate before God, and ultimately my husband, weighted like a ton of bricks on my heart. I smiled on the outside and performed the tasks of living with the new responsibilities of being a wife and I did as best as I could. But no one could have guessed what the voices were saying to me inside my mind. 

Without even noticing I had been gathering a bundle of guilt, failures, fears, and inadequacies that I carried inside of me every day. They were a dark cloud that often defined how I felt about myself: “You are not loved because you are inadequate. You are just playing the role of being a wife and a good person, but God and your husband are disappointed in you. If people knew what you are really like, they would see your shame and shortcomings.” 

In-between my late 20’s and early 30’s, the façade people observed by the mask of friendliness I wore, did not resemble my inside feelings. Blond hair, blue eyes, I tried and tried and tried to make myself as perfect as possible hoping someone would truly love me – I attempted to win favor by my looks, my performances at work, and all things external – but inside, I felt unworthy for anyone to love me. Perhaps on the outside, I looked like I had it all together, but on the inside I was crumbling, minimizing all the abuse that was performed on my expense. 

Night after night, I slumped alone, under my blanket in silence, weeping desperately and physically aching as though something inside was going to burst. No matter what I accomplished, how hard I attempted to be excellent, I always fell short; there was always more abuse or fear of it. A deep longing to be known and still loved haunted me daily. 

Too abused to understand, I had not realized that somehow, I had received a message from my husband, that his love was based on my performance. And I convinced myself of the same thing – if you do the right things, you will be acceptable. If you please him, you would be popular, but if he saw the real you, he would not want to know you. If I made a mistake or chose different values than him, I would be ignored or condemned. 

Love had been conditional, based on my performance and I never knew when I was going to be “in” or “out” of acceptance in my life. I had been surrounded by the one who felt free to criticize me and I had listened to his messages. 

I sought the impossible. I had been striving my whole married life to be enough to impress my husband to notice me, to affirm the longings in my heart to be noticed, heard, understood, loved for who I was as I was. All I wanted was to curl up in the arms of someone strong who would truly love me, for the comfort and security I had always longed for but never quite experienced. But I could never, would never admit that out loud (– until here and now).

FINDING GOD

As I poured out my heart to God one day in May of 2014, that I barely knew -- and felt compassion, gentleness and love in return – there was no condemnation there. God was excited that I put my faith in Him. The truth is that we will never have to perform for God, because His love for us is endless, infinite, constant and abundant once you put your faith in him. 

ALWAYS KNOW THAT GOD LOVES YOU

But there is one who wants to keep you from knowing the secrets and amazing love of God – Satan despises those who want to love God. He would love to whisper words of darkness into your heart so that you will be distracted and waste your time trying to please God, when you are already all that you need to be to please Him. You must begin to recognize the voices that are not truths and then determine not to accept them as truths or listen to them. All you have to do is reject his lies and live into the truth and strong foundations of love that God has communicated to you in scripture! There will always be a spiritual battle going on in your heart, because Satan comes to steal away your faith and confidence. 

Satan knows that if he can get you to focus on yourself and look at your inadequacies, you will not be free to enjoy the incredible love and forgiveness of God. When you listen to his voices, you are actually giving into Satan’s lies and then he has you living a defeated life.”

YOU ARE GOD'S PRINCESS
You are royalty because you have been adopted by the King, the creator of the universe. That is your heritage and that is the reality of His love for you. 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39

You must, as a little girl before God, run to Him with open arms and rest and abide in this great love. Only when you accept this love and trust Him will you ever be free from the darkness you feel.

We cannot be free to love as long as we are dwelling on ourselves, our own inadequacies, bitterness, lack of forgiveness for ourselves or for others. Jesus desires us to live freely, no condemnation hanging over our heads, so that we become freer to love others as well.  

12 of 20 - You are just not good enough

It's Never Enough "The Loser" convinces you that you are never quite good enough. You don't say "I love you" enough, you don't stand close enough, you don't do enough for them after all their sacrifices, and your behavior always falls short of what is expected. This is another method of destroying your self-esteem and confidence. After months of this technique, they begin telling you how lucky you are to have them - somebody who tolerates someone so inadequate and worthless as you.

Warning Signs you are Dating a Loser by Joe M. Carver PhD.
To see all 20 signs and steps to end the relationship click here

- To even bring up examples here is hard because at this point I know I am not good enough. It has been beaten into me so many times that I live in a constant flux of not being good enough to knowing I'll make a mistake again shortly. It's like either you are not good enough now or you will be not good enough in a minute.. I don't even know which one is worse. Waiting for it to come might actually take the prize though. Because it is this build up, you feel it coming and then there is the blow-up. Boom - you are not good enough! And you can add whatever it was to your never ending list of things you need to do to improve yourself...

We sometimes interact with his friend's parents and some of them we love very deeply, or I do at least. This one mom, Carol always tells Thunderstorm how lucky he is to have me, that I am such a wonderful person and woman...

Later in an argument he will use terms as "you must have everyone fooled", "they don't know the real you like I do", "you hide all your imperfections so well when you are around Carol it makes me see that you can be this good person but towards me you are not, you must not love me enough" etc...

I guess he is really chocked that they think I am so "wonderful" since his list is far from flattering. And obviously his list is the truth. His reality is what matters. (Now, I don't know if there is an actual list but he can sure keep mental track of all the things I am not good enough at). And, in the end I should be lucky to have him because I would be completely lost without him... And who would really put up with me for a long period of time... Seriously?!

...Makes me wanna puke!

The worst part in this struggle is that you try even harder. You accept even more abuse and you forgive him more and more. Because, you are a great person and is dedicated to help him and why would you think that he is treating you like this because he just is a mean person - no, there must be a reason to his madness you tell yourself. This whole cycle leads to you taking his side by accepting that you are not good enough at anything because he has proven this to you so many times, no matter how twisted it is in reality. True reality does not really exist, to be honest, in an abusive relationship because his view is twisted and your view has been twisted by his twisted views. You become mentally addicted to the abuser, no matter how absurd that sounds. You think you need him to function. You forget to look within yourself. Until you wake up.

And the wake up call will come. And you will realize that you were right all along... And you will realize that you are someone. You are beautiful and you are worthy of a wonderful like.

Dear God, Today I pray that all the people (wives, husbands, children) that are currently being abused are being lead towards the light of hope and can find a way to escape the abuse and live a happy fulfilling life following the path God has set forth.

I pray for love

In church today I was taking my first communion in years. I can't even remember the last time I did it. We were asked to look through Christ when we look at our misfortunes and sorrows. Broaden our views and not only focusing on what is bad in life. The reason we are in pain right now is part of His plan. And one day we will understand why even if we can't understand today.

I do this. And I try to do this as much as I possibly can. I want to love life, people and opportunities. I want to give love to life, people and opportunities. And I do. I have so much love in my life despite of what I am going through that sometimes I feel I don't even deserve the love I am given. Because for some reason I put myself through this pain. I mean I put myself in the situation of receiving pain.

At the same time as I understand that God has a plan for us... I also believe in evil and that hate is easier to absorb. That hate can replace love. I will NEVER let that happen to me. EVER.

...But what I wanted to get to with that is that I do believe that there are evil forces in this world that are out of God's control. This dark side also have a free will just as we people do. And some people get attached to this dark side because I am sure it can look temping and easy from time to time.

But the longer you stay in this dark place the harder it will be to let love back in. To let it in and to let it grow. I feel that this sometimes happens to me. But I don't think it is because of hate. I don't hate anything. Hate is a strong word. I cannot hate. I love. I am a lover. However, from the hurt and the feelings of not being loved as I deserve I have become more careful with love. I read into things more than I used to, I analyze things. I question.. "is this love or someone trying to control me"... It is actually kind of draining to have these feelings even though it feels like I am not controlling them.

I only feel safe loving something like a dog, a friend, a task, a moment.. but to find love in someone of the opposite sex. You know a possible future partner - that kind of love is frightening me a little.

So today I pray that the leader of the worlds countries, powerful agencies and companies will let love in, in the place of power, greed and money to do good in this world. I pray that you, your family and loved ones will love more everyday, that you will find the light of hope in front of you and share the love that you have to make it stronger, extend it to those of you you don't know yet. Amen.