And The Walls Came Tumbling Down

Psalm 89:40

Common English Bible (CEB)

40    You’ve broken through all his walls.
    You’ve made his strongholds a pile of ruins.

The strange thing about strongholds and  heart walls, you have no idea they're there. I have spent thirty-eight years  trapped behind the walls of unforgiveness. I made bad decision based on the stronghold of not being loved. A stronghold in the New Testament is simply when we believe a lie. 2 Corinthian 10:4

When I wrote the the story, "When love hurt," My son read it. He simply said, "I could understand both of your emotions. However I don't think at this point in my life I want to pursue a relationship with him, I do want to meet my sisters." I told him that was probably a wise decision. I must admit I felt relieved he didn't hold anything against me.

As soon as I finish writing the story, I reconnected with my son's aunt. The boys sister, my dear friend. For two days we caught up on each others lives. The inevitable happen, she asked me why I kept her nephew from their family for all these years. She told me how the day that the boy bought the Lional train set to our son, he was nervous and apprehensive, but he did it anyway. She explained to me how my reaction to him had crushed him. She told me of the longing her family had to just see our son. I cried and repented. I asked her to forgive me I told her to ask the boy to forgive me, I begged her mothers forgiveness. 

She still held on to some paper work of my son, all she had of him. I never once in all these years stopped to think what my actions may have done to them. I had left a hole in their family, in their lives. I didn't think they cared. I thought their grandmothers action spoke for the whole family. However I hadn't wrote the whole story. The hardest part was yet to be told. The part that made me feel ashamed and humiliated was yet to be told.

Three days after writing the first two blog post about the situation, the Lord said to me,"You didn't write it all." I said, "No one need know that part." He said I want it all. There are things in life we just want to forget ever happened. Those are the things we hold on to the tightest. Those are the walls that even God can't penetrated. He don't wanted to penetrated them though. He wants to tear them down. I reluctantly agreed.

Our son was six or seven months old. I hadn't forgiven his father for not fighting for me. I was with my childhood friends. Mostly guys, we were drinking beer. The boy came over to the house I was at. I ignored him. Bitterness had become my portion, he ignored me as well. Our grandmothers had taught us well. Without warning to me an argument broke out among the fellows that night. We came from a small suburb outside of Detroit. Most of us lived there our entire lives, the boy came from Detroit, he was not one of us, but we had accepted him over the last few years that he lived in our town with his grandmother.

This night though he became the outsider. I didn't understand what the commotion was about. I do remember the rage and anguish over the neighborhood boys faces. One of them wanted to hit the boy. Finally they told me what it was about. They said the boy had Spanish Fly and he wanted to put it in my drink. As a female teen in the seventies our worse fear was someone slipping Spanish Fly in our drink. Spanish Fly was known for making good girls do unimaginable sex acts to strangers. It was told to us that Spanish Fly was something strangers put in drinks of unsuspecting girls to take sexual advantage of them. Spanish Fly was feared by all girls back then.

The boy that I once loved, hated me so much that he would do the most heinous crime against me. He tried to enlist the help of the neighborhood boys, which told me he wanted all involved to have their way with me. I hated the boy for the next thirty-eight years. I distanced myself as far away from the neighborhood, but even further away from the boy. A few months later I started dating his friend. I wanted to crush him as much as he had crushed me. I never told anyone what had happened that night. It was to difficult to remember.

I finally told his sister why I distanced myself from their whole family. She defended the boy, she said my memory was faulty, or the neighborhood boys conspired against her brother. I guess she wasn't ready for the truth. I understand it has taken most of my life to face this same truth. Even as she spoke I tried to make myself believe she was right. I know better, but sometimes rewriting history is better then walking in it's muddy footsteps.

I have cried for three days after finally relinquishing my hold on this awful truth that has held me captive to unforgiveness. I laid in a fetal position asking Jesus to help me through this. I felt His arms around me. I heard Him whisper, "I love you." I said, "but the boy didn't!" It's strange how I can still remember the expression on certain faces that night, some where hurt and pity toward me, one was shock and disbelief, one was anger, but the one I remember most is the boys. His eyes were empty of any emotion; like pages of a novel that had not yet been written. He was thrown out of the house that night, but he took a large part of me with him.

Finally the walls came tumbling down. I have prayed for the boy, who now, his sister says, is a bitter old man. I know longer hold his secret, I am free. I have been plagued with uti for years. I felt one coming on recently. I noticed that it was gone once relinquishing bitterness and unforgiveness. I never had another child, Abba said my bitterness closed my womb. I lost so much. One of the greatest weapon the enemy uses against the people of God is the stronghold of not being loved. When we don't love we only reinforce the stronghold in the lives of others. The truth of the matter is I am loved and I have always been loved completely. I found that out the day I was filled with the Holy Spirit. That's the only way I could describe it. I know that love was always there.

My prayer is to be able to love without restrictions, even the ones that hurt us the most in this life. This is only the beginning for us. I had to stop letting my past hold me from my future. I have to look past the temporal and look to the eternal. I have to forgive quickly and love completely. Abba broke through my walls and made my stronghold a ruin. 

Fearless

When Love Hurt 2

The boy came to visit me every night after my grandma went to bed. We wanted to be together. We wanted to be a family, but the grandmas wanted no part of that. I tried to visit him one day. As we walked into his residence his grandma met us at the door and said she didn't want a little whore in her house.My grandma chased him with a gun and any object she would find handy, once she even chased him away with a ketchup bottle. We were star-crossed lovers. It didn't mater to them that we had a small bundle in my body forever tying us to each other. The grandmas didn't seem to notice how tormented we were by their actions. Both thought they were on the side of righteousness.

That's the problem with righteousness outside of God. The prophet Isaiah said,  " But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."Isaiah 64:6. I did a word study on what the word  meant by filthy rags. I envision it as a dirty cloth used for household cleaning, but it's actually referring to a menstrual rag, which I can only imagine how gross they were back then, women couldn't even come inside of the camp in ancient Israel during her monthly cycle because they were unclean. That's what our righteous deeds are like to Abba, That's what the grandmas righteous deeds were, that's what my righteous deeds were like too.

Last week I prayed a simple prayer. I asked once again for a heart that forgives, I asked that if there's anything that would separate my heart from Him, for the Holy Spirit to reveal it to me and to give me the grace to forgive. I never expected for this to come up. I thought it was far behind me. It was forgotten but not forgiven. The Holy Spirit really is a wonderful counselor. A few days after I prayed this prayer; I all of a sudden felt an urge to try to contact the boys sister. Her and I were always friend, not friends because of her brother, but friends despite her brother. We were the kind of friends that would hold each others dark secrets and foolish mistakes without judgment. She was my advocate and support against her grandma. She told her grandma if I was a whore than she was one too. I always loved her. Unfortunately putting the past behind me meant losing contact with her as well. That is one of my greatest losses in life.

I looked for her on social media sites without much luck. Her and I had reconnected when my son was a teenager, but lost contact again. I don't remember why but I do remember a couple of incidents between us that weren't good, but nothing that's not normal in friendship. Things like refusing to stop and put oil in a car and the other fusing about it. Anyway, I decided to look for her children and I found them. I called my son and informed him. He has spent his life feeling abandoned by that side of his family. Like an unwelcome stranger; cast-out like bad smelling trash. Our son is the real tragic victim in the mess that became our lives. I have watched helplessly as he struggled with rejection and abandonment, which hid itself in a bottle of alcohol. The demons that plague so many in the world today, especially among the fatherless.

He didn't say much when I told him where to find his cousins, he was excited though, but he still had a fear of not being accepted. He didn't say it, but me being his mother I have always read between his lines. He said something about wanting to find his sister( his father other children), His voiced raised a pitch when I mentioned his father. He went to Facebook and sent friend request. So did I.

Days later without being accepted, I realized I felt something rising out of the deepest hidden part of me. Some long hidden feelings. Hurt that had turned into bitterness. I have learned to ask Jesus to help me understand what I'm feeling.

I was that young hurting sixteen year old girl. I was pregnant and ashamed, fighting even my family to hold my little family together. I begged my grandma to stop being so mean to the boy. I tried to prove to his grandma I had worth, and I wasn't the name she called me. I loved the boy. It's wasn't long until the neighborhood gossip mill put their spin on the situation. I became a pregnant whore that wasn't sure of who the father of the baby is. When I heard it, It was suppose to have come directly from the boy. I cried all the way home. I still remember walking in the cold winter afternoon. My pain was immeasurable. I remember falling down in the snow and crying my eyes out. I had to talk to the boy, I had to ask him if he why he would do that to me and his baby. I had fought so hard for him, only to be rejected behind my back. He was still calling me and visiting when we could sneak past my grandma.

I had no one, I grieved my great grandma, I needed her, I needed the one that loved me, but she had been dead for six or seven months. I was all alone in my pain and grief. I still had my baby growing, my love that no one could take from me. He became the center of my universe before he was born. The boy denied telling anyone that he wasn't the father. I believed him, because I needed to believe him. By the time I was in my seventh month of pregnancy I had to drop out of school for medical reasons. The pregnancy and the trauma of our situation was to much for my young body. One weekend during this time I felt good enough to go to one of those high school basement parties that were so popular in the seventies.

I couldn't do drugs and drink like my peers, but I could still dance. I never gained much weight, only in my abdomen. I could still do the latest dances. I was dancing and waiting for the boy to come to the party. I was laughing a joking with some of my friends when I noticed the boy was already at the party, but not alone on, his lap sit a girl from the neighborhood that I considered a friend. I looked on in shock and unbelief. I asked one of my friends who was standing close to me to let me see a the empty Barcardi bottle he was holding. I walked up to them and took the bottle and hit him with it, barely missing her, and I walked away with everyone at the party staring at me. After that I didn't leave the house except to go to doctors appointments. The masses had won. I retreated inside of myself only coming out when the boy called. I hoped he would change, that he would start to love me and our baby. He said she didn't mean anything to him and that they were only friends. I believe him, I needed to, I had to.

I loved the boy, but his love hurt. Our son was born one afternoon while the boy was in school. He came to the hospital right after school, he played with our son, he cuddled him and kissed me. He spent all his free time with us, when my grandma wasn't around. His dad bought us a beautiful and expensive cherry wood crib, his eldest sister bought us a bassinet. We made plans for him to finish school and go to the military. I would go back to school and get a trade. We became a family despite the opposition we faced daily. I lost all baby fat quickly. A few months after our baby was born. I went to hang out out with my friends, the boy got mad, we fought. We fought mostly about whether had had denied the baby and the girl on his lap. I never forgave him. I secretly believed his accuser. Our relationship became violent and passionate. It wasn't unusual for people to see us fighting or kissing. We was also  neighborhood hotties. Both of us had many members of the opposite sex vying for our attention. I didn't realize it about myself then. It took years and confession from some of the guys, for me to realize how desirable I was. I didn't think anyone would want me after pregnancy, how wrong I was.

By the time our son was four months old. I had left the baby with my mom pretending to go to school, but really I went out with my friends.  The boy found out about it and went and took the baby from my mom. He said I didn't desire to raise his son. I got home and found out what he had did. I was angry and called and demanded him to return my son right away. He refused, I cried and asked my mom what I should do. She said, "Nothing." He'll bring him back when he realized how much you have to do to take care of a baby. So I did nothing for three days. I missed my baby, I missed the boy. I hoped my mom was right. On the fourth night the boy returned our son to me. His grandma was waiting for him at the corner. The boy walked away from me angry. I ran behind him, begging him to talk to me. He refused, by the time I got to the corner where his grandma was waiting they were a distance in front of me. I screamed the boy's name, I pleaded with him.I fell to the ground in tears. I loved the boy, there was no pride left to get in the way. He never looked back. He didn't love me, he didn't fight for me. My heart told me that his grandma had won. I walked away hurt and defeated.

The story only got bitter on my part after that day. I rejected the boys offer of apology after that. I stilled loved the boy, but I had build a stonewall to my heart, I cased the boy out. I started dating one of his friends. I allowed my son to believe that was his dad. I said mean things to the boy. I only demanded he pay child support. He went to the child support and denied being the dad. He asked me to accept payment from him and not involve the state. I agreed, he gave me money that day and promised to bring more the following week. He didn't show. We were schedule for blood test soon. This was before the day of DNA. I told him I wouldn't show to forfeit his legal responsibility, I lied. I was angry because he lied about being the father. We had lost all trust in each other. He didn't show for the blood test. I went with our son in toll. He lost the case by default. I grew more bitter.

It was hard for him to get past me dating his friend. We became bitter enemies me and the boy, I no longer loved. One day we were together to discuss child support. We kissed that day, the boy and I. I still loved the boy. I told the guy I was dating. I wanted him to understand my confusion. He didn't, so for the next few years he tormented me with his jealousy of the boy. He didn't want the boy to visit his son. When our son was a toddler the boy bought him a expensive train set for Christmas. I was mean to the boy because it was three days after Christmas when he came. I wanted my son to believe in a fat man in a red suit, but not his biological dad. I started believing I was the righteous one, the wounded innocent in the situation. I couldn't see past my own hurt and disappointment. It never occurred to me how humiliated the boy was behind my decision to date his friend. I thought he didn't care-he didn't love me. His now ex-friend took on full responsibility on my son. The boy faded into the background. I would still see him around. One day my four year old son called the boy, "The man me and my mama hate." My mother still laughs about that incident. Today I am ashamed and appalled by the that incident. I had taught my child to hate his own father.

Today I realize that my grandma's loved hurt the boy, and his grandma's love hurt me. I realized his love hurt me and my love hurt him, but the person who suffered the most is our son. I wish I could go back thirty-eight years and tell the boy and the girl they're too young and inexperienced to handle the consequences of they're action. You're not ready for sex. I would tell them to go read a book, finish school, stop playing grown-up because one day the game will get bigger then you. I would hug them and tell them they are loved and worthy of love. I would lead them to Jesus with all the love inside of me.

As I write these post I have a box of tissue by my side and many tear soaked tissue beside the box and around my bed. I cried for the little girl that made a bad decision, birthed out of grief and a feeling unloved. As I look back on my failures, most all were birthed from a lack of love and feeling unworthy or grief. I have spent most of my life holding myself a prisoner of my unforgiveness toward the boy and his grandma. If you would have asked me two weeks ago if I held any animosity toward them, I would have infamy denying I harbored such sin in my heart. I did. The heart really is deceitfully wicked above all things.

As I write this post Jesus has taken this journey with me. He asked me during the hard memory to ask Him where He was when I was going through such pain. He said he was right there with me, He never left my side. When I felt hurt and abused he comforted me, when I felt unloved He told me, I loved you, When I felt unaccepted He said, I accepted you. And when I was selfish and mean, He showed me my error with love and patience and he gave me the grace to repent. I haven't spoken to the boy in thirty years. I still remember our last conversation. Me and my son ran into him in the park across the street from where I used to live. Being together in one of the places we spent so much of our childhood, where we shared so many stolen kisses. We actually laughed and enjoyed each. Our son was eight years old. He was suppose to come over the next day and take our son to the movies. He told a mutual friend that he still loved me. I was single at the time, but still bitter. I said "No way!" He didn't show up to take him to the movie. I watched my child's shoulder slump in disappointment. He called the next day.  I told him to just stay out of our son's life and hung up the phone,

I never talked to him again.

Over the years I received a few child support payment. Not very many. The bitterness hid and festered until this week. As I write this with tears in my eyes, I feel something heavy lifting off of me. Not only the fact that I finally see my side in the whole mess (something that escaped me all these years). It didn't escape my Abba. I pray that my son will one day have a relationship with his dad. I pray that any bitterness he may have toward me will heal as well. I came out the winner in the situation, I was able to keep the wonderful person in the world to me. I had the privilege of raising a sweet and precious boy. I had his little arms around me, I had a million "I love you spoken to me by our son, I have the same thing with our grand-babies. I have watched my son turn into a man. I know he has that disconnect. I pray that he heals and forgive me and the boy for all our many mistakes.

Every time my son has ever smiled at me, I see the boy.

When Love Hurt

In my fifteen year on this earth, one month before my sweet sixteen. I lost the only person that could see me. I was invisible to everyone else, at least that's the way I felt.  My great grandma Amanda Belle Brown, she died of cancer. Me and all my siblings were at her bed when she muttered her last words. Most were incoherent. She called my grandma and Uncle Jake names asking them to remove the chickens from the yard. A reference to the days she lived in the hills of Kentucky fifty years prior. My sibling and I looked on with watery-eyed grief. I grabbed her hand and kissed it, she recognized me and said, "Sally, we're going home." (Yes, she called me Sally). After that she went into a coma. She never recovered, two days later she died.

Grief, like a dark blanket thrown over my head covered me. Sleep escaped me, and guilt consumed me. Since I can remember my great grandma has been in and out of the hospital. She taught me how to pray and many bible stories. As a child I knew when I prayed things changed. Every time I prayed for her she recovered. I knew God answered my prayers. This time I forgot to pray or more to the point I was caught in the grips of teenage rebellion and didn't pray. I was to consumed with my friends, drinking cheap wine and smoking marijuana. God and my grandma had to take a back seat to my new found social life and my struggle to fit in. Now, that grief consumed me I was sucked into a black hole of guilt. If I would've only prayed, maybe God would have been gracious to me and gave her more time with me. Now, I had no one to see me, to know me, to love me.

I had a boyfriend of almost two years. He has pressured me to have sex for two years. I needed to belong to someone. I needed to feel loved.God was far away to me then. A being that was there, but not very close. He only answered prayers for good girls that prayed. He probably didn't see me neither. So I did what a lot of young girls searching for love do, I let a boy have my body. It was May 21, 1975 on February 20, 1976 my son was born. Teenage pregnancy come with it's on set of problems. One of which is the boy I loved; like everyone else, he didn't love me.

That night we had a warm spring breeze, I still remember shaking with fear and anticipation and hope that someone-he would see me, and love me. We half undressed in the large tent in his grandmother's backyard. I never expected it to hurt, I begged him to stop. I wasn't ready to lose my virginity.  It was to late. Afterward I lay holding back tears wondering what I had did. I didn't feel like the women I had expected. I felt scared and abused. I don't remember how long I lay  fighting tears. He felt bad and went in the house and made me a ham sandwich and a glass of Vernors ginger ale. May be he thought ham and Vernors would fill the hole that was left in my soul. It didn't.

I didn't talk to him the rest of the summer. A month later I realized that I was pregnant. I told only my closet friends. They feed me, help me to run away to avoid the death penalty I was sure would come when my parents and grandparent found out I was pregnant. I hid my pregnancy under oversize shirts and sweat shirts. I would have probably went on like that until I went into labor, but my grandma was more observant of me then I realized. By the following fall sometime in late October as I lay sleeping after school she peeked under my oversize sweat shirt. She didn't wake me. When I woke up her and my mama where sitting on the couch with worried looks on their faces. The brokenhearted look they gave made me want to run.

Before I could take flight my grandma addressed me. "You're pregnant, not one month or two, you're three or four months aren't you?" A part of me was glad it was finally out, but not the scared part. I open my mouth to deny it. My grandma said, "If you lie to me I won't help you. My grandma was the family rock. The day and a half I had run away, I came home when I called and she was crying. I never meant to make her cry. I was young and immature and scared. I needed her help, I needed her love and acceptance. I whisper, "yes I am." She said how many months, I said, five months. She said to my mostly quiet mama, Oh my God, Trisha take her to the doctor.

My sister went to school the next day and told my peers. After that day people started looking at me different. I could feel the cold stares of judgment. I was judged as loose and fast. It was hard for me to hold my head up, but I did. Inside I was dying a thousand slow deaths. I still hadn't spoke with the boy since that night. I was hurt and angry and so alone. Two days after it had gotten around the neighborhood, the boy called me. He said, I heard you're pregnant, I said "yes." He said, "is it mine?"  "What do you think?", I asked in a snarky tone. He said, "I'll be right over.

He came over that night after my grandma had went to bed. I had missed him so much. My heart finally started to mend. The last few months were spent watching the boy from a distance with longing and pain. My only saving grace back then was the little bundle growing in my belly; finally someone to love me. Unfortunately we didn't have a happily ever after. My grandma said she didn't want him to visit me. She called his grandma, both of our grandmas were strong domineering women. They ruled the roost. Even our parents couldn't veto what the said, and mostly they didn't try.

When the grandmas talked or should I say argued. My grandma told his grandma she expected him to help take care of his child. His grandma denied the baby was his and attempted to call me a whore. My grandma said, "If you say it I promise you I will break through this phone and kick your ass." She stopped short of calling me that to my grandma, but that's the name she called me to my face not long afterward. I went from a loved starved virgin to a label of whore. Five months prior, I was the exact opposite of a whore. That didn't stop me from getting labeled.

There's more to the story. I will post part two tomorrow and I will tell the reason I'm telling the story.

Fearless