Abilene

(a repost from 2017) I was in Abilene yesterday, the town that I spent many years in as a child and my early years of marriage. It was a painful walk down memory lane. I had been focused on the excitement of the event  we were attending and wasn't thinking about any negative impact from the visit, so I was a bit jolted by it.
  We took the kids to see our favorite home but it turned into...
This is the house daddy and I lived in... before the flood that took our car... that cost us our jobs... which cost us our truck...  and then our home.
 This is the town where I walked to work day after day in the snow and my husband stood alongside the highway in freezing weather to hitch-hike for rides to work for several weeks, until his boss was sick of him being late and fired him.
 This is the town where we would walk all the way across town to beg my mother for a ride to work or to the store because we had no other contacts in that town and even though she knew our situation she very rarely checked on us or offered to help us. This is where she begrudgingly helped a few times, then quickly started naming people who lived in other towns that we should ask for help instead, because she didn't want to be up before 9 AM.
 This is the town where she would send us walking back home alone (after drilling us on what other options we should be trying and glaring and us in disgust),.
This is the town where I got another job, with full time hours, so that I could make enough money to keep the electricity on but was only allowed rides to (but not from) work off and on for 2 weeks and then had to walk several miles there and back each day.
  This is the town where we only had flour and a small amount of meat or cheese to make tortillas and eat the same thing day after day, except for the times we went to a food bank and were treated with complete disgust by the volunteers there, and the time that my sister bought us 40.00 of food with her own money.
 My mother didn't have, or want, a job. Her check came each month from social security. I still cannot imagine sleeping in late each morning knowing that my child is working very hard to survive and could easily do it if I would just help her for a few weeks... or ( if it were my child) even months, or..indefinitely.
This is the town where she made one of my sisters tell me that I was not allowed to come to my baby sisters birthday; no reason other than her mood. I still remember the shock and anger and pain all rolled into one giant torpedo that I somehow had known was coming but could not possibly be prepared for.
 This is the town where she physically assaulted me because I wasn't leaving her house fast enough, and then called the police on me; lying, and saying that I was the one who was frightening her. Yes, I was upset, and angry, and crying and shaking She banned me from seeing my sister without any provocation and then called the police on my husband when he tried to talk to her about it (and was sitting in his car praying). Never mind that my brother in law was hanging onto my arms and that I was the one with the bruises. This was the closest that I ever came to telling her what I think of her and what she has always needed to be told. She saw the absolute disdain in my eyes and became enraged. Of course this is the part where she tells my siblings and all of her friends that I was possessed by demons and that my anger was coming against her from satan.
 This is the town where I later lost one of my babies. I was sitting on the living room floor when I noticed that blood was running out of me. I called my brother and he came as fast as he could to take me to the E.R. By the time I got there the pain was horrific and I was losing consciousness. It was too late.
 This is the town where many, many daggers were thrust into my soul but I was so used to being told that I was rebellious, or deceived, or manly, or fat, or whatever other reasons that made me less valuable than everyone else, that I didn't even see that it was evil and that I don't deserve to be hated or to hate myself.
  I do have some good memories of Abilene too but the intensity of the pain and betrayal we suffered there is impossible to ignore.
  These specific memories are just a very small amount of the instances of disregard, abuse, rejection and attacks that happened during our years there.
  I know about the need to forgive, and I have, many, many, many, many times.
   I do not need lectured about forgiveness.
  If you think that I am wrong for acknowledging a few of my reasons for hurting, for being angry, for weeping in front of my children and for choosing never to trust certain people you can pray about it.
 I have allowed myself to be repeatedly badgered by the same person so many times that I lost count. I did so because I believe in forgiveness and was afraid of hell.  I still believe in forgiveness but not the kind that keeps you trampled down by abusive people. Now I see that satan uses this mentality to keep his cruel hold on people and to infect future generations.
 I still hurt sometimes. Sometimes I suddenly remember something that I have pushed back for many years. Sometimes I look at my teen son and picture what his face would look like if I screamed at him to "get out of my house!!" and proceeded to shove him in front of his little siblings. The pain that I envision on his face breaks my heart and I cannot bear it. Suddenly I see that I too was crushed and that it was not something that I deserved. I suddenly feel the love I have for my son that would prevent me from EVER doing that to him and am struck with the fact that
             I WAS NOT LOVED.
   I do also have joy and freedom because I will never again think that being treated like a worthless beggar and burden by your own family is anything other than evil.
 In a strange way there was some good that came out of it. It pushed me closer and closer to the man she hated because he is the only one who has always been there for me. I learned that I can trust someone, truly and deeply. I may only trust that one person and my own children but without him I would never have experienced love and faithfulness, let alone trust.
 I look back to those times, and then I look to now, and I see how very, very, VERY far
we have come and I know that I am truly blessed, because God not only saved my soul, He saved my life.
 Because I know what it is to be alone and to have to jump through hoops and beg for any help or vague approval I will not ever make my children suffer alone. My home, my resources and my heart will always be open to my children. And because of THIS revelation my view of God is changing and I am living less and less in fear and more and more in love.
 God gave me this husband and these children. God is good.