The Long Road of Healing

This morning I found myself strolling down Memory Lane, a memory that scares me, a memory I wish I could bury forever and never recall.

The memory used to cripple me. It would rise up from the deep, dark hole I shoved it down and arouse intense emotions, leaving me in a tail spin as I fought to distance myself from it, as I fought to justify and make sense of what happened.

I have done a lot of work to grow and heal from this memory, and I do not remember what triggered it. I just know that I was beyond the initial question of figuring out if I wanted to deal with the memory or shove it back down. That ship had SAILED. I was already in the memory, in the place of ‘fighting to justify’ what happened. I was trying to make sense of it all and could feel ALL the emotions rising up: Anger, indignation, hate, confusion, sadness, physical pain, guilt, remorse, and so many more feelings that words cannot explain.

The fear of being drowned by overwhelming emotions sent up a (mental) RED FLAG.

I paused — unsure what would come next. Then a voice asked: “Are you still a victim or are you a victor?” Carrying on that thought, I wondered: At what point do you ‘change’ from victim to victor? Truthfully, I don’t know. There were years where I was always the victim and it wasn’t going to change, but at some point, something was changing or had changed in me. I did not want to be a victim anymore. I did not want to be burdened and weighed down any longer. I wanted to be the victor — whatever that meant.

I thought about which direction I was going to head down, which title I was going to claim: Victim or Victor; Broken or Beautiful; Damaged or Whole; Hurt or Healed; Volatile or Stable; Incapable or Capable; Begrudging or Forgiven.

It took nearly nine years to get to this place, but I chose: Victor, Beautiful, Whole, Healed, Stable, Forgiven, and able to Forgive.

In that moment I THANKED God for forgiving me and giving me the ability to forgive all who have wronged me. I thanked God for the healing work of His Spirit and the GIFT of faith to believe in the healing. I think I was healed for a lot longer than I knew — I just didn’t claim healing. It wasn’t the time then, but it is the time now.

Later that day, I gave thanks again…..so very grateful to ALL the people who helped me heal, process and overcome. Grateful for God’s strength rising up to ask which direction I was going to take and which title I was going to claim, and I was proud of myself. We have to give ourselves praise for big and little victories accomplished. So I gave praise where praise was due. Later that day I wondered ‘Why the HECK did it take nine years to get here!?’

I am sure there are more researched answers than mine, but here are my thoughts as to why it is hard to overcome ‘victim mentality.’

  • Claiming victory over wounds ‘diminishes’ the wound.

While this does not make sense, it does. There was a very bad, maybe even traumatic, terrible, and negative thing done to you. You wrestle with this. You battle this for a long time. It becomes part of you. Let’s be honest, it IS part of you. The moment ‘that thing’ happened, it became part of you and your story. It shapes who you are and who you’ll become. It is yours. Yours to claim. Yours to carry. Yours to work through. Yours. It’s almost like moving on diminishes that. Moving on ‘takes away’ the pain of what happened, and you ‘earned’ that pain. You would not choose it. You don’t want it. You’re not going to wave it around like a trophy, but it happened to you. It’s real. It’s hard. It’s yours.

While moving on does take away the pain of the wound, it does not take away what happened. Nor will it ever. What happened was real, and it should not have happened. What you went through will never be undone or diminished by moving on. What happened to you was SO wrong and painful and heavy. Moving on does not say what happened was okay or what happened didn’t happen or what happened ‘wasn’t that bad’. Moving on acknowledges the hurt happened. It was bad and it was wrong, BUT you are no longer tossed to and fro because of it. You are no longer going to let the perpetrator (or wrongdoing) have influence over your thoughts, mind, body, heart, emotions, or life. Moving on says what happened was real, but you’re more than that. You’re better than that. You’re ready. You’re able. You’re a victor – not a victim. You’re beautiful – not broken. You’re worth more and worthy. You are NOT damaged goods. You are whole, healed and healing. You are your own, beautiful person. Claiming victory over the wound does not and will never diminish what happened to you.

For me, another scary thing about moving on is:

  • Fearing the unknown of it

How do you move on? What does it look like? For so long you have been defined by what happened to you. So who are you now? What does life look like when this ‘thing’ does not control you?

We all fear the unknown, and the questions are real: Can I still talk about what happened? Is it part of my story? If it surfaces or I am triggered by it, does it mean that I haven’t moved on? Does it mean I am not healed? What if I thought I forgave but I find myself angry and upset again? What if I have to continue to work through after I think I have moved on?

The answer is Yes! You can move on slowly, one day at a time. Your life does not have to look like anything in particular. It looks like what it needs to look like. When you are not controlled by this anymore, you can allow healthier thoughts and hobbies and reactions into your life. You can still talk about what happened. Talking about what happened does not mean you have not worked through it – it means you have strength to share your story. It means you have the ability to help and encourage others with the same thing they’re working through. It will always be part of your story, but you can say when and how you share it. You write the narrative! It means you are healed, but there still may be triggers to work through, and that is okay.

Healing and forgiveness is a lifelong process. There is not that ‘one moment’ when you realize ‘you’re all better’ and that’s it. It is day-by-day, choosing healing, choosing forgiveness, choosing which path to take. I wish it was a one-and-done: You forgive. You heal. You move on. For some reason it does not work like that. What happened to us lives in our bodies and our memories, which is why certain smells, songs, movies, people, places, etc., can trigger what happened. Being triggered does NOT mean you have not healed. It means you’re real and what happened was real, but again, you now have the ability to acknowledge the trigger and say ‘You don’t control me,’ or say whatever you want! “Sorry guilt, nobody is here today but righteousness.” “Sorry memory, I acknowledge your presence, but I am not going to think about you today.”

You do not want to repress memories or feelings. You do not want to deny them when they surface. You want to take a moment, acknowledge, determine if it is something that you need to work through, like another layer of healing that needs to take place, and if that is the case, you should address and work through. But if it is not another layer of forgiveness and healing… if it is not something that needs to be addressed, then tell that thing you’re in the driver’s seat and it can ride in the trunk!

Thanks for reading about my journey. If you have any questions or encouraging stories, please hit me up in the Contact Page. As well, I strongly believe that seeking professional help is not weak. It is never wrong, and it is always worth the money. There are a many other ways to cope and heal aside from professional help – techniques (below) are some ways that helped me work through hurt:

  • Journaling my thoughts
  • Writing a letter to the person and sending OR not sending
  • Sharing my story with ‘safe’ people
  • Sharing my story in a larger group (as applicable)
  • Sharing my story in any medium (songs, journals, blogs, books, etc.,) that are meaningful to me
  • Counseling (Christian-based or not, Trauma counseling, Inner healing ministry)
  • Seeking prayer
  • Praying
  • Yoga, prayer walks, physical activity that allows me to reconnect to my body/thoughts
  • Reading the stories of others
  • Reading books about the topic or healing from the topic
  • Support groups
  • Time and a lot of effort!

Morning Thoughts: The Hurt and the Healing

Thunder crashes in the background as I sip my morning tea. The first rays of sunlight drift warmly in through the windows as the puppy curls into a ball for his post wake-up nap.

Is there a storm in Reno today? Not at all. Thank you modern technology and Google Home for bringing thunder storm sounds to this sunny and 60 degree day!

No doubt I am bored in quarantine, and even though it is a Saturday, my husband had to work; so I sit here alone. With my thoughts. A place many of us do not want to be.

I tried to open my Bible and read its pages with hopes of getting an encouraging word to start my day, a regular morning habit (and the best habit I have formed in the last 10 years).

I opened my Bible pages and read the context of 1 Peter.

“Everyone needs grace to overcome life’s hurdles,” the author starts with. I thought, ‘yea, that’s a good thought.’ “For some it is a difficult marriage, or the frustration of children, or people’s own limitations and hardships….”

I started to lose focus, so I skipped to Peter’s chapters. (I like Peter. He seems as bold and dumb and crass as I can be. You know, the imperfect person you can relate to and grab a beer with. I think he matured some where along his faith journey…. I am still waiting to get there;)

I had read through 1 Peter chapter 1 and was about to flip the page when I realized I did not recall a single thing I just read. I was reading but thinking about something else. (I heard in my work call this week that thunder in the background promotes focus. Next time I’ll have to try crickets or something.)

What had I been thinking about? I knew what I was thinking about, but why?

I was thinking about a ‘hurt.’ How had I started thinking about this hurt? It seemed very irrelevant to the “Living Hope” Peter wrote about.

In that moment I paused and wondered which path to pursue: I could process this hurt and find resolution OR skip over it and let it resurface at a later date. Against better judgment, I decided to process. Here we go:

This hurt is not ‘my’ hurt. No. I was not wronged ‘firsthand.’ A family member, someone I love, was wronged. I was hurt for him.

So instead of reading Peter, I was contemplating what I am going to do the next time I see the people who hurt my loved one. I’m thinking, “I can avoid them! That will be good. Nobody likes getting the cold shoulder.” OR “I can say I don’t want to get close because I might be an asymptomatic carrier.” Yea, yea, that’s good. Believable. OR “I can say something to them… we can clear the air, but it really is not my ‘hurt’ to clear the air with.”

At this point I am rooting for the ‘cold shoulder’ technique. You know: avoid the people and avoid the emotion of the situation. Avoid. Escape. Ignore. Block out. Put up walls, etc., The cold shoulder — oldest trick in the books. It’s a classic! Super easy. Super effective!

Then that sneaky little voice said, “Is that going to work?” WHAT? Don’t GOAD me! PSSSH. Get otta here. Of course it will work…. have you not been paying attention to ‘the plan.’ Apparently not. Apparently ‘Sneaky Voice’ was still reading 1 Peter while I was sculpting my master plan.

Sneaky Voice felt bothered, maybe sad; I could tell, so I wanted to check in with him/her and acknowledge where he/she is coming from.

Sneaky Voice: When you give the cold shoulder, not only do you ‘ice out’ your family, but you freeze and harden a piece of yourself as well. Blocking out, avoiding, and not forgiving hurts you as much – IF NOT MORE – than hurting the intended victim. I want better for you. You deserve more than that kind of pain and hurt in your life. Extending grace is not fair, but it’s loving. It’s what I chose to do for you. Will you choose to do it (for Me) as well?

Me: Yea, but what can I do? I am hurt by the situation. I would like to have a conversation with all parties involved, process and move on, but that isn’t an option. So how do I work through this solo with no apologies, clarification, or understanding of both sides? Do I just give grace, forgive, forget, and move on? That seems unfair, but the alternative is holding onto this bitterness, this hurt, this poisonous stick until I decide enough is enough, and I let go.

It seemed clear to me which option was optimal. Although I did not and do not believe grace is fair. Letting the ‘wrongdoer’ off the hook is not fair. There is something that feels so WRONG about grace and forgiveness, but I must admit, I do love being on the receiving end of grace. It’s just hard to be on the giving end of it.

Walking around with a chip on my should because someone else is choosing to be unkind or unloving or apathetic does not sound appealing. Why I should I let the decisions/choices of others to negatively affect me? I am not going to choose that. I am going to choose grace. I am going to choose love. I am going to choose to forgive, forget, move on, and when I see them next, I will love on them as much as I can.

The only regret I have now is: motive. Yea.

I wish my ‘motive’ to forgive was selfless, but it is not. My motive to forgive is ‘how it will affect me.’ I am the one at stake here.

I hope Sneaky Voice will grow my heart so my motive to forgive is because it is what is BEST for the other person. I am forgiven much, and I hope I can quickly extend the ‘unmerited’ grace I have been given.

1 Corinthians 13:1-7 reads like this:

Love Is the Greatest

13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance

Of this verse, I love verse 5 and 6:

  • Keeping no record of wrong is next level! It is one hurdle to forgive, and a next level hurdle to not bring up the wrong to that person. (My husband and I could both grow in this a bit if I’m honest. You likely could too if you’re honest!)
  • Love rejoices with the truth. The truth is: everyday is a new day with fresh grace and new mercies, a day to start over and believe the best of each person.

Thanks for reading. If you have anything to share, process, or contribute, message me on the Contact Page. God bless.

The Decision To Do Foster

Growing up there were two girls in my class of 100 who were adopted (that I knew of). Nobody in my immediate family did foster care or discussed foster/adoption. So it was never on my radar — nor the radar of my husband.

About three years ago I started volunteering with ‘high-risk’ (female) teenagers. One teen was 17 and had a baby. I was unsure if she would be able to keep this baby as her life was pretty chaotic. Then I heard of a ‘mentor’ who got licensed to do foster care to help these teens out.

I thought that was a novel and selfless idea, and the gears started turning!

I certainly caught my husband off guard when I mentioned getting foster care licensed; nonetheless, he decided to consider it in prayer. After six or more months, he said we could take steps to get our license, but that did not mean we were going to take a placement. I went ahead and started on the paperwork and requirements, and man was it A LOT!

We had to do background checks, fingerprinting, get references, fill out a short novel of paperwork, and get household items like: interconnected smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, outlet covers, etc., We had to have all of our medicines and essential oils in a locked cabinet or box, and other things like that you would normally not think about.

Mid-way into this process, Josh came to me and said, “Katie, what about this…. what if we decide to quit our jobs and travel for six months instead of getting foster licensed?”

Wow… that was a thought (I thought)! If I caught him off-guard with my request to get foster care licensed, this idea caught me 100 times more off guard. My husband is very stable, very steady, and likes detail-specific plans. So this was very uncharacteristic. I think he was going through a ‘quarter life crisis.’ He started saying things like, “I’m only 28. I’m not even 30. I don’t know if I want kids yet.” (HA — who knew those two magic years between 28 and 30 were so clutch!?)

I am not going to lie, I struggled with this. It took me three months of wrestling and praying over his idea before I said, “Okay! If you want to pause getting our foster license, quit our jobs and travel for six months, then that is what we will do!” He was pretty shocked and surprised by my agreement and wasn’t convinced anymore that it was a good idea. We settled on two weeks in Europe and did not quit our jobs. Thank God!

We pushed ahead to get licensed to do foster care, and after completing the paperwork and 30 hours of classroom training, we were ready to do the home inspection. To pass the home inspection, we needed a crib. In true procrastinator fashion, I waited until last minute to get one, and in my haste of moving furniture around, I dropped a desk on my big toe!

Icing my toe after dropping a desk on it

After hopping around in pain and creatively shouting out made-up curse words, I regained some composure.

If dropping a desk on my toe was bad, assembling the crib was as bad, if not worse. There were so many pieces and parts to figure out, and I had to turn in so many screws by hand that even with the screwdriver, I still got a blood blister!

Blood blister from assembling the crib

Who knew getting licensed to do foster care would be so dangerous?! HA. When the social worker left our house, she said we would likely pass the inspection with flying colors. YAY!

From start to finish, it took us about two years to get our license, and that was okay! I would rather us be certain we want to do this than to take a placement and change our minds. The kiddos experience enough trauma without being moved around from home to home.

Although it was a lot of work and time and prayer and frustration and fear and boredom (sitting through 30 hours of classroom training), the decision to get licensed was a great one, and I would do it all over again. Caring for the needs of a vulnerable child in need is always worth the cost.

Pretty Sexy Chicken and Rice Soup

I will not say it is the BEST chicken soup you’ll ever eat, because ‘best’ is subjective. However, I will say it is my favorite. It is so hard to get good flavor into chicken soup: broth can be bland; vegetables are bland; and let’s be honest, the average chicken noodle soup (or in this case chicken and rice soup) is not very sexy.

Between the rotisserie chicken and turmeric/curry, this soup is sexier than your average bird! ;P

Not only is homemade chicken soup healthy and nourishing when you’re feeling sick, but this soup is packed with anti-inflammatory ingredients like ginger, turmeric, garlic. *If you like a little more flava-flav, add more turmeric/curry. Enjoy!

Prep Time 10 minutes (this always takes longer)
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 6 servings
Calories 269 kcal

Ingredients
1 tablespoon avocado/coconut oil or grass-fed butter
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 yellow onion, diced
2 + large carrots, thinly sliced
2 + celery stalks, roughly chopped
1 + tablespoon fresh grated ginger
1+ tablespoon fresh grated turmeric or curry
6 + cups low sodium chicken broth
1 rotisserie chicken
1+ sprig freshly rosemary
1 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme, stems removed
Bay leaves, fresh
salt and pepper to taste
Rice, potatoes, or Quinoa

Instructions

  1. Place a large dutch oven or pan on oven at medium high heat and add in oil or butter. Once it is hot, add in garlic, onion, carrots, and
    celery; cook for a few minutes until onion becomes translucent.
  2. Next add in grated ginger and grated turmeric (or curry). Saute for 30 seconds to let the spices cook a bit, then add in chicken
    broth, rotisserie chicken, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper.
  3. Bring soup to a boil, then stir in rice or potatoes.
  4. Serve soup with shredded cheese, crackers, homemade bread, or favorite toppings.

    Recipe Notes
    When I cook, I rarely measure. I hate following recipes and think they are more like guidelines. I might have used Curry instead of Turmeric, and I did not have ginger, so I subbed All Spice. So make it yours! To make vegetarian or vegan: Use vegetarian broth and sub 1 can of drained chickpeas for chicken.

Simple Faith

About 5 years ago my dad asked,

D: “Kid, do you think I will go to heaven?”  
‘Why do you think you will go to heaven?’
D: “Imma good man. I mow my lawn. I walk my dog.”
(Holding back a laugh I said) ‘You make it too complicated.’
D: “Huh?”
‘Jesus died for you on a cross so that you could go to heaven.  What is left to do?  What can your works add to this?’

As I sit here on this pensive morning, I cannot help but recall our conversation.  Is faith really that simple?  Could life be just as simple?  

Reading today’s “Streams in the Desert” only served to intensify that curiosity: 

Jesus said, “According to your faith, it will be done for you” (Matt. 9:29).

“Praying through” something might be defined as praying one’s way into full faith: coming to the place of assurance, while still praying that your prayer has been accepted and heard, and in advance of the answer, with confident expectation, becoming aware of receiving what you ask. 

Remember that no earthly circumstances can hinder the fulfillment of His Word.  Do not look at the uncertainty of this ever-changing world, but fix your eyes on the certainty of His unchanging Word. 

The prayer of the Pentecostal era was prayed with such simple faith that they were like cashing a check. Robert Anderson 

Lord, you know the beginning and the end.  Heal this world of this virus. Let a vaccine be found. Provide care for the children who are hungry and in need.  Lift up and care for the many who lost their jobs and will lose their jobs.  Calm fears. Heal sickness. Bring the wanderers back to You. Give the healthy Your heart, to be Your hands and feet and go to those in need. Boost the economy. Let Your will be done. Amen.