02/13/07 yeah, 2007... to Toni a long time friend not in touch with for too long.

Thanks Toni. 

I'm a new person since December. But to understand you have to go way back check out me at age 23

I was a wild southern California girl growing up in the 60's and 70's. It is strange to me looking at old photos to see how I looked. I never felt beautiful but I see now that I really was. Sad to come to age 52 before I figured out that one huh? Anyway love lost and insecurities got me so I just didn't care for a long time. God just healed my heart on December 20th and since then I have lost 50 lbs and am continuing. I feel better than I ever have. Anyway I'm not really doing much to get into shape, just stopped eating sugar and walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes once or twice a day. It really is God doing it.
One of my old boyfriends got in touch with me and it was him that God used to bring me to a place where He could heal my heart. We are not getting together or anything but just remembering a bit of what it feels like to really be a woman helped. 

I'm heading back to what I was supposed to be with the help of the Lord. Hurray. It feels great to be alive again.
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I always knew how to love other people more than I knew how to love myself.  I had a long life of abandonment, and abuse- sexual, emotional and verbal, like a lot of women. I never got to the point of trusting who I was.   My self perception was that the only way to get love which I craved was to be sexual so I became what I knew men wanted. I just wanted to be loved. So I spent many years just like everyone else sleeping around but I becoming more and more hungry for love because that did not give any fulfillment.

Of course since I did not love myself I was not able to be that person that I had learned to pretend to be in order for Scott (my ex) to want me. But I couldn't keep it up all the time so I failed at marriage. And even though I was not the one who initially cheated I had a lot to do with Scott stepping out on me. He was as much a victim as I was - so as much as I would like to blame him I can't. After all he was just like any another man and very easily led around by his penis like so many are (at least that has been my experience).

 

Since I had experienced so much pain from relationships I really didn't think I would ever be with anyone else again. I purposely raised my kids on my own to keep them from that same abuse. I kept them away from anything that I thought might hurt them. I am really proud of the fact that they did not experience those same things in their lives.  But it was more God than me.

But another man Chris had kept coming in and out of my life off and on over all of these years.  It had been many years since I had last spoke to him.  He and I got together when I moved back to Calif. and he was the last guy I had sex with before I moved here in 1993. But once again I got my heart broken so I had decided that I was not going to let that happen again. Even though I knew we would never be together I have continued to care about him and I have been praying for him for over 30 years. He does not know God and has no interest in anything to do with Jesus.  Any time I ever brought up the Lord he was always defensive and got angry at me.  The last time he really hurt me by being really rude about it making fun of me, so as a result of all this I had not talked to him for at least 5 years.  

So now I was talking to my friend Carey on the 19th of Dec and Chris’s name came up.  That conversation with my friend was about honoring God and about how He gave us gifts and that they were supposed to be used for Him. One of the gifts I knew I had been given was beauty. I know that sounds strange but it is because I knew I was beautiful but I never felt beautiful – it was like I was faking it or something. But anyway I realized that I had said ‘no’ to God way back then when He asked me to use my beauty for Him. I was young and a new Christian at age 20 and I had no idea how to say ‘no’ to any man so at that time I sure didn't trust myself to do anything right for God.  And I didn’t know enough to realize that He would help me.  Well during my conversation with Carey I finally after all of these years decided to say ‘yes’ to God and that I was going to do what I could to get back into shape in order to honor Him. 

I was not thinking about Chris when I decided that though other than the fact that I really wanted Chris to know Jesus and to be saved.  It turns out that on the very same day I had gotten an email from him.  Then he called me the next day on the 20th and we talked for 6 hours. 

Chris has a very similar past as my own in that he has been battered and abused in every way so he has not really ever been emotionally available for a real relationship. When he called it sounded though as if he had finally gotten to the point that he was ready to really care for someone.  He talked about us being together and that he had always thought that we would some day end up that way.  But since I had became a Christian and really have been trying to live to serve God it has seemed unlikely that we would have a future together because I will not go back to the same old way that I have always been. I want marriage now before sex and a commitment for a lifetime.   And I told Chris that as well as the fact that I wanted a Christian who believed like me.

Anyway I finally got off the phone with him and got a little sleep and then the next day at work all day long my chest burned and I couldn't do anything but cry all day. I physically hurt all over my body and it was coming from my heart. This lasted about 3 days and then slowly subsided. There is a lot more to the story that involves conversations with Chris and my attempt to figure all of this out. But it was God that was working on me, healing my heart for those 3 days.

That relationship was never meant to be because he is absolutely not willing to commit his life to the Lord.  But right now today I know that God used him to get me to open up my heart again so that He could perform that surgery. And now all of the garbage that I had used to cover my heart with for protection over all of these years has been removed and what was a mangled torn and bleeding mess has been repaired and for the first time that I can remember I feel whole, and at peace with myself. 

So it was with one step of obedience toward what I knew that God wanted of me [to honor Him in who I am, and to say 'yes' that He can use my gifts, whatever they are - for His glory] that He has given me wings and strength to go the rest of the journey to become the person He intended me to be.