Wavering faith

I used to pray all the time. My days were consumed with connecting with God. I was always on the prowl to find whoever needed Jesus. I would be witnessing all the time...day and night. It was my mission, my passion, my reason for living. Jesus was my role model and God was my father. I grew up in this religious atmosphere. There was no other way to live for me; however, I was always ALWAYS falling short of what I knew the Bible and God and Jesus expected of me. I was having sex before marriage, smoking cigarettes sometimes, and drinking alcohol. I wasn't praying for an hour a day because It was hard on me to find time in the day to shower and eat being a single mom....but I tried to be THE BEST christian I could be.

When I was growing up in the church the message from the pulpit was always centered around how we needed to be a better christian and the only way to do that was to spend tons of time in the Bible (at least an hour a day) and to not cuss or drink or smoke or fornicate and to spread the good news to everyone I met. I believed with my whole being that this was absolutely the way I needed to live. Looking back at this upbringing and the messages being handed down to me from the pulpit I can see that it bred into me feelings of dislike for myself. No matter how hard I tried I could not meet these perfect expectations that I felt were expected of me by God, Jesus, my pastor, and my parents and christian friends. I began to battle with myself. I always had good intentions but it would never fail that I would let myself down. It could be something as simple as reading my bible in bed before sleeping and falling asleep before I was able to get the full hour of reading and prayer in like my pastor encouraged his congregation to do. When I would wake up in the morning and realize I had fallen asleep it would be the start of lots of repentance for my sins and ultimately lots and lots of guilt. I began to not like myself. I felt that I was the only one falling short of what was expected of a good christian. As I got older and started to struggle with other sins the feelings of shame and guilt just got stronger and stronger until I did began to medicate with cigarettes and some alcohol and sex with men. Of course this type of "medication" only proved to make me more disappointed in myself and the shame and guilt ran deep. I didn't think Jesus and God were happy with me. I knew that they would "never leave me or forsake me," (WHATEVER THAT MEANT) but I still knew that I needed to get my life right with God or I would not make it to heaven or if I did make it to heaven I would not have many rewards stored up for me. This may sound crazy to a lot of you but it is my truth and something I struggle with to this very day. Even this very night I feel like I am not a good enough mom and I am just falling deeper and deeper into this unsuccessful life.

About 3 years ago I made a HUGE decision to divorce religion. Thats right, you read that right....I divorced my religion. When I was growing up I heard from the pulpit CONSTANTLY that we were not religious but just in a "relationship" with Jesus. So I convinced myself for years and years that I was not religious. This was so far from the truth but I just didnt know any better. In the pentecostal/Baptist/non-denominational religions you are told constantly that your not really religious but just in a relationship. This could not be further from the truth. When I made the decision to divorce my religion I did it because I could no longer try and reach these expectations that were being put on me. I finally realized that I was never going to be this perfect christian. So I stopped witnessing, and I stopped reading the Bible and I started really digging into why I believed what I believed instead of just believing what other people told me. It was very eye opening. I learned so many things about the Bible and where it came from and how it came to actually be a Bible and who put it together. In some ways it was good that I was discovering the roots of this religion I had followed all my life but in other ways the information I was learning was really really sad for me. I felt very let down. I had to discard most of everything I knew and start from the beginning.

I still do not have it all figured out. I have put countless hours into research of God and Heaven and Near death experiences. Ive compared stories of people that have died and gone to heaven. I have spoken in person with people that have died and gone to heaven and come back to earth to tell about it and my mind was literally blown (if a mind can actually blow....Im not sure LOL). But this did put a huge rift in everything I believed.

I still believe in God. I don't necessarily believe that is his name because WE HUMANS gave him that name. To me he is bigger and different then the Bible portrays him. I still have trouble connecting with this God. I remember begging God on my hands and knees to please talk to me in a voice I could hear. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't just speak to me. I didnt want a "still small voice," I wanted a loud audible voice to speak to me. I felt I was worthy to hear something. After all I had spent ALL of my life pursuing this God....trying to reach him through my actions and love and prayers. But no.....not a single word.

This post is not to bash faith and Christianity...but I felt reflective tonight as I was looking at the shape of my life right now and just sorting out the pieces of my heart and trying to figure out what I am doing with myself right now. I actually thought that maybe if I reconnected with god that maybe I would gain some clarity. It has happened for me in the past. That is why I have not lost my faith that there is a higher being somewhere that cares about me. So I am not denouncing God....but actually wondering why Ive had to go through the things I have gone through and why do I have to be so confused? I am almost 45 years old. I would have expected to be settled by now and have a few things figured out....but I don't. I know I am not the only one with this story. I think its just the cycle of life. We all question our upbringing, but I think I dive a little deeper then some people. I question more than most and I don't settle for a mediocre life that seems to want to over take me. I want more...I want extraordinary. I think its possible.

Going Orange

I love that in life, one single thing can change the way you think about things and turn your life down a completely different path then you expected. I love to be on a schedule. Mornings are my favorite and if I am working or if I am not working, I like to be up by five or six and enjoy the quiet crispness of the morning. Its my time, before anyone else in the house wakes up, to just be with me. This habit was probably developed over the years because I have so many children and usually married. In my last marriage we had seven children, two dogs, two giant birds and two cats at one time, and I was the only one who enjoyed the mornings. You wouldn't catch anyone up at five am, just me, and I loved it.
So that habit has stuck.

This morning I woke up at five am as usual and reflected on the past month or so that I have been unemployed by choice. Its been a good time to catch up with myself and just decide what I want in life. Did I figure it all out yet? NOPE! But Im closer. My therapist called me last night. I have not met with her yet. I am brand new to her practice but she wanted to check in with me and just tell me that she was looking forward to meeting with me in a week and a half and then she asked if I had any immediate needs. Oh my goodness...I really had to try hard not to spew all my emotions on her. Instead, I told her that I was struggling with boundaries with my family. I was hired on with Home Depot yesterday, YEP THATS RIGHT, IM GOING ORANGE, and now that I am working I will have to spend less time at my grandmas house helping out with her care. It was hard for me to set boundaries with my family. We do not have any outside help with my grandmas 24 hour care. My commitment to my family is that I would get up early in the morning and head to my grandmas at six and get her out of bed, changed, and fed for the day. I would then go home and spend time with my son, and go back in the evening and get her changed and back into bed. There commitment was to be with grandma throughout the day. My boundaries were that I would not be able to help out on the days I worked. For my own mental health and for the sake of my son, I felt it would be to much to keep my morning and evening commitment on the days I work. I told the therapist that I didnt feel like my family was happy with my decision to not help out when I worked and that I was struggling with THINKING that they didnt like me anymore or they were not pleased with me. (In case you haven't guessed, I need therapy pretty bad, I am a people pleaser). I could tell that my therapist had limited time but she gave me some homework. She said that each time I have those guilty thoughts, I need to write them down in my journal and the thought surrounding them. Ok, no problem, that was easy because I journal. She then told me to go onto Youtube and look up "distorted thinking," or "cognitive thinking" and watch some videos on that and we would talk about these things on in our first session. I thanked her and went right to it. I was shocked to find myself in every single one of the list these you tubers were giving. Just to fill you in on the basics of what I learned about myself. Here is the definition of cognitive distortions:

Cognitive distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn't really true. These inaccurate thoughts are usually used to reinforce negative thinking or emotions-telling ourselves things that sound rational and accurate, but really only serve to keep us feeling bad about ourselves."

This is really the definition of what my life has been. I didnt know that I had these broken ways of thinking and its probably the reason I can not seem to get my life going in a productive path. It was very enlightening and I can not wait to do some work surrounding this broken thought pattern in my life. Its amazing what five minutes with a professional can do.

So today is my first day at home depot. I start in about an hour and fifteen minutes. My position will be a cashier and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. Its only part time but that works perfect for me since I might be homeschooling my son if COVID doesn't figure itself out. 😾

Until next time friends.

Mental health and other things...

Hello Friends,
Ill be posting over on my other blog. Here is my latest post.

Much love,
Rebekah

https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blogger.g?blogID=2932348263117273521&useLegacyBlogger=true#allposts

A thousand words...

A picture is worth a thousand words right? I came across this picture on my Facebook "memories." I'm sure you know what I am talking about. Facebook has this thing it does lately. It brings to your attention a memory from the past in hopes you will repost it. That's not such a great thing for me. My Facebook "memories" don't exactly bring back warm fuzzy feelings for me. As you can see from this picture it's me and my oldest son Matt. This picture was taken not long after I let both my girls go. My oldest daughter was angry at me for giving her youngest brother up for adoption. You can see in the background of this picture on my refrigerator. On my refrigerator I have displayed my youngest son with his mom and dad. They are extremely happy and just starting to build their wonderful family through adoption. My oldest daughter, like I said, was extremely angry at me for many reasons I cannot explain here, and asked to go live with her grandparents. In my weak mental state I allowed her to go. My second oldest daughter had started to rebel and asked me one day if she can go live with her dad. This caused me a lot of grief and sorrow. I knew she didn't belong to me, and I knew that her dad would except her with open arms.again, in my mentally weakens  state from all the drama in my life, I let her go. 

I let my girls go but I still had my boys. I held on to them as long as I could but... Matthew, the one scene in the picture below also became very angry with me and wanted to leave. I said no to him for many years until I couldn't say no to him you know longer and let him leave to live with his father. 

My oldest daughter lives on her own, but lucky for me, she lives in the same town as I do. Victoria and Matt still live with their dad. They are thriving and happy and doing extremely well. I miss them so much and when I see pictures on Facebook of me and them, I cry and cry. I did not have children to be separated from them. Divorce is horrible, distructive, and sad. I don't know if I will ever recover from the sadness in my life. Hopefully, I'll figure it all out soon. 

Scale pic...

I started my weight loss journey at 319 pounds. All along the way I posted my "scale" pictures as the weight came off. I really slacked off the past year so I am going to start posting it again. My new scale measures body fat which I never kept track of before. It's pretty exciting.

Nail polish

It's no secret that I am constantly looking for more ways to be healthy. One of those ways was trying to find a nail polish solution that worked for me. With regular store bought nail polishes my nails seem to crack and just flake. It's horrible. I tried jamberry nails, and I like them, but they are really hard to apply. I can only assume that the bad chemicals in nail polishes are the culprit for me. My girlfriend who I met in Zumba class actually makes non toxic polishes that do not contain any of these chemicals commonly found in store bought polishes (Tolyene-helps suspend the color and form a smooth finish across the nail. It also affects the central nervous system and can cause headaches dizziness and fatigue. It is also possibly linked to reproductive and developmental toxins. Impairs breathing, causes nausea, causes developmental damage to the fetus, and is linked to malignant lymphoma. Formaldehyde-found in some nail products such as nail hardener and is also known as the human carcinogen. It's used to embalm dead bodies. Camphor-exposure to this toxin can cause irritation, nausea, dizziness, and headaches. When ingested can be linked to seizures and in rare cases cause liver damage when applied to skin.) 😧 I do not want those things on my nails. Amy's polishes are mood changing polishes and change color from hot to cold. I LOVE them. I can't wait to buy all the colors. This one is blue/purple. One thing (among many) that I love about her polishes is they dry so dang fast. 

You can visit her Etsy store here: 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/AhHaNailLacquer?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Six years old

He is six years old today. 

Most days I'm ok, but today the memories are getting the best of me. I have so much anger, and sadness, and regret....but then....I remember how great his life is right now and it settles my heart. 

My mind takes me back to "birth day. " there was much excitement in the air. We had all come to love the family that would soon take the roll of mom and dad to my son. I had family and friends around me. I was showered with gifts, and I had a pretty darn good epidural going, so things didn't seem so bad. I thought "I can handle this." And guess what? I did handle it, but it was so dang hard. 

After he was born we all held him and admired his beautiful features and his massive amount of hair. He had these dark eyes that were almost black in color. His hair stuck up in the air like it had hell in it. It was adorable. 

The fun ended that day when the adoption agency's representative came in and said it was time for me to sign the papers. I had him in my arms when I signed away my parental rights. I couldn't keep myself calmed down. The tears flowed and flowed. And then, it was time to leave. I watched as his new mom and dad carefully placed him in their car seat and buckled him in for the first time. I remember being so happy that they were experiencing parenthood and all the fun "firsts." 

We all were escorted out of the hospital at the same exit, and into the same parking lot. There was just one difference...try were going home with a baby, and I was not...and it was all by choice.  I felt sick to my stomach and thought I might loose it in the parking lot, but I held it together for the drive home.

That was six years ago and the memories are so vivid. The pain is stil so real, but there are a few things that have changed. I'm not the same person as I was six years ago. I think I have gained so much within myself. I have been able to deal with the circumstances that made me a birthmom, and I'm ok with it. I made the best decision I could for my son. He has a good life and we have a wonderful open relationship. Hard times defiantly shape us and make us grow.  I'm in a good place now, but I will never forget the pain of the past because it makes me who I am today.