Finding Much Needed Peace

What have I discovered in the last few days? That we all need to get away and rejuvenate our bodies, minds, and souls. Without this, we fall prey to the wolf that prowls outside our door.

This week my husband arranged a week for me to get away from everybody and everything. Well, not total escape, but enough so that I could pull myself back together. It has been great. It is something that we all need to do yet never seem to be able to.

We have our jobs, our families, our friends, and so on. Where is the time for sanity? It has to be made.

You don’t have to take a whole week each time. That is unrealistic. A few hours here and there is completely within reach. It might not seem like it, but it is there.

I needed this time. I was about to go over the edge. There is enough stress in life without closing up all the relief points. Here is what my daily life is like.

Try to get up to help hubby get the kids off to school. Hard to wake up when you have been up all night because your brain won’t stop. Get up and check emails. Respond to emails and check any correspondence from school. Next, look at to-do list.

Read my textbook. Write first draft of a 350 word essay. Begin research on seven page research paper. Write 2 articles for client. Answer the twenty phone calls that arrive. Five knocks at the door. Take the dogs out during the day. School is out. Five children arrive. Get everyone snacks and onto their homework. Realize that I have done no housework. Two children go home. Three children remain and try to kill each other. My nerves begin to fray. Behind on school work, behind on money making work, constant stream of people, children bickering incessantly over extremely stupid things, house is disaster. All of this makes me want to check into a mental hospital.

How can someone keep their wits about them when there is no place to gather them? There has to be a place to escape. It could be a little space in the attic or basement. It might be in a gazebo. It could be at a park. It might need to be at a hotel.

When I get this time away for even just a few hours, I feel the Medusa figure fading into the background and peace reclaim my soul. Instead wanting to tie the children up, I begin to be strong enough to handle the spats. I can take on the world instead of wanting to be swallowed up by it.

I need to make this time away a bigger part of my schedule. Though I am working during this “vacation”, I am relaxing. I can watch a TV show without interruption. I can take a bath without a knock on the door. I can become human again.

Sanity Get Away

I have discovered quite a bit in the last few weeks. One of them is the need to get away. For sanities sake, we have to get away. When we don’t, we are opening ourselves up to nervous breakdown that can destroy us and our families.


In my family, I am hardpressed to find peace. We live in a small duplex that is comfortable and nice. The only drawback is that there is nowhere to go when I have to read something, listen to a video, or just to gather my thoughts. Though the kids are gone during the day, my husband works from home. 75% of the time his work comes to our house. I am then regulated to the bedroom in the midst of his meetings. To a degree I feel like a prisoner.

I was going to take my work and study area to the basement. Winter is setting in, and the dogs do not like to go outside in the ice and snow. They have found that they can do their business in the basement on newspaper. I cannot handle the smell. So where do I go? Where do I find a place of my own? I don’t know.

This week, my husband put me up at a hotel so I could get some peace. I’m woefully behind in my school work. I’ve got work to do that brings in money. I want to just watch a television show without constant chatter. I want to read a book without constant interruption. I want to mentally run away.

I grew up as an only child. I had three older siblings, but they were 20, 18, and 15 years older than me. I don’t know what it is like to have siblings. They were more like distant aunts and uncle to me. To this day, what do I have in common with them? I’m still the pain in the butt baby. I was used to having quiet and solitude. Dad was gone from Monday through Friday travelling with his job. It was just me and mom in a three bedroom home that had a living and a den. I could find a place to get away anywhere.

Going off to college, there were still ways to find peace and quiet. Getting married right out of college, it was still just me and my husband. We had a two bedroom apartment. I could still get away and find quiet. Even after the first child was born, I was fine. It was when there were three of them in two and three bedroom apartments and they were considerably older. Now, my sanity goes out the window.

I now have a 14 year old whose mouth never stops. I have a 12 year old son who wants to fight with both sisters all the time. I have an 8 year old daughter who is an extreme busybody and starts most fights. I have an ADD husband who cannot sit still. I sit there wanting to disappear. In our house there is never a moment of quiet. Thus, my road to mental derangement.

I am not like my family at all. Yet, I cannot be me. Right now, my husband is just understanding this and is trying to help me find a way to not be committed to an asylum.

I am discovering that maybe I am mental. :)

Being Alone

I discovered over the last few months that I am very alone in this world. Yes, I have friends to go to movies with and have dinner with. What I cannot find is a friend to share my thoughts and my dreams.

I love to write. I have several writing projects that I am working on. There are times that I want to bounce an idea off of someone. Once in awhile, I can get my husband to slow down and read something and comment. Other than that, there is no one else. I have tried talking about it with others who let me know real quick that they have no interest on the subject I am writing about.
I am in school going after my history degree. There are times when I really want to discuss what I am studying. Aside from my husband who majored in history, there is no one that will just talk to me about it. I have to fill that void in the virtual world.

The result of all this? I am more in the virtual world than the real world because that is the only place I can find fulfillment. That should not be.

If I died today, would anybody know the real me? Who knows the various places I write for? Who knows all my contacts on the internet and where I love to spend my time? There is not one soul.

I have discovered that I have no one to sit down and really be myself with. I cannot discuss my deepest desires and goals. No one shares them. No one understands them.

Who is the real me? A woman who would love to have deep conversations and to learn. A woman who wants to teach others new concepts and ways to view events and readings. A woman who wants to make a mark in this world that is not dictated by the whims and controlling aspects of others. A woman who wants for the first time in her life to feel wanted and worth something.

When I tell someone I am going back to school for a history degree, they always ask what do you want to do with it? When I say that I want to write and teach, they change the subject and go on. I want to talk about my latest class, but with whom?

Realizing that I am alone was extremely depressing. What if I had to go somewhere for a few days? Where would I go? Nowhere. There is nowhere to go. There is no one to turn to when I need a shoulder. There is no one to be just a friend. I am trying to come to grips with it, but it is hard. It is very hard.

The Loss of Faith

I was shocked to see that I was losing my faith in man, in God, in myself. So much had happened that it was painful. What got me the most was the fact that it just kept coming. Why was God letting me used for target practice? Why were the ones shooting the arrows Christians?

Not all my problems were from fellow Christians. There was plenty from those that were just nasty and denied God. It was the ones from Christians that shocked and hurt me.

I guess it started after we had a severe run of hard luck. We were helping a friend who had some trouble with the law in the past, but was turning his life around. The law was trying to prevent him from doing it which was irritating enough. But it was when his own flesh and blood turned against him time and again that was too much for me. His own father wanted him in jail. He kept ranting how he had not paid enough for his crimes. I lost it. Here was a supposedly Christian man who had been shown mercy by God refusing to extend it to the one who carried his blood. I more than lost it.

For the first time in my life, I let every four letter word and more out of my mouth. I was furious. This man was unforgiving to a repentant son. He was a gossip and slanderer. We would hear where he was saying nasty things about us because we were helping his son. How could a Christian act like that? What made me even madder was that everyone in his church thought him a saint. He was telling everyone how he was doing so much for an ungrateful son, etc. I wanted to throw up. Then another blow came about.
A Christian friend was wanting to work for me. It seemed the perfect set up. I gave her some assignments and the deadlines they were needed. Two hours before I was to turn the projects in to the client, she called to say that she would not have them done in time. A week had gone by and she just now called and told me this? I negotiated with the client and got an extension. She promised me that they would be done the next day. The next day comes around and she still does not have them done. Other things came up. I gave her one more chance. She did the same thing. Telling me that she was 75% done, I asked that she send the files back to me and I would finish as I was about to lose this client. She had only done 10%. How could she do this? I am a firm believer in “let your yes be yes and your no be no.” As Christians, we are to keep our word and not flippantly make promises. She almost cost me the money that paid my bills. Promises made and never kept.

As all this was going on, we were under direct attack. People would comment to our friends or to my husband that they heard bad things about us. We were moving. We were divorcing. We each had an affair. There were so many others. All of them coming from Christians and other churches. Was this how Jesus felt as he stared at the hypocritical Pharisees?

I kept being told that I have to forgive. I was to ignore it and go on. NO! Why should I ignore it? Jesus didn’t. Paul didn’t. James didn’t. I was sick of watching pastors, churches, and Christians brush severe issues under the rug because we are to keep the peace and always forgive. I think they have a twisted sense of forgiveness.

If there was a sin that was the yeast destroying the church, it was addressed head on. Any dissension was pointed out by Paul. There was no way it was to be tolerated. Yet, it is tolerated and accepted in churches today.

Gossip is actually encouraged in churches. If we do not actively put our foot down on it, we are condoning it. Slander is accepted. The harshness of the tongue is just a part of life. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that, yet that is how the church is today.

What happens when Ann talks about what Joe said at Beth’s funeral about the will and who was getting what? Nothing except every ear leans in.

What happens when Carl talks about Mike and Sue’s past? Nothing except others chime in.
Why do people pull away from church? Because when they walk into the door they might be stepping into the pit of vipers.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Not all churches are like this, but the majority are. I’ve lost my faith in the church because the church is just like it was when Jesus was on the earth. It has become self-absorbed, destructive, and blind. There are so many hurting, yet the church tosses money and walks away. When someone is hurting, they turn away.

The nail in the coffin came when I needed help as my faith was sliding away. Every Christian I knew turned their backs on me and criticized me for my lack of faith and judgmental attitude. I needed a shoulder to cry on and someone to pray for me and I got nothing.

Where am I now? Still angry at those people. Still avoiding church because it makes me sick to my stomach. Trying to find God again. Still have no one to talk to. Wishing I could find Jesus in another person.

I have been a little MIA lately, and for that I apologize. The last few months have been some of the darkest of my life. I just completely dropped the majority of my online activity during that time including this site. My self-confidence, self-esteem, and even my faith were torn apart. I had never felt so empty and alone.

In truth, it began back in February. A few of posts show that I was depressed. Much changed in my life. I came out of that small trip through the desert and immediately returned a few months later. What happened? I realized that I was completely alone.

My husband is ADD which means that he is here, there, and everywhere at every moment of the day. It is hard enough getting his attention and keeping it without others distracting him. With that said, he has a job that keeps him hopping. There is no set time when someone has an emergency and needs him. The problem arose when it became 24/7. If he wanted to have dinner with his wife for the first time in three months, people actually got angry that he was not available to them at that minute. Around the same time, I was informed my two people that being a minister, he had to put family behind everything else. If that was the case, then I did not want this life anymore. I married a man who was to love, honor, and cherish. I now had a stranger that kept pushing me back and back into the closet. How was that biblical? It is not. Even the Bible says that if a man cannot run his family, then he cannot run the work for God with success.

Surprisingly, this was not what sent me into the abyss. It was a friend. I turned to one of the few friends I have here and tried to get my feelings out in a safe place. When I finished, the knife entered my chest. I was told that I was wrong to expect him to ignore others for me. I was wrong to want to have any part of him to myself. I was the one hurting the marriage. From their viewpoint, I was the one doing nothing and causing the problems. In the same breath, they said that they could not be at church anymore because having so many activities was pulling her from her family. My heart ripped apart. Where was the hope in any of that?

That day I walked away. I walked away from people. I quit going to most activities. I hated being around everyone and pretending to put a smile on my face. I even suggested divorce. I could not stay this way or I would just die.

Then blows came even harder. The first was from a “Christian” man who began to slander us and treat his son in a nasty and downright evil way. He criticized our Christian walk despite his actions. Within a week, I had begun working with a Christian woman on some freelance work. She bailed on me and left me hanging on three assignments. I almost lost all my freelance income because I trusted her word. Instead, I was left alone again. This is how Christians should act?

I had had enough. Everywhere I turned, I was met with hostility, lies, and condemnation and that was only from the ones that go to church. I gave up on church. I tried going a couple of times, and I actually threw up from the disgust I felt from watching people smile and talk to each other and then backstab and be nasty about those same people during the week. I realized why Jesus was so hard on the Pharisees and called them a brood of vipers and white-washed walls. That is what church at become to me. In my darkest hour, not one person sought to help me. Not one person answered my plea for help. I was told to deal with it or I was ignored completely.

I got to thinking. Who do I have to talk to? Who do I have to confide in? Not one blessed soul! No one. I could go to this person, but they would criticize me instead of listen. This other person would let me know that I was wrong in my feelings. Another would run and tell everybody in town about it. There was no one.

Do you know what it is like to realize that you are completely alone in this world? That if you died today and someone asked people questions about your life, that they would very little to tell? I sat back and realized that no one person on this planet knows me. They have no desire to know me. They think they do, but they are so far off the mark. Not one person asks how my writing is going or comments on the pieces. (I have to correct that a little. My mother-in-law periodically shoots me an email about how well a piece was which warms my heart.) No one asks me about school. No one is interested in my thoughts, actions, or feelings. The things I enjoy the most and are passions in my life, no one shares with me. I get more responses from the virtual world than I do from those that should love me the most.

Divorce was suggested. I told my husband that I could not live knowing that I was nothing to him. I could not go on. Everybody wanted him, they could have him. I would find some place to live since there was no one to go to. It got his attention. He realized that he was going off and leaving me at every step. I was a thousand miles from my family and had not one close friend in town. The depression was deep because there was no outlet. There was no support. I had felt that God had abandoned me.

My husband came back to me. I think we are more in love than ever. He stops and gives me a kiss for no reason. That one act can make my day. Now, if we are having the first alone time that day, he will let the person leave a message. He lets me know that he loves me. Now, I have very little resentment in him going off to work because I know he cares about me and I am important.

I still ache inside. I had to vent the other day about some minor frustration. One person thinks they own my husband and he should respond at the snap of the fingers. I griped that it was the first day we had to do some chores around the house and this person had pulled my husband away for several hours. I was informed that it was his job and he needs to do it…… The fact that I was alone was drilled once more into me. I sunk into a little bit of a depression over it, but my husband turned off the phone that evening and devoted that time to the family. I have him. I cannot vent to him about him, but I do have him to love me.

When You Can Smile With a Teenager

I'm experiencing my first journey into parenting a teenager.  I have to be honest, I hate it.  The challenge of authority, the mouth, the attitude, all of it drives my absolutely bonkers.  I want a law passed that at the age of 12 the children are shipped off to boarding school until they are 25 or 30 which they start to show signs of maturity.  And then my daughter makes me feel so wrapped up in love.

She spent two weeks with her grandmother and went here and there with her cousins and aunts.  There were shopping trips, art museum, eating out, and entertainment.  Coming home was going to be a bore.  But while she was gone, the family began to change themselves to get a better attitude and be more fun starting with me and my husband.  We began to fall in love again.  When she came back, she began to go right back into the attitude until after a few days she noticed the change around her.  She couldn't remain surly.  We refused to let it take hold of any of us.

Today, I went to a local coffee shop to get more work and have a change of atmosphere.  While I was there, my daughter texted me on my phone that she loved me.  My teenage daughter said she loved me unsolicited.  What had happened!?!  I couldn't help but smile real big as tears filled my eyes.  There was the same sweet girl I used to cuddle.  There was the young woman trying to bloom into her own.

I love my daughter.  I could strangle her sometimes, but I love her so much.  I cannot wait till the day that I am not Mom, but a close friend who is there for her as she becomes a Mom.

Love you, Catherine.  You're my number one.

A Whole New Me

I've been in the desert if you haven't noticed.  Really began to question myself spiritually.  Feeling totally abandoned.  Shoot, I was downright angry.  Then the kid gloves came off, and He got my attention.

I was watching John Bevere's, The Bait of Satan.  I had seen this portion of the video months before and it was under different circumstances, so I had applied it to those.  Now, John's words screamed at me.  Actually, it was the voice of God through this man.


He was discussing what really happens when we worry and do not have faith in God.  We are in truth telling God that He is incompetent and that we could do better.  We are saying that He doesn't have the power to fix anything. 

He then continued with a funny section that though funny was the kicker.  He enacted a scene of what heaven must be like if God really is the way we create Him to be when things don't go right.


God says, "Jesus, oh no!  What are we going to do?  Adam lost his job.  Are there any others?  Did we see that coming?  What are we going to do?  That wasn't foreseen!"

Did God know I would face certain things?  Of course.  Did He set wringing His hands?  No.  He knew what was coming and was prepared.  Then why do I act like He was not?  Why do I doubt what will happen next?  Why do I always believe the worst?

I got angry at God because everything was going wrong.  I had a dream and a plan.  The problem was that it was not His.  When that dream was taken away, I fought.  I kicked and I screamed.  I got downright angry.  Time after time, He seemed wrench things from me.  Unbeknownest to me,  I was trying to direct my life and not let Him.  I was arrogant enough to think I knew best.  If I knew so well, why was my world crumbling around me?

I always wanted to teach.  Every time we set up a study, no one would show up.  I'm not kidding.  No one would show up.  I longed to teach and thought He was directing me down that path, yet every door that was open from a distance closed. 

I wanted to go back to school, yet each time I began to step through the open door, it slammed in my face and knocked me on my rear.

I wanted to learn and grow, yet everyone blocked that.  Most of the women I knew didn't want to talk about deep spiritual issues.  They wanted to gossip.  I tried to join the men, yet I was the lowly woman and too many was pushed aside.

So my only purpose in life was to go to various jobs that I deep down hated and line someone else's pockets?  I was to have no dreams at all?  I was to cease to really exist?

I began to find an outlet and a purpose in my writing.  People seemed to enjoy it.  I was actually beginning to feel alive.  Then, I found myself in the middle of the Sahara.

My husband got an online college teaching job.  I was so happy, yet I hated  him.  Here, I longed to teach.  I had worked long hours so he could go to school and get various degrees.  Here he was living my dream.  How could God be so cruel to me?

I came out of it eventually, until my husband and my children wanted no more homeschooling.  The final blow.  My alive and beating heart was totally wrenched out of my chest and laid on the altar as my soul shriveled up and died.  I couldn't even teach my kids.  I was rejected at every turn.  I could do nothing right.  Was there really a God if He would do this to me?

I wished to die at that point.  I wanted to scream and howl at the top of my lungs.  I was dead.  I could not pray.  I truly began to believe that God was nowhere.  He had left me and had used me.

Slowly, through the aid of a few friends who unknowingly helped guide me through the darkened hallway of life, I began to see beyond all those closed doors and discovered one that had once been nailed shut opening ever so slowly.

There was a plan.  Just because things did not happen the way I wanted on my table did not mean that God did not exist or that He was playing a cruel trick on me.  What arrogance on my part!  I thought that I was in control of my life and that my plan was the best.  Now, I am God?  Can I control the winds and the waves?  Can I raise people from the dead?  Who did I think I was?


It is not about me.  I cannot say it enough.  It is not about me.  I am not the center of this universe.  I am not the center of anything but my own self pity.

Who do I think I am?  A few days ago, obviously God.  Today?  A very humbled servant who cannot beg enough for the forgiveness of a Father who will not hesitate to love and forgive.