Tag Archive: choices


Banks Lake


My favorite local kayaking place is Banks Lake in Lakeland, GA.  The view is breathtaking and the weather was absolutely perfect today – it was clear and cool and windy.  I’m already ready to go again.

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Part of the Club


Are you part of the club?  No, not a popular and fun club… the club of the Rape Survivors… We’re not an official club…but we often recognize each other by our habits, mannerisms and particular needs.  Does this sound familiar?

  • You don’t close your eyes when you shower – even when you wash your hair.
  • You prefer to sit in a restaurant with your back to a wall or corner from which you can see people enter and exit around you.
  • You check the house when you are alone at night, searching room by room before you can rest.
  • You either leave the shower curtain open or use a clear shower curtain when you shower.
  • You do not like people standing behind you and do not like to be touched by all but a very few people.
  •  You have nightmares about the event – wake up with dried tears on your cheeks, your heart pounding and a pain in your chest that you can scarcely breathe around.
  • You have flash-backs that make the event feel like it is constantly current.

There is so much more… so many every day unconscious decisions.  It feels so unfair that this one event changes your life so drastically.  Some days I feel so angry – I feel cheated.  I wonder what path my life would have taken…but then I just breathe… I try to pray… I find peace whenever I can, wherever I can.  I find peace in worship, long walks in the woods, kayaking on Banks Lake, reading good books…  Where do you find peace?

Just a Quote…


I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds…. heard this quote and had to share…

“Scars only show us where we’ve been – they do not dictate where we’re going”

Creepy-crawly


I hate days like this… I feel twitchy after spending the last 2 days pulling weeds in my gardens and having bugs crawl all over me… I still feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.  I know I should be used to this by now and I know bugs are no big deal, really, but I still cannot help the way I react.  I try so hard to play it cool and to stay calm.  I have these huge spiders in my flower beds and when you startle them they run toward you – not away from you.  It freaks me out.  Not to mention the beetles, ants and roaches that live in the taller weeds and thick grasses that I have to deal with.  I hate this feeling… everything that touches me makes me flinch.  I’m so jumpy.  I think I will just sit calmly the rest of the day and sip tea and watch Netflix.

Taken summer 2013 in my front yard on my Passion Flower Vine

Taken summer 2013 in my front yard on my Passion Flower Vine

Diamond Strands


I’m staying up late tonight watching the show Dr. Who… It’s Season 6 Episode 9 ‘Night Terrors‘ and oh how I wish The Doctor was real… I can’t count the number of times I have been terrified and wished with all my heart for someone to come save me…  Some nights I still feel this way.  I wake up with dried tears on my cheeks, my heart racing scarcely able to breathe…  I used to think night terrors were a thing of my past that they were something I’d grow out of but no, I realize they are just a part of my life.

I don’t want to become accustomed to this pain – this hole in my heart, shattered, twisting, angry pain that is as much a part of my as my brown eyes and scarred skin.

Dumb Move….


I feel so dumb today… I got home after work and gathered my things and got everything in the house and realized I could not find my car key…. It was after 11 pm and very dark out, so I grabbed a flashlight and searched all over the yard between the house and the car and could not find the key… I finally found it – I locked it in the car!! UGH!  I don’t have any other key and the clicker is quite old and no longer works at all… We really cannot afford a lock-smith and I don’t know what I’m going to do… I hate it when I do things like this.  I know we all make mistakes and are forgetful from time to time and I know intellectually that I am being hard on myself…but emotionally, I feel like I’ve made some major horrible mistake.  Thank God for grace….now, if I could only apply that same grace to myself.

More Art Fun


2015 Spring Art Projects (3)

I have been enjoying painting lately, I find it very restful and therapeutic.  With so much in the world and in my life that is ugly, hurtful or mean I find that creating little spots of beauty bring peace to me…

2015 Spring Art Projects (4)

Hope


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I love how rainbows make me feel….. Every time I look at them I feel a surge of hope.  Their beauty is ethereal and fleeting but the impression they leave on my heart is deep and permanent.

Another Anxious Day


It is one of those days when my heart twists inside me like warped metal… feeling immovable and beyond repair..  I think about the View from the Pit sometimes and wonder why so few writers embrace and write about the pit… but I think it is because the pain there is so deep and so very personal that writing/speaking honestly about is like giving a piece of your soul away to strangers… it feels foolhardy, dangerous and way beyond vulnerable.  How do I articulate this?…. Hmmmmmm… I have unshakable faith in Christ and I have a  hope for a better life beyond this one… but if I did not have my faith I must say I don’t think I would have survived my life.  I would certainly not be as close to daylight as I am now.   I may sill be in the dark… I may still be in the pit… but I can at least see the blessed sun now and I know that I will one day soon feel the warmth of it on my skin with all of its life giving glory.

Waiting for Answered Prayers


Waiting2 Some days it feels like there are no ears to hear our cries.  I have faith that this is not the case, but some days I wish that I had a definite answer… some definite sign that my prayers were heard and that an answer was on the way…  Some days faith comes so easily to me and other days it feels nearly impossible…