Road kill

We’ve all seen it.  A squirrel or deer laying in or beside the roadway.  A senseless tragedy of epic proportions...at least in their specific existence – or at this point...lack of existence.

Have you ever been the one who actually caused the eminent death of such an animal – unavoidably striking it as it ran haphazardly beneath your screeching tires?  Your last minute gasp as that poor thing, merely attempting to go about it’s furry day, makes that critical mistake to cross the roadway in which you just happen to be traveling down.

I have unfortunately...several times.  Raccoons, squirrels, a turtle, four deer...I even clipped a dog once that was chasing a squirrel across a busy street.  Every time...gasping - the moment that poor woodland creature confusingly darted into my busy pathway.  My face wrinkles itself into a grimace and I sometimes even screech – like it just might hear me and run to safety.

I sometimes feel like one of those innocent animals...just trying to make it thru my day.  To survive.  To go where I need to go, survive one day at a time.  Sometimes I feel like I’m running inadvertently into someone’s path with no understanding of that thoroughfare being one that just may cause my ultimate demise.  People sometimes make the effort - swerving to miss me.  Sometimes people do not even notice me.  Sometimes people are heard screeching just in time for me to do a quick 180 to get myself to a safer place.  Sometimes people tip the wheel in my direction...purposely.  Whether to simply kill me, maim me...or devour the flesh that may be had pending the death in itself.  The ultimate issue is one that we all may face at one time or another.

Whether rodent or majestic deer...the fact that there is someone who may be interested in feasting on said animal’s flesh – may be disturbing to some.  To others...possible survival.

My family was raised on wildlife.  My father was an avid hunter/fisherman.  We’ve eaten squirrel, rabbit, snake, deer, elk, buffalo, moose, alligator, turkey, duck, and all sorts of fish.  Deer was always one of my favorite.  The meat is lean, and healthy.  If processed correctly, and cooked well...it tastes so much better than beef!  When my dad would come home with a deer, we would all join in to help cut and grind and package the deer and place it proudly in our freezer for a good couple months worth of meals.

My brothers often went hunting with my dad.  I was never welcomed...simply being female...I was expected to do girl stuff I suppose.  My brothers each got a shotgun when they turned 14.  Me...no.  Even as my girls turned 14...each of them got their shotgun from my dad.  Me...still...no.  I always would target shoot...all growing up – from a wee young age.  I could shoot and kill any tin can they put in front of me...or even from 50+ feet away!  Shotguns, rifles, pistols, revolvers, bow and arrows...I became very efficient!  This served me well as I got into law enforcement.  Throughout my training in the police academy and sequential yearly re-qualifications...I could out-shoot the majority of my male counterparts.

Working in law enforcement, I often had the job of shooting and/or calling someone to pick up a roadkill deer.  As long as the deer wasn’t too busted up...there was ample meat that was completely and absolutely edible.  I was able to acquire a couple of these said deer over the years.  Freshly struck...having to be shot due to broken legs or back etc...the meat was fresh, and I definitely had the experience of processing it.  I even took and processed two of the deer I personally hit myself.  I figured...they ruined my vehicle – I was going to get mine! So on our dining room table the backstraps would grace our presences accompanied by some fresh vegetables from our garden or from our freezer stored harvest that very night.  Being a single mother, I wasn’t going to turn down free meat...jeesh!  I liked the fact that I could even do the work to package it myself.

The whole process may be gruesome...as death in any manner may be to some.  My Native American Heritage has taught me to utilize all of nature’s bounty.  To be thankful for what has been put before us.  Whether I shot the deer with a gun, arrow or vehicle...that animal should not die for nothing.  I can partake of the nutrition it may give my body, tan the hide for use in clothing and/or purses, shoes, or pouches/bags, even shoes.  I’ve also used bones as jewelry and beads as well as tools.

The same concept goes for my finances.  When I have plenty...or struggle for every penny.  I want to be a good steward.  With my time – whether on vacation or  at work. I wish to be a good steward.  With my relationships – regarding friends and even my enemies.  I want to serve as a good steward.  I make the most out of each of these things  the way I think Christ would have me to do.

I try not to be wasteful of anything that I can help.  Even roadkill.

Let It Go!

I don't know anyone who has actually gotten everything in life that they planned on.

Most girls dream about their wedding, their little country house with the white picket fence...their knight in shining armor and their 2.5 children.   Dog in the fenced-in yard.   Spotless house and pristine kitchen with the aroma of cookies at all times. Rose bushes lining the perfectly paved driveway where your husband drives up every weekday after work - briefcase in hand as you meet him at the door with his daily newspaper and house slippers.   Beautiful dinner coming piping hot out of the oven to a meticulously set dinner table.  The classical 'Leave It To Beaver' model of every day family life.

Or whatever.

I'm not saying that my dream was to be the above woman.   I'm more of a pioneering type person.   Farming and country life...but the husband and family - those I wanted.  Those I felt destined to have.   I really wanted a large family.   Lots of children.   I thought of even fostering and/or adopting as well.

My dream didn't come true.  At least not yet.

I did actually get married.  To a man I thought would give me all those things I felt would make a perfect home.   He was in ministry - on staff actually with a Christian Men's Recovery Outreach.  I met him when he brought a group of the guys into the gas station/convenience store I had been working at down the road from the facility where they all lived.  They would come in once a week or so to get "treats"... usually a candy bar and a beverage.  After a couple months he started coming in on his own too.   He'd stay a couple hours talking in between customers etc.  Then we started dating.  I was going through a lot of "stuff" already with being a single mother and trying to raise my daughter on a meager income.

One thing led to another.  I would say 'unfortunately' when I start taking about the next part... but that would mean that I regret what the outcome was and ultimately.... I'm not.   I became pregnant with my second daughter.   I've been thru this part before.   I was ashamed and angry with myself for allowing the situation to become what it was.   I didn't want to bring another child into the world without being married.  I wanted to make this right.   I needed to make this right.   Confirmation came of this line of thinking when one of my pastors walking by me after church and casually stated in passing that I "need to make this right".  I went to his house and after about 2 hours of knocking on his door he finally answered.   We talked and I told him we needed to get married.   We had to make this right.   He told me several times over the next couple years that he wished he'd never opened the door for me that day.

One month from that 2 hour knocking chaos and five months pregnant; with friends and family.... we exchanged vows and began our life together.   He told me I was more into the idea of being married than I was into being married to him.   I never understood why he would say that.   I cooked, I cleaned, we were doing well financially.  I supported him, I encouraged him, I worked 3 jobs when he decided to stop working,  I helped him manage all his medications, I endured a marriage lacking in any type of intimacy, I talked him out of ending his life - several times, I begged him to come home every time he decided to leave us again...all of this for 17 years.  I am a dedicated and committed person.   When I took that vow. ..I meant it.   I promised not only him, my attendees at the wedding and myself. .. but God too that I would stay married til death did us part.

Then a day came when I was forced to go back on my word and file for divorce.   I first had to prosecute my husband for abusing my children.   My children suffered great mental and emotional detriment at his hands.   So while I was working 12-16 hours a day.... sometimes 7 days a week.... he was home abusing my children, physically as well as other ways which I just can't bring my fingers to type the words thru the tears that I am still shedding over it.

So...ultimately...I had to make the decision in regards to my marriage...to let it go.

Tho the piece of paper has been signed by the judge and by both our hands... it still weighs heavy on my heart to this day.

After 14+ years at my job.... my career...what had become my life - I was fired this year.

A typo ultimately signed my pink slip.  So... again, with a family of coworkers being left behind and my income stripped from my family...I had to walk away (albeit not by my own free will)...but ultimately I had to let it go.

Recently I've been in a relationship with an amazing man who I came to love.   Not just love him... but his adult children and his grandchildren as well. ..and they - me.

I had free reign of his house which I cleaned and did some decorating, gardening, raised chickens, supporting him, encouraging him,  and on and on.  I figured after a year and a half. .. we were probably heading towards spending the rest of our lives together.

Two days ago when talking about a coat rack I was designing for the entranceway with his daughter-in-law... she advised me that when I had been gone for the weekend...he had another woman join them when they all went out to eat.  She further told me that he advised them (daughter-in-law and son) that he didn't love me the same way I loved him.

What....?

WHAT...?

I began to cry and rack my brain as to what I missed that I didn't see this coming.   He calls my mom - mom.  He kisses me everyday before leaving for work.   We constantly text back and forth.... usually he texts first.  We laugh together.   We've been cutting wood together.   We've been talking about future endeavors together.   Talked about taking cruises.   I didn't....couldn't understand.   I started to grab my stuff and throw it in my van.   He was outside working and I didn't want the confrontation.... so I was quiet and tried not to let him see me cry.   I was in the back of my truck trying to rearrange things so I could fit more in when he showed up at the tail gate.

Apparently his daughter-in-law told him that she told me about him not loving me like I loved him.... not sure what all she told him that I knew at this point.   He asked for me to come talk to him.   I just collapsed in the truck on a box and started weeping.   He climbed into the truck and held me as he told me he would never do anything to hurt me on purpose.   He told me he didn't know what the future holds but he didn't want me to leave.   He WANTED me there.   Just because we didn't love each other the same way - didn't mean that he didn't love me and, again, we didn't know what the future held.

I'm really over being hurt.   Being walked on.   Being used.   My life has been full of this chaos and I'm not sure what purpose there is in it... but I'm getting pretty exhausted.

The real God starts something new in your life with a blessing and conviction.   The imposter god starts something new in your life with a crisis and disaster.

Satan comes to kill.  To steal.  To destroy.  The enemy seeks to destroy any bit of love from our lives and replace it with pain and agony.   Don't I know it!

How can I allow ANYONE to steal my joy?

I think of the biblical man Job.  He certainly went thru his fair share of pain.   More than his fair share to tell you the truth.   God allowed the enemy to take his land his family and even touch his flesh with painful boils.   And still...Job worshiped God and would not curse him.

He certainly asked why.   He probably got pretty aggravated.   Frustrated even.   God understands that.   He made us.... He knows us... I'm sure He even may expect our painful inquiries.   Why God?  WHY!?

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight not a footprint to be seen.  A kingdom of isolation and it looks like I'm the queen.  Feeling isolated and alone at this point. .. I'm asking the same questions that I'm confident many others including Job had to have asked.  Why me?

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside couldn't keep it in - heaven knows I tried.  Don't let them in - don't let them see - be the good girl you always have to be.  Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know... Well now they know.

So what now?   You know some of my chaos.   I'm not interested in a pity party. .. been doing that pretty good all on my own.  What is my point here?   Maybe I don't even know at this point.  One thing is for sure.  I know what pain is.   I know what grieving can do.   I know what happens when you hold stuff inside and don't let things go.

Did you know that you can grieve for things other than death?   Things like loss of a job.   Friendships ending.   House burning down.   Loss of a limb.   Church splits.  Loss of comfort due to pain from an injury or accident.   Loss of childhood due to a dysfunctional home.  Miscarriage or abortion (men AND women grieve this)  Finding out you have a disease... even a cancer diagnosis.

Grief is serious business.   You have to process thru it in your own way. .. but you HAVE to process through it.   Pushing it down and trying to forget about it - is simply not good enough.   What you are doing is burying the pain.   My friend...pain is something that is living.   So what you are burying... is alive.  It will rear it's ugly head when you least expect it.   Especially if you bury multiple things...over many years.  Like the zombie epocolypse... things start becoming unearthed - all at once.   This phenomenon comes in different manners for everyone.  Some people deal with anxiety and panic attacks.   Some people can actually become deathly ill.   Stress causes things from headaches and some allergies... to even some types of cancers.   I had no idea that accumulated stress could be so damaging to the physical body.

Prolonged stress can cause actual damage to each and every system in your body.

Circulatory System: blood pressure increases. Hypertension. Angina. Stroke. Aneurysm.

Immune System: cancer, asthma, bronchial issues, type 1 diabetes, fibromyalgia, fatigue, depression.

Central Nervous System: chemical imbalances in the brain, depression, phobias, panic attacks, foggy thinking, creativity and memory loss.

Digestive System: desire for comfort food, disruption of digestive process, constipation, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, abdominal cramping, ulcers, leaky gut syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome.

Other complications can include reproductive organ damage like fertility problems growth hormones, stunted or abnormal growth, chronic pain like muscular atrophy, skeletal weakness like osteoporosis, virus invading cells like arthritis and viral infections.

Do you see what can be caused from stress?   This list isn't even complete!   There might be something you think you forgot about a long time ago.   A trauma or event that you might not realize that you buried...alive...remember the zombies?  Have you dealt with everything you have gone thru?   Are you constantly burying things - instead of dealing with it and moving forward?

Are you truly letting go?

It's time to see what I can do. To test the limits and break through. No right no wrong, no rules for me - I'm free. Let it go, let it go. I'm one with the wind and sky. Let it go, let it go, you'll never see me cry. Here I stand, and here I'll stay. Let the storm rage on - the cold never bothered me anyway.

Time to move forward.  To move on.  To finally...Let It Go!

Run Free With the Hope!

HOPE... what does it really mean?

The light at the end of the tunnel?   The anticipation of eating cake and getting presents on your birthday?  Living an abundant life even after the doctor gives you a word full of despair?

Are we so reckless to assume that we can even touch the hem of the garment of one who has the ability to heal us?  When pain and anguish is running rampant in our little bubble of life. .. when we lose sight of the grandeur of what is waiting for us beyond what we can grasp for life here on this big blue marble we call Earth.

Do you have hope?   Faith in what you can not see?  Assurance of what may be in store?  Do you even try to pretend that there is some sort of miniscule anticipation looming somewhere deep in the depths of your soul for any type of reprieve?

"Be still.... and know that I am God" He says.   Be still?  Be patient?  Cast all my worries on Him?   Be not afraid?   Stand firm in the assurance?

Hope... the final frontier.   A place where no man has gone before.

Most of us have heard of the parable of the Prodigal Son.  A young man...too big for his own britches...demands that his father hands over the inheritance owed to him.   He then squanders it away recklessly.  Finding himself living destitute and starving.... even sharing the pig's slop for sustenance.  He looks back at what he had under his father's care.   Sure he had to do some chores and follow some rules.   But even the servants under his father's roof had it better than what he was suffering through right now.  What he desired now...after messing up so much...was to be free from the pain, the shame and the destitution that he had unfortunately come to by his own doings.  Freedom would be comforting.  Even just a little freedom.  And so he heads towards that thought of freedom.

With a desperation only he could understand, he stays on the unsure path back to his father's house.   He figures he would even beg to be treated as simply as one of the servants because he knew the kindness his father has given to even the lowest of those who served him.  Would his father accept him back when he had been so disrespectful?  So rude?  So ignorant?  So pridefull?  So arrogant?  So scandalous?  Not just WOULD he...but COULD he?   Would he even blame him for not opening the door for him?  Even turning him away?  How could he even think that he could.  Still...a shred of hope?

And then...as his mind was assuredly spinning with all these thoughts... he grows closer to his father's house.  Probably with more nervousness each step he took.  Anticipating a welcome of the most meager size possible.  Doubt and despair running rampant in his mind as to how he was even going to approach his father.  To ask him for forgiveness.  To ask him to take him back in under his wing.  To somehow right was he himself had wronged!   To plead and beg and grovel.   If that's what it took.  That's what he would have to do.   There was no other way.   He was desperately in need of his father's help.

From a distance...the Prodigal son was viewed.  He may have been dirty,  hungry, head hanging low.  All the father knew was that his son had returned.   He was alive.   He was safe.  And we was coming home!  He shouted orders quickly for a fatted calf to be butchered and cooked.   His best robe to be brought forward to be placed on his son's shoulders.  Celebration details to be made.  The party of all parties!   For his son has returned!  His son was back!  And then it happened!

The father started to run.  He was not going to wait for that child to reach the front door and knock.   He was going to go after him!  He was so excited to see him come home!   Nothing else mattered!   He grabs hold of his son with what was probably the biggest bear hug known in history - and with joyous tears in his eyes and happiness filling every crevice of his soul...he welcomed his son back into his arms, his home, his grace.

The son had even been willing to sleep in the barn and be as one of the servants.   But his father would have none of that!   My son has returned and we will celebrate!

Who's hope was greater do you think?   The boy's hope of being welcomed back into his father's arms.... even as a servant?   Or the father's hope of one day... his son returning to whew he belonged and his family being complete again?

I would have to say the father.... as he RAN to grab his boy!  Even the boys brother could not comprehend why, after all this time, as he was home doing his father's will and abiding by the rules as he should... would such a celebration be given to the wandering brother?

Who are you in this story?  A little of each?   Are you running?  Are you free?

Jesus talked mostly in these type of parables.  Stories that tho they may have been entertaining...told a story that could be likened to us even now today.

Are you anything like the Prodigal son?   Lost your way... even for a second.   Lost in a world that has failed to give you it's riches and fame and glory - and instead has tried to rob you, kill you. .. even destroy you?

Are you ready to run?  Are you ready to hope again?  Are you ready to ask for forgiveness for doing whatever it is that you may have done?  God is our Father, just like in the story...He's just waiting for you to get tired of doing things your own desperate way.  He's waiting to run to grab you up in His arms and welcome you or welcome you back.

There IS hope!  Will you run to it?   For it?  Don't wait!   Go barefoot if you have to!   Thru the lush green pastures towards the celebration that awaits you!

I have to remind myself daily to seek Him fervently - as chaos tries to overtake my everyday life.   But I hold to hope!   I run with hopeful anticipation as to what God has for me in my future.  I pray for you to embrace the same type of hope.  Run free!  Run free with the hope. Run free with the hope that the Father is running towards you too!  Because He IS!