Seven months after I had committed myself to starting this blog I am just now writing my second blog. Many valleys and mountain tops have been journeyed since January 2013 began. At the time of this writing I am still looking for the person that had stood so tall as the old year turned into the new. My feet firmly planted on solid ground, not many rumbles to speak of. The time came to find a place to call my home, a nice quaint, yet roomy apartment that would accept my two precious pups. Celebrating the achievements of my two littlest birds, my daughter graduating from the police academy and my son graduating from VMI. Saying goodbyes were just a few, my sister moved back to her home and my son moved six hours away. The most heart wrenching goodbye to my big brother. June 9, he was traveling to his sons home in Kansas where he was going to meet his first granddaughter who was three weeks old. His son who is in the Army was also getting ready to be deployed for six months. He left his home bright and early and made it to Kentucky before he started having problems. We don’t know if he was having health issues or just problems with mechanics, but several events lead to a fatal single car crash on the evening of June 9. We didn’t find out the news until the following day. I will never forget that phone call. The shock over took my whole being. I had not even begun to understand what my world was about to become. The pain began in the very center and like the foulest of weeds grew as the roots entangled themselves around my heart. Day by day I knew that all I had to do was lay my pain in the hands that had already taken all our pain, but I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let go because I tried to win the battle myself. I thought that if I didn’t then I had not won any of my battles. So I felt the pain deeper and deeper. I wouldn’t pray for relief, not because I was angry with God but that laying down my pain would be letting go of my brother and how much I loved him. I tried to define why I was feeling the pain, then I found that I just needed to feel the pain, accept the pain, know the pain and let it go. My father knew my struggles before I did, he knew that I wasn’t strong enough to withstand what I was going to go through, not without my faith growing stronger. My faith was numbed, it was frozen and my pain was great. God knew that I had to feel the deepest to know the greatest. His hand never was far but it was far enough that I had to stand to reach it. My faith began growing again. As it grows it is growing slower and deeper. Deeper than the roots of the weeds of the world can reach. I know that I will still stumble over the rumbles in each of my days, I cry each day for the loss of my brother, but my heart is beginning to smile again. For God told me to be still and I did, and I saw his hand as I stood up once again.
The day I learned to Stand Tall
The light snow was swirling through the air on this day in 2010. The air had a bite that chilled a body and was crisp enough to make you wrap your coat tighter. Two hours was all that was left of that work day. As the patient care become closer to being complete, I had noticed that the back door of the office had opened and as I glanced around I felt the chill from outside creep in and felt the bite of fear. Curt, my estranged husband and whom had a protective order for previous threats against me walked down the hall and he stood there with a stare that sent the message that there was more going on than we knew. I excused myself after he walked away and without him seeing me asked the others in the office to call the police. I spoke with the Dr. and told him that there was reason to be alarmed that he was there, he told me to do what I had to do and went back to the patient. The others were unsure how or what to do so I went into the conference room, closed the door and on my personal phone called the police. I was giving the dispatcher all the information when the door opened and there he stood. He walked into the room closed the door looked at me and at that time, the time it took him to pull a gun out, barracde the door and tell me he was not going to let this happen, seemed like an instant. I can recall that I screamed he has a gun, dropped my phone and lunged towards him. I knew that I had to get control, I held tight and pushed the barrell as hard as I could towards the floor. The thought of keeping us all alive was all I had on my mind. We fought and as I held on as tight as I could begging for him to think about what he was doing, the gun fired. I felt the blast in my abdomin and told myself that I could not think about that now, that I had to continue to fight. The struggle continued until I finally had control of the gun and begged for the police to break in. I had to knock the chair away and then they were able to come in and take control of him. From that point on my mind was swirling like the snow. I saw faces and heard voices. I felt lost and felt saved. I shook from fear and shook from the chill. My life in an instant was forever changed and at that instant I did not realize how much. The bullet pierced two layers of clothing but did not touch my body. My God had placed his armour on me that day without me even asking him to. I was knocked down and just as I started to get up again in three days I was knocked down again. I was fired from my position that I had held for ten years. An unknown enemy had crept in where I felt safe and secure. How much further down could I go? I was told that I was not the only victim that day and that the trust had been broken. Today I see that those words were a gift and the beginning of my healing. I was a victim in that instant, yet after that instant I became a survivor. I placed my hand in the hand that was outstretched to help me up. I grabbed ahold and as each day passed, some days slow, some days fast, some days dark, some days darker and some days that felt that I would never again know how to feel safe, secure, confident and have hope in tomorrow, I held tight and stood up to become taller and taller. Today as I continue to hold tight to God’s hand and all the hands that he has given me to hold on to, I am climbing each mountain that is in front of me, I am busting through the walls that were being built around me by the enemies of my dreams, I am stumbling yet not falling and I am seeing now How Tall I Can Stand.
Healing Moments with the Healer 