Tag Archive - my story

It’s Not Your Fault

September 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with 2 Comments

'freedom is all you need (148/365)' photo (c) 2011, Tim Geers - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/There are certain days as we walk our journeys that we will always remember because those were the days we changed.  These days were Inciting Incidents.  Parts of our stories ended and new parts began.  When those days come, we’re faced with the decision:  Shut down or continue on in this new direction.  I’ve done both.

Neither one is easy.  

Just over two years ago I found myself sitting in the small office of a nutritional specialist.  She hosted a radio program on my local Christian station, and I usually liked what she had to say, so I looked her up and set up a time to meet.  We decided we’d take things a little slow, just learning how to make better decisions when it comes to eating and exercising.

But during our second meeting she wanted to talk about why I thought I was living such an unhealthy lifestyle.  I started going through my usual story about the death of my nephew nine years before and how I had lived in this haze for so long that I just didn’t care.  I knew she’d cry.  People always cry.  It’s a horrible part of our lives.  It’s a sad story.  I’d learned to put up these walls, though, and just tell the story virtually emotionless and just for what it was.  I guess I’d just disconnected myself from it when I had to tell the story.

I had just told her about administering CPR and always wondering if I’d done it right, wondering if I could have done more.  She stopped me.  Usually people don’t stop me during this part of the story, so I started to continue on.  She stopped me again.  She said, “Julie, I want you to look at me, and I want you to hear something.  If you never learn anything from me, I want you to know this:  It’s not your fault.”

I knew that I’d done everything I could all those years ago.  I knew that I’d done everything correctly based on my training.  I knew it all in my head.  But it took nine years before I knew it in my heart.

That day I crumbled.  I just sat there as she let me cry on her shoulder, well over our allotted one-hour limit.  A virtual stranger looked into my eyes and said the words I’d been longing to hear for years.

It’s not your fault.

And I still struggle.  It still took me almost a year from that date to really decide to start focusing more on my health and care about me again.  Four months ago, almost two years from that first visit, I ran in a half marathon.  And I don’t yet look the way I want to look.  I don’t physically feel the way I want to feel.

But I’ve been freed.

The guilt that weighed me down for years was lifted with three words that I finally let sink in.  There was nothing you could do, Julie.  It’s not your fault.

Sometimes things just happen.  And sometimes when those things happen, there is no explanation.  My nephew died of SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, something that science cannot yet explain.

It’s not your fault.

Maybe you’ve had a situation like mine.  Maybe it’s nothing like mine, but you found yourself in a set of horrible circumstances that you had absolutely no control over.  I hope today that you will hear the words that I craved for so long and I hope they free you.

It’s not your fault, friend.  

One day we’re going to find out the answers for the things we can’t explain here.  One day I believe that we’re going to know why.  And one day I believe that Jesus is going to look me in the eyes and say, “Listen, My child.  This is why it had to happen.  It was part of my plan all along.”

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This post is part of a group blogging project celebrating the release of Inciting Incidents, a book featuring Tracee Persiko, whom I wrote about last week, along with five other contributors. You can go read posts from other contributors and link up your own post here.  You can also go buy the book here!  Definitely check it out!

Hello Again

October 10, 2011 in Uncategorized with 2 Comments

I still remember it as if it were yesterday.  You know, there are those days that will forever live in your memory because they changed your life?  This was the day I started to wake up.  I’d lived my life in a way where I tried to tell myself there would be no consequences for living the way I had.  The money would eventually show up in my account.  The weight would eventually fall off.  Wrongs would be righted.  I had faith.  If faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains, surely I could have enough faith to at least win the lottery.  Right?

But the sleepless nights kept coming.  Insomnia became a way of life during the dark years.  I started having some medical issues.  It felt like I couldn’t take a deep breath for a long time.  The doctors told me asthma.  I think they were wrong.  I think it was all stress.  I couldn’t pay my bills.   Sleep was nowhere to be found.  And the money still wasn’t coming in.  And I couldn’t quit eating.  And I just wanted to stay in bed.  I couldn’t feel anything anyway.

But this day was different.  I had realized that I had a problem for a while.  I just didn’t know how to go about breaking down those walls that I’d worked so hard to build.  But I wanted to feel alive again.  And feeling alive meant feeling something, whether it was good or bad.

I went to a deposition, because I was still a court reporter at that time.  I don’t remember too many facts about the case, and if I did, I couldn’t share with you anyway.  All I know is that we took the deposition of a 6-year-old girl and her 7-year-old sister.  They had been physically abused.  They had been sexually abused.  They had been severely neglected and malnourished.  The only time they were ever given any attention is when their father was hitting them or molesting them.

It broke my heart.

I remember getting in my car and calling my best friend.  I told her the same story as above, and she talked to me the whole hour home as I cried.  And my tears were real.  For the first time in close to 6 years I felt something.  And it hurt.  And it was horrible.  But I allowed myself to feel that pain for those little girls because I had finally realized that in order to heal from my own pain and grief, that I had to allow myself to feel pain and hurt and love and grace.

It was one of those moments where you just know that even though you’ve got a long way to go, you’re going to get there.  Things are never going to be the same, and that’s okay.

It’s a long process, this grieving and healing thing.  At this point I can’t hardly watch a Folgers commercial without tears.  And don’t even get me started on any kind of inspirational movie.  You know, like Cool Runnings.  And while I don’t really enjoy being a bawl-bag, just feeling something makes me feel halfway alive again.

I’m just so thankful that God woke me up.   Called me beloved.  Told me that I have something to offer.  Because He made me, I am enough.

Click here to see a video of some girls in my church dancing to Now Behold The Lamb by Kirk Franklin.  It’s just a video that speaks to me every time.  I hope you enjoy it!

Have there been times when you would just have rather stayed in bed?  What was going on, and how did you move forward.

It’s Just Temporary

September 26, 2011 in Uncategorized with 4 Comments

Do you like food?  I do.  I like to eat food when I’m hungry, of course.  I like to eat food when I’m bored.  I like to eat food when I’m  having a bad day.  This didn’t turn out well for me.

I blame my metabolism.

I kind of shut down.  I had put up these walls.  I had subconsciously decided that it was just easier to go through life without feeling much.  This meant that when I put on the first 50 pounds (yes, I said the first 50), I didn’t really care.  By the time the second 50 came on, I knew I had a problem.  I just didn’t know it would be so hard to take the weight off.

Through those dark years I went searching for something anything that would make me feel better, even if it was just for a few seconds.  I didn’t think about the consequences of anything I was doing.  If I wanted another piece of cake, I would have another piece of cake.  It was just a heckuva lot easier to go through a drive-through than it was to fix something at home.  I had cabinets full of food, but usually chose the easier route.

I sold out.

I took what I can only assume Robert Frost would call the road well paved.  I traveled right along with the rest of the world.

If it feels good, do it.

And it’s now, 10 years later, that I’m still dealing with these issues.

I mean, weight had always been a little bit of an issue with me.  I would put on some pounds in the off-season, but when school sports started back up, I’d lose them again.  Even now, I have no problem doing the work, the physical aspect of it, that it takes to take the pounds off.  What I have a problem with is the mental aspect of it.

Do I really believe that I’m worth putting this kind of effort into?  It’s so hard.  I used to believe that I had worth.  I do now, but it’s still a little shaky because I didn’t believe for so long.

The thing about sin is that there’s always consequences.  When we live a life just trying to feel good by making bad decisions, those consequences are always going to be around.  Had I known that 10 years later I’d be trying to get in shape to run 5k’s while 120 pounds overweight, would I have taken that extra piece of cake?

Probably not.

But I ate it.  And here I am.  So right here is what I need to deal with and where I need to start.  I tackled all of the credit card debt the same way.

A little bit at a time.

I know you’re probably a little tired hearing about all the running.  I get it.  I wanted to write this post so maybe you who don’t know me will understand what a big deal this is to me.  Not only is it a step in the right direction for my health and the rest of my life, but it’s the second chance I’ve been waiting for for 10 years.

I’m just so thankful that God never quits giving second chances.

If you had a chance to do something different, would you?  What would it be?

Read more of my story here.

Grace

September 19, 2011 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

Have you ever hit rock bottom?  Just the place where you feel like you’re just floundering, and as hard as you’re trying, you’re not getting anywhere.  I think that’s  exactly where I was.  I sure had the floundering part down.

After the death of my nephew I started doing things to make myself feel a little better.  It didn’t matter if the feeling was lasting or not.  I’m forever thankful that I wasn’t wired to turn to drugs or alcohol, but the things that I turned to were socially acceptable.  People didn’t care if I went back for seconds on the apple pie, and they sure didn’t care if I came to work in a new outfit that I bought on my credit card.

I think I had went numb.  I decided that it would inevitably be better for me to just build up walls around my heart so that I wouldn’t have to be hurt like that again.  The biggest problem with that was, though, while I was numb to all the bad things happening around me, I also was unable to really feel and experience the good things.  So what I turned to was anything that that gave me a little bit of satisfaction.

Man, I’m hungry.  I’ll have two more helpings of dinner.

I think I want a new guitar.  Oh, good.  This one’s only $500.

I’ve got to have a new computer.  I like new stuff.  This one works.

What I ended up with was a lot of debt and gaining a lot of weight.

I’ve talked a lot on the Esau Project about the compromises we make.  I was making little compromises here and there over a long period of time, and 10 years later, I’m still dealing with the consequences of those decisions.

Honestly, you have no idea how excited I was when I get credit card solicitations in the mail these days because it wasn’t that long ago that I was in so deep that I wasn’t even deemed worthy of a mailing.  It’s ridiculous.  I hate credit cards.  My use and abuse of them has left me with more sleepless nights than I care to remember.  But I think sometimes God uses the very things that helped take us down to show us just how far we’ve come.

I honestly couldn’t tell you other than my guitar and my computer what I spent money one during that time in my life.  I couldn’t tell you a single specific thing that I ate.  But these days, I watch where my money goes.  I try to make sure that what I’m buying is something I need and is the best deal I can find.

Sometimes I screw up, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned during this journey, it’s that we’re all screwed up.  We all make bad decisions every once in a while.  But while we’re all screwed up, we’re also all covered by God’s grace, and it’s His grace that brings us through.  I don’t know where I’d be without it.

What are ways that you show grace to those around you?  How has grace been shown to you?

Unexplainable

September 12, 2011 in Uncategorized with 14 Comments

It was a Monday morning.  I hate Mondays.

The call came in at 6:30 a.m.  He wasn’t breathing and we didn’t know why.  I jumped out of bed, ran to my car and drove to my sister’s house. She had pulled in right before me, tears running down her face.  We ran in the house, and there he was in the middle of the floor.

Lifeless.

My nephew.  3 ½ months old.

The next minutes seemed like a blur.  I went into survival mode.  He needed CPR.  I knew CPR.  How did that go again?  I never thought I’d ever have to use it.

Breathe.  Chest compressions.  Breathe.  Chest compressions.  And on and on it went.

It seemed that it took the ambulance 30 minutes to get there.  I really don’t know because I was kneeling over the lifeless body of my nephew.

I was praying.

I was praying that God would take my life and give it to Dylan.  I’d lived a good 21 years.  I was happy and had been successful at just about everything I’d tried.  My sister needed her little boy.  I was ready to go.

What I wasn’t ready for was the years of heartache that followed.  For a long time I blamed myself.  I blamed God.

I offered up my life for his willingly, just like You did, Lord, and You didn’t take it.  If You would have just done what I asked, my sister wouldn’t have had to feel this way.

I wouldn’t have to deal with this pain.

Maybe there was something more I could have done.  What if I did the CPR wrong?

What if I was the reason for the heartache?

SIDS or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, is the unexpected, sudden death of a child under age 1 in which an autopsy does not show an explainable cause of death.

Unexplainable death.  You might as well have shoved a dagger through my heart, Lord.  I’m never going to recover from this one.  All this…not knowing.

I haven’t recovered yet.  I carry scars from that day that still hurt.  Sometimes they sneak up on me. I hear the sound of an ambulance and I’m right back there on that cold November morning.

It’s taken me years to get here, but I do have good days more than bad now.  On a good day, those scars are a constant reminder of what God is bringing up in me.  Almost ten years later and I think I am beginning to see why God allows the scars to still hurt. They are there to remind me of my foundation in Him.  They are they to remind me of the depths He’s brought me from.   He is my past, my present, and my future.

As the days and years go on, I can talk about Dylan.  I can speak peace into lives affected by loss and tragedy.  I can love on people, and I can finally write about my experiences in the years after.

Redemption is a process.  The scars that no one sees are God’s reminders of His redemption in me.

His death impacts my life with daily grace and love. Every day, little by little, those regrets, the bitterness, the scars, in the words of Sara Groves, are becoming “less like scars and more like character.”

What are ways that God is redeeming you?

Change In The Making

August 31, 2011 in Uncategorized with 6 Comments

I’m tired.  I get restless when things stay the same for too long.  I don’t really know what that says about me, but for now let’s just go with awesome.

I kind of want to shake things up here.  Over the next few months you will be seeing some changes.  Some will be drastic, and some not so much.  Like you’ll still be able to see a picture of me on the page, but it will be a better picture.  See, not too drastic.  However, everything else, appearance-wise, will be changing.  I’ve got an awesome new template picked out.  I’ve got a friend working on a logo.  And I’ve got an guy giving me an estimate on how much it will cost for him to switch everything over for me because I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what I would be doing.

I’m kind of excited.

Sometimes change makes me anxious.  Does it you?  It’s the times change happens with no clear vision for the future.  Then my anxiousness turns to physical sickness.  Like high terror alert.  Things happen that make me question everything I’ve ever known and test my faith in the God I know is in charge.  I’m not a fan of those times.  Seriously.  I don’t love them.  But they’re the times that when I look back, I see I became stronger and my relationships are strengthened.

I know I’m going kind of deep for an announcement for upcoming blog changes, but it’s not just the blog.  While those changes are exciting.  I’m actually going to start adding some new content, things I haven’t really ever written about before.  You’ll probably be seeing a new page added called “My Story.”  These posts will be focusing, of course, on my story.  The parts of the story that aren’t so fun.  The parts of the story that I’ve waited ten years to write because I can’t do so without crying.  And the parts of the story that make up different parts of me.

I’ve waited for a long time.  I’m not really sure why.  But I think it’s time.  I firmly believe that you can’t really heal and/or move on until you deal with things.  My way of dealing with things is to write about them.  It helps me process.

I read a quote yesterday, and for the life of me I can’t find it again.  But it went something like this:  To be Christian is to be vulnerable.

I hate being vulnerable.  But I think in some ways my story will inspire and encourage and strengthen someone, even if it’s just me.  So here’s to me being vulnerable.

I hope you’ll join me in this journey.

I think it’s about time.