With Gratitude

Things are always better in the morning! I'm ready to start the day leaving the feelings of overwhelment behind.

Today, March 9th 2015, would have been my mom's 57th birthday. It's crazy how my I miss her now than I missed her when she was alive.

When she was alive I didn't really consider her all at. She was the woman I was told didn't want me. Why would I care about someone who didn't care about me?

As I discussed in a previous post, her leaving was a huge moment in my life. I wanted her to have a better life so I didn't beg her to stay. It crushed me watching her drive away so much so that I had to kill part of my soul to deal with it.

That was the day I decided I would never cry for her again. It's also the day I turned my back on God.

I had to kill my feelings because the pain of losing my mom would have swallowed me whole.

I didn't find out until recently that what I was told about her wasn't true. Shocking that someone would lie right? A lot of someone's actually.

It was easy for me to accept that vision of her. She had to be a heartless bitch to walk away from her children right?

The truth is she made some mistakes. Nothing that couldn't have been fixed. However, my dad took custody away from her. I can't blame him for that. He was doing what he thought was best at the time. I blamed her for not fighting for me.

It was easy to let that go when I found out her family said they'd testify for my dad if she tried to fight it. When I was told that it was like a slap in the face.

Yeah, I got it. I spent 30+ years feeling like I didn't deserve to be alive because of the family dynamic. I could only imagine what that was like for her.

I could have chosen to be angry that she knew what it was like to be in that situation and left me anyway but I felt relieved that she got out.

What I didn't know then is I was strong enough to handle the situation. Even though I turned my back on God, he never turned his back on me.

Being told how stupid I was and fat and that nobody wanted me beat me down but I always had my Heavenly Father on my side. I believed that I was as stupid I was told I was, but something inside me said, "no your not". 99% of me believed the lies but that 1% of me that said that's not true had the strength to prove everyone wrong.

Like I said for the first 30+ years of my life I felt that I didn't deserve to live. How you misinterpret, "you are only here because nobody wants you"? In my mind as a child it had to be true because the people who said it wouldn't lie to me.

Even though I believed nobody wanted me, I also had this unwavering belief that there was a purpose for my life. That belief was strong enough to carry me through the times when everything else in me wanted to give up.

I've also had an annoying capacity to forgive. I was given the gift of empathy. I can look past the actions of a person and see their heart. When I see my family I see good people. Broke people, but good people.

I think that this was what made it so easy to hate myself. I've always seen my family as good, decent people who would help anyone. That is who they were. If that was who they were, I had to be a horrible person for them to not want me right?

What my child brain didn't understand is that those two things don't have to go together. They can be awesome people who were/are broken in their own ways and that had/has nothing to do with me.

I didn't get until a few months ago that Heavely Father is the reason I'm still here. Those things that helped me through the hopelessness I felt were not things anyone was telling me but I knew without a doubt was true. I never understood where it came from but I knew it was there.

It's because of Heavenly Father that I can think of my family members today and feel how much I love each of them. They are good people and I would defend them against anyone who judged them by their brokenness.

I'm incredibly grateful for the life that I have. Yes, I still wish for that family connection but I wouldn't change what has happened in my life.

I still don't understand why things were the way they were. I do know that I needed to go through what I did for a reason and that Heavenly Father knew I was strong enough to handle it.