My Testimony

I mentioned in my previous post that I had a testimony that was trying to get out. Tonight, I felt a calling to state it. It's never easy to speak about tragedy in our lives, especially when it comes to things like a broken case of innocence. I could speak about several things that affected me growing up, but I will only talk about what I believe is the most significant. It's also something that forever changed the course of my life, and has set my goals into action. Some of my friends already have an idea of what this may be about, others will have no idea. The fact that this may come to a shock to some clearly illustrates the point that we must always be aware that people have secrets, and we should never judge. Never.

When I was in high school, it seemed like I had everything. I lived in a nice neighborhood, my dad drove a corvette, I was talented, and I was attractive. I was surrounded by friends while in the band, even if I wasn't friends with the kids that were deemed "popular". I had goals; I was going to major in clarinet performance and I was going to write books. Yet, it doesn't take a lot sometimes to make a person lose their focus. Let me tell you a little about character:

I care about people with all my heart. The thought of my parents being sad makes me cry, and I can't even describe the way thinking about my nieces and nephew can make me break out into a smile. I love hard and when I commit myself to someone, I make them my everything. Stating that, it's not hard for me to say that I had weird priorities for someone my age. I wasn't really thinking about college, I was trying to figure out how to find happiness in a relationship. I just wanted to make someone happy, so bad that it would drive me crazy sometimes. I didn't have a lot of self worth, and I felt increasingly like my looks were what made me who I was. I don't know if parents truly realize the way girls can be treated while in high school, and not just high school, but middle school. I was made into an object in middle school, having my body judged at an age where we're already stressed to death over our bodies and emotions. High school didn't help things, and from the very beginning, I always felt singled out. I would hear stories about the guys talking about having sex with me, and the guys acting like they could. I was fourteen, and I can remember sitting there thinking, "Is that what I'm supposed to be good for? Why would someone think they can do that with me? What kind of vibe am I even giving off?" These thoughts followed me throughout high school and it was always in the back of my mind.

Then in my junior year, I met him. He was a waiter in a restaurant that my family frequented and I thought he was cute. I crushed on him, especially after he gave me attention. He was older than me by a couple of years, and that was flattering to me, at the time. It wasn't long before we went on a date, and I was excited with the idea of someone older, and who I thought would be more mature, being interested in me. I thought surely he, someone a little older, would like me for who I was. He seemed charming, but the second night we were together, everything changed. Immediately.

The second night we were together, we were laying there and he kept pressuring me to sleep with him. I felt wrong about it, obviously because I barely knew him. I was stubborn about it and rejected him over and over again. Then I slipped my hand under his pillow and felt a knife, and not just a small pocket knife, but a huge hunting style knife. He asked me to be his girlfriend in the middle of us having sex.

Girls would constantly tell me, "Lauren! Your boyfriend is so cute, and he's going to be a doctor? That's insane girl!" and I can remember sitting there saying, "Oh yeah, you know, he's great," but inside I wanted to say, "He scares me to death, and I can't tell you." My closes friends suspected something from the beginning, especially after I began withdrawing from them. I didn't do it by choice. He threatened to hurt my friends, and I didn't doubt that he would. He would twist situations to the point that he had me turning on my own friends, and it's difficult to explain, but he had made me into what he wanted. I walked around my school without talking, avoiding my friends, and avoiding any situation that could get me in trouble with him. It seemed like it was impossible to keep anything from him, whether it was me speaking to a friend after class, or getting a text message from a guy friend. My grades slipped tremendously, mainly because I was skipping class to stay at his dorm on campus. There, we had our usual routine, and that I won't go into. I recall one time, we got into a fight, and I told him I was going to school. His roommate was sitting on the computer, trying desperately to ignore our argument. As I grabbed my things up, he grabbed me and held me up against the wall, stating plainly that I couldn't go. I remember crying and thinking, "Why isn't his roommate doing something?"

It wasn't long after that that his roommate changed roommates and I didn't see him anymore after that.

Our relationship consisted of nothing but arguing and sex. I felt like nothing, and I hated him more than I can find words to explain. I was constantly raped, cussed, and threatened. I felt the most trapped after one incident. He had gone with me to a concert at the university, which I was going to for extra credit for class. I loved band, and I loved clarinet. I wasn't allowed to talk about clarinet or music, however, because he knew nothing about the subject, and he couldn't stand the idea that I may know more about something than he did. He became angry with me, and why, I can't remember. We were leaving the concert in his car, when I finally couldn't stand him anymore. He was screaming at me, and I pushed his face away from me, and in that moment, he slung his arm around and hit me in the throat. I remember I couldn't breathe, and on the way home, I sat there with my face against the window thinking I would never get out of this.

People often say, "Why didn't you tell someone?" And it's hard to explain unless you've gone through the situation. You're ashamed, you feel broken, and you're terrified. I'll give this example, to try and make it better to understand. For Christmas that year, I asked for a North Face backpack. That was all I wanted. He gave me one, and I sobbed out of happiness, over a backpack. It wasn't about the backpack though. It was because I had been abused to the point that something given to me by my abuser was like a glimmer of hope. That same night, he threatened to kill me. This was also the same night that he admitted to cheating on me. He told me the story, crying and begging for my sympathy, and I remember I numbly sat there and held him. Only an hour later, he held me over the side of a cliff that I couldn't even see the bottom of in the dark. I felt like I was about to die, and I cried and begged him not to, and he finally threw me behind him and let me sit in the gravel and cry.

That was when I finally knew I had to stop it. It wasn't easy, and for years I was afraid of him, even after I left him and ended all contact with him. I have realized now that he can't hurt me, but it took a lot to make me see that. For years I had nightmares, and finally a therapist told me I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder  from the entire experience. I still am embarrassed over things that happened, and there will be things that I will never talk about.

But this is the conclusion to my testimony. I forgave him, and I prayed for him. I still do, and I constantly pray that God will heal him. I still worry sometimes that ten years from now, a news bulletin will come up stating that he has murdered his wife or has abused his children. I finally decided though that I won't be a victim. I am the person that I am today because of what I went through, and I will use what I've learned to help other people. God brings us through tragedy to give us our purpose. Mine is to get my masters in criminal justice and advocate for victims of crime, and understand why people commit acts that can destroy others.

I thought that year of my life would kill me. God had other plans, and God brought me through it. There is nothing that is happening that you can't endure, because God has made you to be a survivor and to be a fighter. That is my testimony.

Forgive Easily

Gracie has enough joy that she could definitely hand it out to a few people, me in particular. She's always bouncing around the house, mauling my other dog, and looking at me with those huge brown eyes. She's incredibly spunky, even when I attempt to scold her. She doesn't cower away; it's more like she leaps away, but her tail is still wagging. I can't decide if she is just incapable of being depressed, or if my cries of "NO!" just aren't loud enough.

I've had a huge weight that I've been carrying for a while now, and I still can't place exactly what it is. It's been with me for probably years now, recreating itself based off of whatever situation I'm going through. The weight feels the same, but I have learned to deal with it much differently now. I will admit readily that I am not a perfect follower of Christ. I make mistakes every day, and for a long time, I kept myself from asking for forgiveness. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I didn't want to admit that I was doing something wrong, or if I simply had tried to twist God's unconditional love into something like blind love. In my last post, I mentioned that God woke me up and reminded me that I hadn't changed. I was still carrying a burden that I wouldn't let God handle. All I wanted to do was continue to feed that burden because it felt justifying for me. It's easy for us to get angry, and usually when we get angry, we want to get REALLY angry. We don't want to just say "No, it's alright", we want to keep at it and call up our best friend and tell them just how much we hate so and so. I caught myself doing it today.

I learned an important lesson one day from a doctor I see every now and then. He told me that it isn't right for us to try and handle the people who wrong us. Instead, we should pray for them. He said, "Lauren, when you sit down to pray, what you should say is 'God, thank you for this amazing day. Thank you for the breath I have breathed. Please, bless (fill in the blank). I forgive them, and I pray that you will bless them'". He then went on to explain to me that, "Often times, we feel like we need to feel a sense of justice. We feel like that person deserves to be hurt just like we did. But in reality, when we ask God to bless them, we are not only asking that God will be good to them, but that God will give them what it is that they deserve. Blessing is a form of justice." It's weird to think about at first, but I later understood exactly what he meant. This prayer was something I immediately took into action about something that I'm sure I'll eventually get into in a later post. I have a testimony that I've been dying to let loose.

Gracie knows that I love her, no matter how mad she makes me. No matter how many pairs of underwear she eats, I still manage to forgive her. God will always forgive us if we are willing to ask. We shouldn't be prideful before God. God created us and each one of us individually is a part of His great work. Even our mess ups have a way of shaping things, and I believe it ultimately is for God's overall plan. We have to be hopeful, because if we were not, what would we be living for? When we try to forgive those in our own lives, it can be a huge struggle. It's not hard for God. Jesus died for us so we could have the opportunity to be in touch with God, so that we could even have the chance to gain forgiveness. We should pray daily that God will help us to forgive like Him. I pray every night that God will help me to love like He can, because I know my love is imperfect, especially when I feel like I've been injured.

Keep your head up readers, and let God handle it.

When He Speaks

Gracie hates the be put in the kitchen. Every time we lock her up, she howls and cries, but eventually settles down on her pillow and sleeps. We keep her confined when we aren't at home, or when she just gets too wild to be dealt with. She's still a puppy, so her energy far out stretches our own. 

I just graduated college and I honestly felt like I had everything under control. I was having fun with my friends and even though I'd become emotionally numb, I thought I was doing what I deserved. But I was also doing some things that I knew weren't okay, deep down, even if they were a fun distraction. I was drinking, mainly because I thought it was acceptable at my age. I'm 21, I'm supposed to do this stuff. 

Then God stopped me in the way He knew would catch my attention the loudest. He struck where it would hurt, and even now I feel some sting from it. However, I see clearly now that what I thought was making me feel better was really doing the opposite. It wasn't me, and I knew it all along, deep down. The words still echo within me "you haven't changed". I thought I had. I had tried so hard to change, but it was true, I had not. 

My attention to God had drifted. 

I keep Gracie locked up sometimes because she needs boundaries. She needs my eyes on her. God gave us boundaries for protection and for guidance. 

I am thankful for the boundaries that have been set for me and I am glad that I have a God who knows me so well. Though I am hurting, He is there to comfort me. 

Strength After Fear

So yesterday was a bad day, but guess what? Life goes on! Today, I feel far better than I did yesterday, simply because I prayed last night that God would give me the strength to do what is best or me. I prayed not for what I wanted to do, or what might make me feel good, but what was best for me. I felt exhausted as I let those words slip from my mouth, but I already feel so much comfort and relief. Asking for God's plan to be fulfilled can be scary, because deep down we know that what we want may not line right up with what God wants. Once we come to realize that God's plan is ultimately more perfect than we could ever imagine...it becomes much simpler. Trying to fight against the will of God is tiring. It wears us down until we have nothing left within ourselves but a desire to know God. That desire can get bogged down by all kinds of things that are a part of our flawed world. I know yesterday, I had a moment of pure anger and fear and I shoved my bible from my bed and said "Enough of this!" and I felt defeated and cried until all I could do was talk to God about it. I felt guilty for what I had said and felt, but God understood. We cannot always understand His way. We simply have to believe and keep faith, and when we do, all of His work becomes so clear to us within our own lives.

I have tons of things to be stressed over. However, I feel calm knowing that God has it under control. I believe with all of my heart that things happen for a reason. It's true that what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, and we must praise God through our struggles, not after them. The choices that bring us the most fear always bring us the most strength. We just have to stay positive! God is always with us, and so we should be fearful of nothing. He will take care of it. We should be thankful for our trials. They help shape us, and I am grateful for how mine are shaping me.

On a side note, Gracie is getting huge! She's 16.5 pounds now, a total chubster. She is full of so much energy still that she tires me out, but I am too blessed to have her. Every morning she makes me smile when she runs up, fiercely wagging her tail, and looking up at me with her dark eyes. She's honestly the sweetest gift God could have ever given me. I guess it's probably about time for a picture :)

She's my sweet girl. Cuddles with her mama.

But always find reasons to smile, even when you go through a gray period like I did. Yesterday was rough, to say the least, but today I feel completely renewed. Everything will be alright, I promise.

Gray Days

Bloggers and readers, I'm going to admit that today--I'm having a TERRIBLE day. I'm doing my very best to hold my head up, but I feel instead that I am merely shoving my feelings down and cementing over them. I'm torn over how I want to handle these impending issues on my heart and life: do I allow myself to embrace these emotions and act, or do I smother them down and let them harden me. I have felt the changes within myself, and they have happened quickly and suddenly. I never realized how someone could change so drastically overnight, and I have yet to discover whether this is a good change or an overall bad one. We preach that people should be strong, but I am wondering whether I am brewing strength or bitterness. I do not want to hold grudges against the people that have injured me, but I know no other way of keeping myself from further injury. I'll admit that I am an emotional person; I feel my emotions with a sense of romantic air that is difficult to release. However, I feel that I am beginning to lack in those emotions. They capture me with the same kind of rapid hunger that they always have, but then once the feelings have subsided, there is nothing left but a state of ugly numbness.

I suppose this is the change that is meant to occur, since all things do inevitably happen for a reason. It is truly difficult, for this is not the way that I have lived the majority of my life. I have always lived my life overwhelmed by my feelings, whether for good or bad. I have loved beyond I could handle and now I feel that I am tired. Walking away seems to be the correct option, but what do I choose to walk away from? That's the question that I don't know how to answer.

I admit that my faith had weakened. I'm simply tired. I still pray until I fall asleep, but I know the bubbling sensation of doubt is starting to form. The feeling is frightening, and it makes my daily life that much more empty and aimless. Perhaps the things causing me unrest are unimportant. I'm sure anyone with a stable footing in life would tell me, "Just move on. This is all nothing to worry about. You'll meet someone else. You'll make new friends. You have such a promising life!" But I feel like I am staring blankly into the eyes of someone who cannot understand. How can something that causes me so much grief be so unimportant and so temporary?

Again, I'm having a pretty terrible day. I'm looking forward to resting tonight, and perhaps tomorrow will be a better day. I will continue to pray, for prayer is its own form of healing.

Drives to the Vet

I've been feeling a lot of stress lately over things that aren't really necessary and shouldn't be at the forefront of my mind. Still, they cause me extreme grief at times, and I find myself feeling completely confused and unable to deal with the issue at hand. I'm sure this is common to everyone, and there have been a lot of days that I have crawled into bed leaving my textbooks and responsibilities with school lying on the floor. It's easy for us to put down the things that are critical to moving forward and dwell on the things that hold us back. It's hard to understand why things happen, and definitely difficult to make future decisions when our minds are bogged down by everything that we can't control.

Gracie doesn't like when I take her to the vet. I don't think there is a pet alive that is excited about their trip to the vet devil. For her, she mainly hates the drive. She looks around anxiously at all the things she's never seen before, and my dad's driving usually causes her to nearly fall into the floorboard at every stop. After the stress of the car ride and the shots at the vet, Gracie will typically curl up next to me and just endure it.

Often times, we feel like we are just looking around desperately for an explanation. We want to understand why things are the way they are and how we can make the right choices. I know I am, and I'm sure Gracie was as she sat back with her ears folded looking like she was scared out of her mind by the roaring truck passing our car on the highway. Instead of focusing on our fears, we should focus on the the positives. The unknown is definitely frightening, but just like the shots that Gracie gets which will benefit her in the future, God has a plan ready for us. Everything that we go through makes us stronger, and I am currently seeing that in my life right now. I no longer cry over the things that I used to, and when I do cry, I let it all out and I walk away from it the next day. We grow stronger everyday when we endure through our struggles and believe in the faithfulness of God and His promises.

Give God your faith and truly believe in His plan. His voice will sound much clearer and your prayers will echo in your own heart.

Racing Against God

Last night, I was trying to catch Gracie who had managed to climb the stairs and get into my bedroom. When I found her, she gave me a look that immediately let me know that she was up to something. I reached for her, and she quickly flipped around and started running circles around my room. I chased her and it didn't matter how close I got to her, she would somehow manage to squeeze away. However, I kept after her until finally she grew weary of the chase and I snatched her up.

Sometimes we don't do it intentionally, but it's easy for us to find ourselves running away from God. We find every possible way to escape His gaze and His hold over us. This can happen through the choices we make, even when we know they aren't right for us. Maybe we've been too surrounded by noise to be silent and listen to God's voice. There are plenty of reasons for why we may be running a foot race with God: fear, bitterness, anger, depression, pride...the list goes on and on.

Eventually though, running becomes tiring. It may have taken me several minutes chasing Gracie before I finally caught up to her, after she was tired of running. We can't run from God for forever. At some point, whether it's because we've hit rock bottom, or we're just plain exhausted, God gets a hold of us. Once I had caught Gracie, she settled into my arms with her heart racing, but was motionless as if she'd accepted her place. God is home for us, and once we've felt His love again, we are swept up in it and we never want to escape again. 

It's easy to lose sight of our faith, but we have the comfort in knowing that God is always right behind us. No matter how hard we may fight, God is right there to pick us back up once we hit a wall. It can be scary at first, but there is nothing better than accepting God's love. It's better than any possible reason that tempts us to run. So quit running, just take a breather and let God do all the work.

Waking Each Morning

Gracie always seems to be full of energy. As soon as she's awake, she's ready to take on the world by bouncing, running, and biting just about anything that crosses her path--including me. Sometimes she's completely obnoxious and I feel like I'm fighting off a wild animal. Other times she makes me laugh and I'm able to temporarily forget about whatever problems I have swirling around in my mind, which is a constant problem with me. I'll let you in on a secret of mine. My biggest flaw is that I am an over thinker. I know I'm not alone in the world when it comes to this, but sometimes I truly feel that way. It can be extremely debilitating to have your mind constantly racing with thoughts that only bring negativity into your life. I can name tons of incidents where I caused problems in my life because I had self-created them by thinking too much over it. It is truly my biggest sin. I am a worrier, to the extreme.

Now back to Gracie. Gracie doesn't have much to worry about other than the fact that she doesn't know how to walk down stairs yet. When I let her outside, she is perfectly fine with running around and chasing leaves. I smile as I watch her roll around, capturing leaves in her mouth and carrying them around the yard like trophies. The reason I find myself smiling is not because she's silly, but because she's honestly experiencing life the way I should be, with joy.

God did not give us life so that we would suffer. Jesus Christ suffered for us so that we could one day be with God in heaven. That should make us happy enough that nothing in this entire world can bring us down. It's really easy to say that, believe me, I know. I am going through my own struggle right now, and letting go of it and just accepting happiness is one of the hardest struggles I have ever gone through. However, despite that, I feel like I'm in the right place for God to do work within me.

Every morning when we wake up, we should first thank God for it, no matter what we know we may have to face. Often times, I find myself dreading things in my life, knowing I'll have to continue to face my issue each day. This isn't the way God meant for us to live, otherwise what would have been the point? Life is a part of God's creation, and it is a blessing for us to experience it. Every morning, we are able to walk outside and look up into the sky. Have you ever considered just how incredible the world is around you? Nature literally lives along with you. It breathes alongside you, it is the literal representation of God.

Like Gracie, who can run around and deeply enjoy the divine spirit all around her, we should do the same. I don't mean you need to snatch leaves up in your mouth and prance around like a baby dear, but you can simply take it all in. Just breathe and let the world breathe with you.

God is all around us all of the time. We should take on each day with the same kind of spirit as Gracie. No matter how upset she gets about going down stairs, she still gives me that look and runs about excitedly. We can't let our temporary problems bring us down, because Christ never gave up. We shouldn't either.

She Cried Right Beside Me

The other day, I received some really hard words to swallow. I can't explain the amount of pain I felt as I walked into my house and sank to the kitchen floor and cried bitterly. At the time, I didn't hear my yellow lab, Gracie, running to meet me. I was too hurt to hear her as she cried beside me, trying to get me to accept her. Often times, that's how we are with God. We become so blinded by our hurt, fear, anger, and arrogance to hear the cries of God. God always hears and answers our cries, but rarely do we do the same.

For a long time now, I have felt the heavy weight of God on my heart. I had my life focused on all the wrong things, and I think back on it now and understand why things have gone the way they have. All things happen for a reason, and that is because God is always trying to pull us back to Him. I strayed from Him, allowing myself to love people more than I loved God. When my heart was broken and I had failed myself, I found myself looking face to face with God, and He was telling me, "I will never fail you, even when those you love do." That's the truth that I had been running from, and now I laugh because I was ridiculous for ever trying to. The things that seem so important to us in this life are nothing compared to the God who is always beside us.

The day that I fell to my knees and cried on the kitchen floor, Gracie was trying to tell me the same thing. She clawed at my arm and cried desperately, wanting me to know she was there. She would never fail me, even when the people I was living my life for did. God never abandons us, even when we ignore Him. He persistently calls to us until we are ready to answer. I have realized that my weaknesses only make me strong. Christ died weak and broken on the cross, but through God's strength we were saved. The pains I have felt throughout my life are not something for me to feel sorry about. They have made me strong and will only continue to make me strong. We should boast in our weakness, just as it is stated in 2 Corinthians. We are strong in God. We will make it, we just have to listen to the words of God and accept him, just like I finally did for Gracie when I picked myself up off the floor and held her close to me.

Don't settle in your weakness. Pick yourself up, because that weakness will bring you strength through God. Listen and accept God, because He is always calling out to you to give your life to Him.

Dirty Puppies and a Dirty Heart

I have a nine week old blonde Labrador Retriever. Her name is Ally Grace, but I call her Gracie. We found each other at my aunt's trailer in the middle of the rolling country hills of Alabama. Everything smelled like chickens and my aunt had adopted a duck, for reasons I couldn't begin to explain. I walked over to the dirty box that her new puppies were in, and all of the sudden, this blonde fluffy head popped up out of the dusty darkness. Her nose was pink and brown, and coated in mud. I felt my heart catch when her big brown eyes met mine. I immediately gave up on the brown lab that I had thought I just had to have, and I picked up my new best friend and held her dirty chubby body against my blue shirt. She snorted like a pig, and I knew I had to have her.

Gracie is a handful, just like my life. She cries a lot at night still, and she's going through the phase where she has to literally chew my arm off every time I sit down with her. I look at her sometimes and think about how alike we are. I'm a cry baby and I love to feel like I'm wanted. I need to be played with every once in a while, and sometimes I'm just plain obnoxious. All in all though, I'm just a girl who has a lot of heart and tons of spunk. 

I decided to name my blonde lab Ally Grace for a few reasons. First of all, I named her Ally after the greatest dog in the world. My Ally was a mix between a Golden Retriever and a Lab. She was beautiful and sweet, and it crushed me when we had to put her to sleep due to cancer. When I saw Gracie, I immediately saw Ally, and felt like my favorite angel was back. I named her Grace because I felt in my heart like my new puppy was a gift from God. When I walked up to see my aunt's puppies, I was walking up feeling completely broken. My heart was hurting more than I could explain and my eyes were red from trying not to cry in the car. Everything escaped from me when I saw that dirty puppy, and I felt God's breath on my ear as I reached down and picked her up.

God always has His way. Sometimes it doesn't seem clear at first, but His actions guide everything that we do and everything that happens to us. Even when I felt completely destroyed, God reached down and gave me a gift. Gracie will always love me, no matter how obnoxious I am, or how broken I may feel sometimes. Labs are a little like God's love, when you start to think about it. Just like my dirty puppy who I brought home and washed, God has begun washing away the filth of my heart. All the fears and the burdens that I have carried are now disappearing in the light of His Grace, and for that I will be glad.

Until next time, smile and be glad, because just like dirty puppies, God can wash our dirty hearts of the past.