I want to thank all of you who have written, commented on, or read this blog. I started it as an outlet for anyone to express the things they were struggling with in a safe and supportive atmosphere. I have “met” many of you through this blog and it is wonderful! I also know that some have said how this site has helped. That is awesome!!
The last post was in December. I have been working as part of the leadership of a new church and will soon be moving from western NY to the Cincinnati area to help start the church. Over the past 10 months, we’ve been working on systems, developing programs, working on budget stuff, etc and I’ve been traveling, learning, studying and doing all I can!! What’s awesome is as I move into full time ministry, I get to spend the rest of my life helping people who are where I once was get to where I am now! No more shame, no embarrassment, and no more hiding anything.
Today I can stand free from all the coping skills that I had learned, free from suicidal thoughts, free from struggling to make it through each and every day, all while acting like I had it all together. Instead, I can be honest, open, and transparent, willing to talk about it all and reach out to anyone who is going through anything I’ve been through.
I’ve been through tons of abuse, both growing up and in my marriage, rejection, depression, anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks and you name it. My coping skills included alcohol, drugs (illegal when younger, prescription as older), self-injury, eating disorders, suicidal “stuff”, and probably a handful more! Today I am healed. Today I no longer have to rely on my own strength. Today I want others to experience what I am now living. It’s awesome!
So I thank you for participating on this blog. I invite you, if you haven’t already, check out and join in at my blog at rindywalton.com. Jump in and comment and you can make it easy by subscribing by email to follow the journey. See ya over there!!
I am an abuse survivor. At church, we have been doing a series on prayer and specifically, the Lord’s prayer. Tonight was on the verse about “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” My pastor said that the “AS” means that we are forgiven AS we forgive others. He talked about forgiving seven times seventy and that our sins are as “far as the east is from the west”. He said that we needed to forgive others – everyone – whether they have physically, emotionally or otherwise wronged us. And that forgiveness meant wiping it clean and forgetting about it – put it as far away as the east is from the west — that it doesn’t exist any longer – to “forgive and forget.” The pastor said that our sins are forgiven AS we forgive others that have wronged us. He said that God hears the prayers of the righteous and that we should not (can not?) pray until we have forgiven others – that God will not hear us until we are cleansed of unforgiveness.
Is that right? Is our forgiveness conditional? Our ability to have our prayers heard conditional?
I need help on this one. Is “forgive and forget” mandated? Where is that in the Bible?
I am a Christian 48 yr old woman who struggles with self loathing, and negative self talk. I am currently on anti-depressants. This morning my husband and I were talking about why I feel the way I do. I am a perfectionist, and this type of thinking carries over into every area of life and I am tired of it!
We have 4 older children, and to this day, when I see them struggling, I feel responsible. I think to myself, I have failed as their mom, they wouldn’t be having this or that problem if I’d done a better job as their parent.
My prayer has been “teach me your way O Lord, help me to walk in Truth”. I would like to ask for prayer, that God would help me to understandhow God’s Grace applies to my life….. that he would expose the “stink’n think’n” in my mind, because 99% of the time, it’s automatic, it’s subconscious, and I suspect I am not the only one who wrestles with this. I teach a class at a local women’s shelter, and when I shared the other day I am on medicine for my depression, two of the new women present said they were too.
If you were to meet me in person, you would never suspect I battle with these things. Anyone have any insight? Thanks for listening
I love music. So many times the lyrics put thoughts into the right words and emotions. “Beautiful disaster” is such a contradictory description, yet when you think about it, it fits so many people. Check it out (just click on it, then on the message and it will start):
I have a secret that doesn’t sound like a big deal but I hate it!! When I get upset or really frustrated, I have a “mouth like a trucker”. I swear too much. I don’t do it in regular conversations but when something happens, words just come out. I feel terrible because it is usually directed toward the ones I love the most, especially my kids. I always apologize and tell them I really don’t mean to use those words, but I know it still hurts them. I hate it! I absolutely do not mean what I say. Now my teenager has started doing it to me. I know he really doesn’t mean it, but it hurts.
I am a good mom. I love my kids and I do everything with my kids. They are the most important people to me and I would lay down my life for them. They know that I would. We have great talks, we love being together, and we thoroughly enjoy each other. So why do I have to curse? The words blurt out before I can stop them. What can I do? Am I the only mother who does this? Any ideas how I can stop?
I never used to be angry. At least, I never used to know that I was angry. Growing up, I never felt that I had the right to be angry at anyone, or about anything, and so I became very good at stuffing my anger and hiding it from everyone. I got so good at it that I think I actually hid my anger from myself. In situations where I normally should have been upset with others, I manipulated the situation around in my head so that I’d end up angry with myself instead of someone else. Everything was always my fault, I believed, and so I had no right to be angry with anyone other than myself.
I don’t yell. I can’t. I rarely raise my voice. In the past, I actually prided myself on my ability to hold things in and remain in control. People would comment on how calm and collected I always seemed, and I felt good when I heard things like that. But comments like that also reinforced my belief that it was wrong for me to be angry…
This all changed a few months ago, when I started seeing a new therapist who was determined to make me feel things. She wanted me to get angry, and had me go about doing so in a really unusual way. We went shopping together, and bought a piñata. It was supposed to represent my anger, and we stuffed it with popsicle sticks labeled with all the things I would gain once I let go of the anger stuck inside of me; freedom, happiness, growth, etc. The idea was that I would take a baseball bat to the piñata, smashing the living daylights out of it while naming all the things that had made me angry over the last 9 years.
I couldn’t do it. I was terrified; I was the girl who couldn’t yell, so how on earth could I tear into a piñata like that and rant about the things I was angry over? What I could do, however, was sit on the floor with the piñata in my lap and slowly rip it into tiny little pieces with my hands, all the while whispering all the things I was angry about. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I sat there and cried and choked out my hurts and ripped up that piñata until the whole thing was nothing but shreds of papier mache in my lap. And since that afternoon, I’ve known that I am angry.
I’ve known that I am angry, but not known what to do with it. I still don’t feel comfortable showing it to others, and I don’t know how to feel my anger in ways that are appropriate. For the last few months, I’ve felt like I am angry all the time. The emotion that I’ve not felt for so long is now one that I feel almost constantly, and I don’t like that. In my life, I’ve known plenty of angry people, and have always promised myself that I’d never end up as one. I don’t like being angry; I don’t like the way I feel about myself and about others. I don’t like feeling ugly and black and hateful.
Lately I’ve been thinking that it was almost better to lie to myself like I had for so long, telling myself that I wasn’t really angry, than it is to feel this ugly inside. But I know that’s not true. My anger is there for a reason, and needs to be dealt with appropriately. It needs to be dealt with appropriately or I will end up as one of those angry people whom I so dread turning into. The problem is that I’m at a loss for what to do. I’m afraid of my anger. I’m afraid of my emotions. So if anyone’s got any advice, it would be greatly appreciated…
