Storms and life

I have felt like many that I have been in a massive storm all my life, from childhood, divorce it has been a fight. Last year we stepped out and committed to staying in one church, serving and doing our best. Then this year we stepped out again committing to having a small group in our home and serving in another campus. Today I was told my contract ends, I am the one bringing in the money the one who's shoulders feel very heavy laden, but in it all, I say God will fight my battle. God damn it I might be weary but come on God fight that battle for me. It's a true fact that to serve God you lay down your life. I just wanted to go back to England, I just wanted to run down those rolling hills. But in every table being turned in my life this year. I truly say God fight my battle. It's in the moments that tears our in my heart the pain and joys of life. That truly what is aksing God for money what is it all about. It is in every breath me knowing that God is going to provide.

You might as well be dead.... What a bloody lie.

There's the time you just want to be loved by your family when you're feeling overwhelmed. You pick up the phone and there is silence and then the tone they heard your voice the phone is hung up. It's another ring another slam. You sit crying what the hell went wrong It's accusations which aren't true, it's told you're not good enough, you've done this and that all lies and there simply not true. You question the past and you wonder what was the truth. The phone call of loneliness the phone call of pride. Kelly Clarkson wrote a song about how she traveled fifteen hundred miles to see her dad In 'Piece by Piece' well Kelly I beat that I traveled over three thousand miles to see a man who I just wanted to love me. I waited all my life to hear him say he loved me. I heard him lie, tear us all down, beat my brother and I was a pawn in his game money given just so my mum would see me again. Yet I forgave I sat and listened to his lies, I loved the time I saw you Dad I said with tears rolling down my eyes. Yet a year later and I was not good enough another woman and oh so many lies. I heard my brother crying down the phone, how he wasn't good enough he had not done enough for his wife who died, he just wasn't enough he felt, he had listened to all the lies. Then the phone call he had taken his life. There's the time you just sit crying on the floor, you've called everybody to get your mum home from the hospital, you've woken up early you've done it all over 3,000 miles away. Yet all you get is your not good enough. A joyful cry as your parents say we've thrown all your school books away all the photos of your once life, you're told that there, not yours and that you don't really matter. There's this aching feeling that you should have taken more when you saw your mum or what the hell did I do wrong. In reality there's nothing you could have done. Nobody knows all you've gone through is so true. A song with lyrics telling others nobody knows what someone goes through. It's a time you grief through, it's a time your alone. An Israelite in the desert searching for a home. You see your pain in a shattered mirror, you want to shake the glass and make it all straight again. It's the voices from the past and the battle in the present. It's looking in the eyes of Jesus to make it all better. It's a bloody battle I say I am not better off dead, I've fought this battle and I'll stand and bloody fight. You might not see me as Jesus does you might say I am bloody well not good enough, but in His eyes I am good enough. I might not have a mansion I might be on food stamps and little to my name, but I'll fight this bloody battle, to hell with all your words one day they too will be shattered and like my childhood memories and pain the ones where I felt I was not enough and the ones when I was an adult when you lied and just pulled me down there be like the grains of the sand cast into the ocean no more at my feet no more apart of me, no more my pain. You may tare me and my children down but all those bloody lies and all those scars we've carried God only knows His going to make it better. You might as well be dead they say....No I'll fight this bloody battle to the end...Because to the many who have said that I am not good enough I am telling you what a Bloody lie. See we count...and I'll travel my whole life fighting that battle.

Single parenting the desert, the Isralites made it so why the hell not me !!

Before I was a single parent I never thought twice about really how hard that job was. My mum got divorced when I was fifteen I was over the moon and her road was a very tough one for sure. Looking back people have made their opinions and said what could have should have been done. Over thirty-seven years have passed and I have been a single mum for over ten years. Many women are single parents even if they are not divorced they carry so much alone fighting battles without any help. Never underestimate the power of a woman. It is so true. I was a quiet child my goal to sort out my parent's issues and arguments. As a single parent, I learned that with or without a voice it was a battle. Everyone has an opinion about you yet hardly any an answer no direction just their views. It is like someone said to me like the Israelites walking in the desert you keep walking your kids to the side, you tell yourself I know one day we will get out of there, I might as well die trying. The sands hit your face you feel drained beaten and alone but God damn it you hold your kid's hands tighter and you just keep on bloody walking. Surely there is relief in sight. The world around you trudges on your storm circles you like the sands in the desert no bracing yourself for another and another but you just keep trudging on your feet slip the sand pulls you down yet you look into others eyes I can make it can't I hope they have an answer hoping God will hear you and get you home. Your the one trying to escape the firing line hearing the fog horn trying to get you home. I mean if I had for once thought of how hard been a single mum was I would have given so much more compassion to those women. It's screwdriver in one hand, books in another, bills and stress and just thinking if God can lead Moses through the desert then why not the hell me. So think twice before you judge us single mums were a fighting machine, tired weary and maybe not always prepared for battle but God only knows that Promise Land that was promised to Moses is ours and were claiming it.I'll fight to the end, getting through my Israelite experience my lost in the forest my beaten by the storm. I may feel my feet sinking but just as a child I'll keep walking remembering that God did not forget Mose and He ain't going to forget me. So I'll hold on with negativity around me holding tighter to my girls and walking on because that Promise Land it's ours and God doesn't forget his people nor me.After all were British and God we know how to fight.

Depression, life and others in the tsunami.

What can one say? I have lived from seeing many people go through depression. My brother took his life from just finding it hard to cope with life. But I never knew the effects that depression had on others until I was in a situation dealing with someone who had depression. I knew depression had affected many people in my brother's life but how it did never hit me in the face until this year. Depression does not just leave a destructive path for the person but others involved. You're not sure how to help that person, in fact, you feel overwhelmed about how to help them. Everyone around you has a theory or answer for how boundaries should be made or how you should cope with that person. It's like living next to a tsunami and at the moment things can change. It's a lonely path for the person and those trying to live through the aftermath. There's help for the person with depression but the others involved are left feeling alone helpless and wondering how to cope and what is next around the corner. As a mum, I have been left wondering what do I do God? I fill my life with trying to have answers saying sorry for the things I had done wrong, from serving more to just sitting in church stone-faced because I did not know how I could make it. I never realized that came with it all. I feel sorry to the ends of the earth that I did not understand more for my brother's kids. I feel helpless to know how to make life better for my own. You walk day by day just hoping for a break. It's a visit to the ER because your daughter is going through things herself with no answers found, it's sitting and wondering when it will all end. It's another call where you feel alone. It's a thousand voices telling you what to do and yet only one you want to hear that it's going to be alright that you can make it. It's such a lie when they say that depression just hits the person depressed it's such a lie because others around are living they are fighting on life support machines from the mess left. It's not a church, it's not a sermon that can help it's crying out to God work it out. It's hearing lies and lies over and over again and telling yourself it's just not true that it's the depression of someone else and that you're good enough to make it through. It's going to places and bills not paid and phones dying and you sit there and you just starring as your money depletes down the drain I can do this I am strong right God, it's telling yourself every single day. It's a battle it's serving time and crying out to God just take all this pain. Make me strong so that I can stand in this bloody rain. Then you get a call another blow and you sit crying to God just one moment God help me make it so I can live and laugh in the rain. You see so much pain and you wonder where has my wand gone it must be broken. There's no prescription for the one's trying to survive from the aftermath, you just take a deep breath and you walk by faith, hiding your own pain you don't have the time to deal with your own feelings you have to survive. While the world tumbles for the person in depression, those loved ones and people around that person have to fight to survive. Their goal to keep their head above the water and to make it to the other side. So many solutions yet no one hearing your pain. Yes it's true depression does not just involve that person it hits to the core others and others are left in the tsunami praying to God to keep them safe. I am not an island I am a mum who just is trying to guide us through this rain. So when you hear of someone depressed remember it does not just affect that one person it affects so many and they are left with the pieces to pick up and keep going no matter how much that rain hits they have to survive.

Andi Mack Finale and what a mother learnt from the show !

One could say that Andi Mack was different in many ways than any other kids' series. Indeed, as a mother, I viewed that what Andi Mack did was show that no matter what the situation is in life you could be true to yourself. "Was Andi Mack aimed at young people?" one could ask. Yes, it was, but as a mother in her fifties, I found myself seeing I had a lot to learn from this season and the previous ones. We all are unique and have something to give: Andi with her art, Buffy with playing sports... the list could go on: they all were special. I think as we grew old we all forget that we can still dream dreams and still accomplish amazing things. As a child, I so wanted to be a fashion designer but never did. So what stops me now? Maybe it is in seeing that as we face challenges of life and value each other, anything is possible. The show focused on so many different issues from panic attacks, parents, school to issues around us. It should empower people when they watch this show that the world around us allows us many opportunities to be unique, different and that we can overcome so many hurdles if we allow others to help. Even the gran was amazing: she was truly fun and inspiring, and I hope I am like her when I am one. It is sad though that Andi Mack was canceled. I think it gave kids a voice. I think it allowed issues to be shared and heard in a very unique way. How can we take what one series tried to teach us and make a difference? One can only say that we each have a voice, and this TV show should inspire us all to have a voice, be heard and be proud of who we are and who we can become-- no matter what our age. So on behalf of the mothers out there, Thank you, Andi Mack, for being an amazing show of sheer inspiration and allowing me to see the world of not just my children in a new way but also my own.