Come, Holy Spirit

From one of my go-to resources each day, Catholicmom.com, comes this...

"Are you wondering what your vocation is? It’s not the safe and predictable work you imagine you will do for the rest of your life. It is the work you will do at that frontier edge of your life, at that place where you have not yet gone but where the Holy Spirit is waiting to engage you."

Come, Holy Spirit...please.  I know I often voice, think, act, and protest as if I abhor being told what to do, but just for a limited window, and it pains me so to even say this, someone tell me, direct me, order me to do whatever it is I'm supposed to do.  At the very least, please point me in the right direction and shove me.

Read more here...Vocation: More powerful than a solar flare

Just keep writing, just keep writing...

Sometimes when I have no answers, but plenty of questions, writing is a tool for me to flush some out that I didn't know where there.  Sometimes, the writing becomes just words that I throw up on a page, but that too can be cleansing just to get them out of my head and then I can look at them and rearrange and try to make them make sense.  The current struggle (redundant I know, oxymoron?) is my past and its intrusiveness on my life now.  Perhaps just another symptom of the abortion, of the shame and secretiveness, the shoving down into the very depths of one's being all the lies and thoughts and self-hatred that goes along with having had an abortion.  With all that I've learned over the past couple of years, I'm finding that no matter the way a woman comes to have an abortion, whether coerced, forced, chosen, the result is some kind of self-hatred which shows itself in a myriad of most disgusting, hurtful and utterly painful ways for the rest of the woman's life.

For me, it seems to be, ghosts of all of the time before my abortion and afterward.  You would think an abortion would be enough to scare a girl into never having sex again.  Nope.  I don't think that happens unless she has a support system in place that guides her afterwards and this I did not have.  Because my Mom and I decided that ignoring the situation all together and pretending like it never happened (like a good Irish family deals with most things emotional or scandalous), I basically went right back to how I got pregnant in the first place, and probably in a worse way.  Where before the abortion sex was this new, novel thing, and I was proud of it and what I could get for it and how I could wield it like a weapon, sex after the abortion became a punishment, an ugly, dreadful thing, but I didn't know what else to do.  I didn't know how to get a boy to like me any other way.  I didn't even think I was likable, let alone datable.  Some of my, "this one time, at band camp..." stories could have been the basis for a year's worth of after school specials on how not to treat a girl.  But, this was also the 80's and sex was no big deal, everyone was doing it.  The problem was no one was doing it right.

I've been with my husband for almost 18 years now and you would think that would be enough time for those bad memories to fade off into the distance somewhere just so I could have them there to call on to give informative warnings to my own girls and maybe other young women and young men on what sex at that age can and will do to you.  My memories lay dormant for so long but now with the opening up of myself to the healing and mercy of God for my abortion, I'm afraid I've opened myself up to all kinds of other things I need healing for.  I used to look at my past like no big deal, would brag about it to my girlfriends, wear it as a badge of honor in some circles, when truthfully it makes me sick to my stomach.

If there is one thing I would tell every young woman out there who is thinking about having sex - don't.  Wait.  Wait forever if you have to.  You are worth so much more than just sex.  I think that every time a person has sex before marriage, a part of you must break off and you never get it back.  How I wish I could have been whole when I met my husband.  Not that he has ever judged me for my past and wouldn't ever, but how I wish he didn't even have to ever think about it even for a nanosecond.  So maybe it's part of the guilt.  Now that I've found a way to live with my abortion and find some peace with Grace, there are still parts of me that tear at me trying to tear open any scabbed over scar that I'm trying so desperately to heal.

These memories of my past have become intrusive and resilient and badger my heart and mind.  I can't close my eyes sometimes for fear of what I may see.  I lay awake in bed one night for a solid hour or more afraid to open in my eyes because I was convinced something was right in front of my face.  I know, send the padded wagon now.

My sleep is interrupted by nightmares, vivid, in color, blood and carnage nightmares.  The sound of metal clanging makes me shudder.  I recently had to have a minor procedure in a doctor's office, the sound of the tray, the light overhead...  The nurse was a black gentlemen, nice and compassionate as can be, but the doctor who performed my abortion was also a black gentlemen.  I was almost gasping for air during most of my recent appointments.  In a nightmare a few nights ago I was somehow found out and thrown in a dungeon like place with some Freddy-krugerish looking character, sans the red and green striped sweater, he was in a cassock or robe of some sort and was taunting me and off in the distance I could hear metal being sharpened and prepared, then the lights went out and I woke up shuddering and sweating.  The list seems endless currently as to what takes me back there.  A song on the radio.  A certain smell.

When before it would be a fleeting memory that I could will away or my husband could make disappear - now they are stubborn and remain and persist and they all tell me the same thing.  I am nothing.  I am a slut and a whore. I am worth nothing. I killed my baby.

For as horrible as all of this sounds, hope remains.  I force myself to reach out for help.  I write and write and write and pray whatever meager words I can eek out.  I am something.  I am worth something.  I am married and this is not the sex from then.  Nothing is definitively lost.

I'm sensing a pattern...

I'm starting to see that I get all stirred up from time to time and it seems random at times and at other times I should have seen it coming.  With the end of the school year, a change in my work schedule, the change in the day to day schedule, some new opportunities on the horizon, pending visits back home, and all the rest... I find myself with much unrest.  I'm usually okay with change and adapt pretty well.  I think it's the things that aren't changing that I want to change so badly that are bothering me right now.  I woke up several times last night chasing away the nightmares and then spending time trying to figure out where they came from.  So, I went looking for a little inspiration this morning and found it in my own back yard.

Dear Lord,
Help, please.
Thank you.

Don't you love it when that happens?

Depends on what you're talking about.  There are lots of things that happen that I love a lot, and lots that I don't love at all.  As I spend more time on this journey though, I've become more and more aware, sometimes painfully, of who is really in charge, and of who wants to be in charge.  It's been a battle for sure.  I know after I publish this post, my hubby will say, "you didn't tell me that happened!"  And he'll be right, because usually it takes me a while to process through things in my own head before I can share in whatever way. 

Mother's Day, as I've written was difficult and blessed at the same time.  I think I'm beginning to realize even more, and this probably comes from me talking a lot to someone close to me about their need to return to The Church, that I am so in love with everything about being Catholic.  I love all of it.  So because of that love, I don't feel half as crazy as I would if I wasn't fully aware of what our God is truly capable of.  If He can forgive me of my sin of abortion, He can do anything.  Who am I to say something isn't possible because I can't prove it or see it or hold it in my hand?

So, let's get to the crazy part.  Whenever I am really struggling with things, and this is more of a chicken or the egg argument - I start to wage real warfare in my head which then starts to manifest itself physically in some ways whether it be fatigue, anxiety, depression, anger, fear, etc.  I'm getting better at recognizing this and stopping it with a quick prayer, a silent cry for help, an imaginary stop sign in my head.  More and more recently though, there have been positive outside influences that make themselves known - like last weekend at Mass when I heard that little voice.  I spent a good part of the week dismissing it, and then I'm reminded that this is not the first time that kind of thing has seemed to happen to me.  I'm not claiming to the be the "Long Island Medium," or some spirit conjurer.  I'm too chicken for any of that.  But, who I am to dismiss what He might be trying to get through my thick skull in a way that He knows will work?  So, as I accept it for what I believe it truly was, it settles into my soul and gives me strength. 

My Dad loves to tell the story about the time he saw two angels in a graveyard.  Clear as day they were and he will swear to it on his life that they were real.  And as he has sometimes walked away from the Church - always to return - he never, ever, lost faith in those two angels that he saw. 

Everyone has a story to tell that's similar, of something supernatural that they can't explain.  And I suppose I'm no different and perhaps my stories are just the same as everyone elses'.  I do have some doozies that will make the hair on your neck stand up or make you laugh out loud at me.  But I don't care.  I will take them for what they are and hold on to them and allow them to do whatever good they are supposed to do. 

So I can't help to think that last evening, another reassurance came to me and truly settled my soul at a moment where my mind started just to wander a bit to the would have, could have, should have, if only... thinking.  I was waiting for a concert to start where both of my children were participating.  As I saw them up on the stage and was filled with pride at their confidence, brains, and beauty... my mind started to go down the familiar path... there should have been three.  At that very moment, I felt a touch on my shoulder.  And it was a substantial tap, almost a slight squeeze, enough to make me turn my head to see who was trying to get my attention - there was no one.

Don't you love it when that happens? 

In a matter of a few more seconds, I turned back toward the stage and felt that it was okay, completely okay... for me to sit there and relish my two beautiful girls here on earth.   I had permission to enjoy the concert without a negative thought to be found in my head at all.

So, I don't know who it was that touched me, real or imaginary.  Grace?  My guardian angel?  A child in the audience playing a prank?  I don't know.  I don't care.  I got the message loud and clear. 

It's okay.

"But if these beings guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers." ~Saint Ambrose

The Grace to Forgive...

Well, halfway through Mother's Day and I'm still here.  I keep wavering back and forth between fully engaged and fully detached without the ability to find a comfy in-between.  I don't have a lot of clear thoughts or words for today, I'm sure they will come later. But, a few things I think I've come to know for sure over the last day or two.

I think I may need some help that I don't like asking for.  I think maybe a lot of what I've been feeling the last few months may be either half or even more than half of some kind of hormonal or chemical disconnect or whirlwind inside of my body and my mind.  I know for sure that the harder I try to pray, to hope, to love, to not stifle my own laughter, the harder someone tries to keep me from doing any or all of these things.  No one talks about the "devil" anymore and it sounds silly as I even type it here, but I have to believe that not all of what goes on with me is of myself entirely, whether good or bad.  But I seem to have only two states as of late, 90% of the time I feel nothing. I'm numb, no sadness, no joy, nothing.  The other 10% - well let's just say it's not a happy place either. 

No time to think about some of this right now or for the next few days, but my focus will be on keeping the darkness at bay until I'm able to address it full on.  The nights will be long the next few days as my hubby has some traveling to do.

At this morning's Mass - the Good Father spoke of love and love and more love and it was a lovely homily and parts of it touched my heart as I sat with one child on either side of me poking at me for attention or tugging at my skirt.  After communion, I knelt there with my eyes closed for a long time and asked for help, nothing specific, just, "help."  Another Good Father reminded me last week or so that I will not, ever, be able to free myself from any of this, or do anything at all by myself.  I need Him.  So, the last few days my prayers have been simple, just, "help."

My thoughts then went to my Mom who I had just talked to on the phone before Mass.  My mind wandered as I knelt there and I thought about how to ask for the grace to forgive her for her part in my abortion for this has been a huge impasse for me.  And then I heard a little voice say to me, "but, I forgive her Mommy, so you can too."

I never know when I hear these things if they are my own thoughts or what.  I try not to think about it too much - but rather focus on what happens inside of me when I "hear" them.  The tears started to fall and I figured, okay, that I can work with.  Like the flowers I received from my two children here on earth, that I can physically plant and tend to all season, perhaps this flower of advice I received from Grace can be planted in me and take root all the same.  If I can forgive my Mom then maybe I can go down the list and forgive all the others who hurt me over the years.

Thank you Grace, for my Mother's Day gift, I just have to figure out what to do with it.