Getting Married - The Feelings of a Domestic Violence Survivor

I sit here, racing through my mind are all of the things I have to do before Saturday when I get married...

I'm excited to get married to my fiance, along with that though are so many thoughts about finally getting to the day when I can shed of yet more of my abused past...I finally get to get rid of the last name of my past abuser that has reminded me often of that time!  I will no longer be that victim, that wife, that ex-wife...I will no longer be connected through name with my abuser!

This in itself is not understandable fully to those that have not been through Domestic Violence...yet I know that there are many out there that have who will understand the euphoria that I feel at this time!  And the introspective thoughts and feelings that I'm feeling at this time as well...

I could have changed my name at any time to my maiden name...yet that again is someone of the past that I did not want to take on again.  It feels like chapters of my life finally being closed!

Purple is the main color of our wedding...not only is it my favorite color but it also is there in honor of the color of Domestic Violence Awareness.   Butterflies and crosses are our theme...symbolizing not only the resurrection of Jesus,  but also the resurrection that He has brought to us through His selfless gift of His life and death and resurrection.

The butterfly...the cocoon...the metamorphosis into the butterfly each one of us can be!  There's been times that I feel I've become that butterfly, yet there's been many times I feel that I'm still in that cocoon, transforming, being molded into the butterfly that has yet to emerge.  Getting married, that, I feel, is yet another transformation within that cocoon and I can't wait to emerge soon into that butterfly!  Ooohhh, so much that I would love to accomplish!

I can't wait until Saturday...I have decided to make all of our items for the tables and for our friends and family that will come to support us.  While making these items, I have plans on using them again after the wedding towards DV Awareness.  DV Awareness, I feel, doesn't have to be all about the pain and the suffering that many of us go through while being abused, but also about the fact that it can be overcome!!!  The cycle can be stopped!!!  Us "Survivors" can have happiness again!!!

I plan on giving a speech at our reception...please pray that I can get through it!  I HATE talking in public! LOL  I want to share with them these feelings and more...I want them to understand why this day is not only important for me as a "Survivor", but also for my fiance as a past addict!  Oh the road we have traveled to get to this day!  Talk about Amazing Grace!!!  It is only by the Grace of God that we are making it to this day!

Sisters, don't give up!!!  If any of you are sitting there reading this and you have not come to a place of living again, know that you too can make it!  If I can, anyone can!!!  We aren't supposed to live with inglings of the past, and through time, as if in a cocoon being transformed, you too will have parts of your life better left behind shed from you!

For those of you that are Advocates or supporting someone that is going through or has been through Domestic Violence, Support is soooo important!  None of us have all the answers...None of us can take that mantel from the victim to transform them into the butterfly we all know they can be...Yet all of us can Support those going through their transformation to become that butterfly they are yet to be!  It can take years...it can be nerve racking...believe me, I've met other "Survivors" and one thing we all hold on to dearly is independence.  This sometimes hurts us more than helps us, yet, every one of us truly appreciate the Support of a patient friend who doesn't give up to us and loves us no matter what mistakes we may make.

I just wanted to share some of these feelings with you...and pray that it reaches someone that needs to read this.  I know I'm not the first to remarry after abuse, and I have to wonder how they felt through this time?  Did they tear up when they think/feel the euphoria of the transformation?  If you have gone through this time please, share your feelings!  It is soooo important that we share our triumphs and not always the bad!

God Bless & Keep You Safe!  Thank You for supporting me through the years...you also play a part in my Transformation!

~Angel Hugz~
Tracy

Beauty for Ashes...Freedom from Shame

At church today, we had a wonderful guest speaker, Ruth Puleo, who gave such a wonderful message that I have to share it with you today.  After the service, I asked Ruth Puleo if she would talk with DV Survivors if I could get a group together, and of course she said she would.

Her message was a message of freedom from the shame of abuse, from sin, from everything that the devil has fed to you to keep you down.  That God has soooo much more in store from each and every one of us, and that too often we are kept from what God has in plans for us because we are kept back because of shame that we feel.

She shared a story of a family with 14 children who's father/husband was a violent drunk.  He would drink and beat his wife and children, and run after them with a hatchet telling them that he was going to kill them.  The wife called her Minister, Ruth Puleo's father, to come because she believed he was going to kill her and her children that night in a drunken rage.  The Minister went, and prayed over the man and rebuked his wicked ways, and the man would hear none of it.  He stated that he didn't have to stay and listen to any of this, and he walked out of the house in a huff.

He walked down the walkway out the front door with the Pastor and wife watching him, and he stopped dead at the end of the walkway and stopped, and turned, ashen, and walked back towards the house fully sober.  He asked them who had put the man in the white suite and the sword at there in the driveway?

After this, he turned his life to God and became a board member at his church and did many good things in the name of the Lord and abused no more.  He had been Scared Saved!!!

How many of us have, or have had, abusers that need this awakening??  

Without knowing, Ruth Puleo confirmed what we were taught in Sunday School today.  We are going through John Bevere's "Good or God", and he was sharing how we don't have as much as God wants us to have because we don't ask...that He has so much in store for us, so much planned for us, yet we don't reach our God given potential because we listen to the world, not Him!

God takes what we can't do...

Luke 13:10 - 13

10And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.

11And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.

12And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

13And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

This, if Jesus can do this for the woman that was inflicted with an infirmity, what will He do for you if you'd only reach out to Him?

Ruth Puleo also shared Acts 14:8-11

8In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked.
9He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be heal

10and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. 11When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" What this brought to my mind is that we have Jesus inside of us...we are charged to not only go out and spread the Good News, but also heal!!! Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. (Luke 9:1-2) The Lord Jesus Christ has given you All authority and power on this earth in His name!  John 14:13 states, "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."  Many Christians are waiting endlessly for the Lord Jesus Christ to move on their behalf.  He already did two thousand years ago on the Cross, when He paid the price in full with His precious blood for you.  He gave you all His power and authority to be released on this earth in His name.  And if that is not enough He gave you access to the Father God Almighty's power through the name of Jesus! And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:23-24)

This means that those of us that have gone through Domestic Violence, and have received true and total healing from God, need to share it and heal others that haven't received it yet!!  OMG, the healing that comes from Him is so awesome and frees you so that you can do His work that He has set you to do, whatever that is!

Ruth Puleo's message was the facts that Jesus saved us from the shame of failure in the Garden of Gethsemane...the shame of abuse with the Crown of Thorns He wore for us...the infirmity and weakness in us with the Whipping Post he endured...and the shame of sin when He hung on the Cross...

We ARE FREED!!!!  The shame doesn't belong to us that have been abused!!  Let the abuser carry that until they themselves are healed, it IS NOT OURS TO BEAR!!!  Jesus bore it already for us!

We are kept from what we can become, what God has planned for us, because we listen to that shame that has been wrongfully put on us!  We CANNOT live in shame of our abuse!  LET IT GO!!  Instead, use what we have gone through for the Good of God, and help those that are coming out heal as well!  Guide them!  Show them!  So many don't know that they can be totally transformed through the healing of Jesus Christ...transformed from that caterpillar in the cocoon into that butterfly!  Let's show them!!!

~Angel Hugz~
Tracy

When You Think You Can't Handle It

"When you think you can't handle it, God's already got a plan for it!"

I heard this on K-Love this morning, and I didn't want to forget it and I didn't want to keep it to myself, so I'm sharing it with you!  Maybe someone else needs to hear it this am, I know I did!

I hope ya'll have a Blessed Day!!

God Bless!
Tracy

I Sit Here in Awe of Our God....

I sit here, feeling, praying, in total awe and wonder of all that God does

Just the feeling of complete peace that He has brought to my life...through all the trials and tribulations...both past and present...NOTHING is too big for God!  There is NOTHING he can't handle!

Isaiah 40:31

"but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

So often I feel so tired...tired of dealing with the world...tired of feeling ill...tired of just being tired!  I fight against it...fight to do what I feel is wanted/needed of me...and I've found that it is not even my fight!  He has already fought all of this for me, for us!

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest in me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Lately I've really been feeling the Glory of God stronger and stronger, and feeling that I'm finally seeing more of what God has in store for me...for my family...for what He wants of us and how he wants us to live.  The peace of this is unbelievable!  He is guiding me, guiding us, and bringing so many things into our lives for this, His Purpose!

I can't do this in my own strength!  More and more I'm seeing that all I need to do is sit back and watch His wonders working in my life and enjoy the ride!

From being a Victim of Domestic Violence, to being a healed Overcomer of Domestic Violence is nothing short of a Miracle brought about by our Lord!  There is no way to be fully healed without Him in your life!  He is the Redeemer!  He is the Healer!  He is the one that will deliver us from all of our trials and tribulations!

You are NOT what you have been through!!!  You are NOT a label!  YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD!!!  There is NOTHING that comes BEFORE or AFTER this!!!  HE IS THE BEGINNING AND THE END, not only of the earth, but of us as well!  For He is in every one of us!!!!  We ARE HIS!!!  And He holds us within His hands....God's Got This!!!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

This is not something that I even understood fully a year ago...a few months ago...it is something that I learn and grow with Him every day!

My prayer for everyone out there is that they feel the Healing Love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that they receive the Peace in their lives and the healing touch that only He can provide...

~Angel Hugz~
Tracy

Meaningful Message from For King & Country…

Last night my family and I went to the Delaware State Fair and had the privilege to go to the concert of For King & Country and Casting Crowns with some wonderful friends from church along with our Pastor and his family.

For those of you that have seen either of these groups in concert I don’t have to tell you that they are AWESOME!!!  For those that haven’t, you have got to go and see them!  They are worth your time and definitely worth the ticket price, and great for your family and group to attend!  The groups give you such an uplifting it’s incredible!

To give them praise, although they truly deserve it, isn’t why I wanted to write tonight.  I wanted to share something that Joel from For King and Country said that truly touched me and really has much to do with what Le Chrysalis is all about.

I wish I could quote word for word, and if anyone has a video of him speaking these words please please please share!!!!  I’ll do my best to share from my poor excuse of what I call my memory…

When Getting Into Any Form of Relationship… 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 First!

I started this about oh…two weeks ago?  Sigh…unfortunately life got in the way and this was thought of of course when I couldn’t finish it…so finally have the chance to do so!!  I still feel this is worth sharing and worth telling, and feel that maybe the wait was needed because now I have more to share then I would have the night I was writing this…

Riding home from a school concert tonight K-Love caught my attention with something they were talking about…Kelly was talking about how we too quickly let people into our hearts, mostly those of us who happen to be single and looking for someone to fill that void.

How even when we aren’t looking for a boyfriend, but when talking about friends, how we too quickly let people into our inner circles, into our hearts.

How true this is!!! 

Kelly then shared a conversation between a Mother and a daughter that was applicable to this, and really brought this issue into perspective…I want to share this here because this really is something we could all use in our lives!:

 

1 Corinthians 13:4-6

Do you feel an Abuser can Truly be a Christian?

Let’s be real here, we have Christians that are abusers within our churches and within our communities. This is nothing new, yet it seems that it’s yet another topic that so many don’t want to talk about. We have abusive Fathers, Mothers, Husbands, and Wives wearing the “Mask of Christianity”. We have ministers that are abusing and even killing their wives. We have Pastors who abuse their wives and children; we have Priests that molest young boys…

This isn’t anything new! This is a societal issue; we have abusers in all facets of society! There are abusers who are doctors, lawyers, political officials, police officers, judges, clerks, waiters, waitresses, trash truck drivers…so why is it such a surprise we have them as Christians as well? 1 in 4 (this is what the common statistic states as of today, although I truly believe it’s more like 1 in 3) women are affected by abuse, and this doesn’t even touch the men that are abused (1 in 7) as well! How many people sit in your church every Sunday? How many do you see shopping at Walmart, in the mall, or on the roads daily? How many are abuse victims? More importantly, how many are abusers?

Colossians 3:19

19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.