Victim or Victor

I woke up this morning to a crisp fall morning.

I love fall.

It is a season that has always given me joy and hope. I think somehow I may be a little twisted in the reason why. Fall brings change to the air, a chill that says all things are about to change and be remade. The process of the leaves changing, the flowers going into their slumber before winter, the animals eating their fill before they go into their deep sleeps, it all tells me that though there is what seems like dark days ahead, it won’t last. Spring will come, all things will be made new and will once again grow and be strong and vibrant. In order for this all to happen there has to be a season that allows things to slowly let go of the previous seasons. It reminds me of all the seasons in my life that have seemed impossible to come back from and somehow by the grace of God I have not only come back from them but I have come back stronger and more determined. I look back at my youth and the life that I was given to live and see why now I was given children that have been hurt and are harder than other kids. In my life now I have little ones that I have to ask “are you going to remain the victim or will you rise up and become the victor?” The choice after all is theirs to make. I can do everything in my power to offer a place of healing and a safe place to grow strong and confident but at the end of the day it is up to them to make the choice to heal and grow. Just like it was my choice to let go and grow.

I grew up in a home that had a loving mother, her children were her life. She gave every ounce of energy to the five of us, and if that wasn’t enough, she gave any extra that she could muster up to the friends we would bring home that needed a little extra love. She worked two to three jobs at a time to give us what we needed. Her days started with the sun and ended with the moon. She loved even through her exhaustion and pained body. There wasn’t a night that she went to bed before all of us, and only after she listened to our days, our joys and hurts, and our needs. She did this with some help from my step father, but most of the time she was a single mom working her tail off. My step father was a Vietnam veteran. By the time he was 18 and dropping out of a plane he became one of the youngest soldiers in command, all those above him were killed on the way down. That and many other things he went through there caused him to come back a broken man. He was diagnosed with paranoia schizophrenia after nearly seven years of marriage to my mom. Before that she had no idea the extent of his trauma or why he would switch from a man who loved her children and wanted to give them all their needs to a man that put them in danger and made threats on their lives. It was years of back and forth, leaving him then going back.  Then he was finally sent into an institute and diagnosed. There are stories I could tell but I don’t have permission from the rest of my family, so I will leave it at I know trauma and I know that you have to make the choice to come out of that world with a continued victim mentality or with the mindset that you will overcome and stop the cycle for the next generation. I am thankful that I had a mom who taught me that I was loved and that I was worth loving. Without her being who she was we may all have turned out completely different. Because of her strength I have a sister that is a caring surgical nurse and a mother that loves her children just as fiercely as our mother.  A big brother that showed me how real men treat their families and became a principal, Chaplain, coach, worship minister, and father that loves unconditionally. A brother that waited as long as he needed to find the love of his life and has given her and her son a home that has no “step” about it, he loves as fiercely as our mother and is a childrens author. A brother that works his hardest as a single dad to provide for his three kids that he fought to have sole custody of two and shares the love of his son with his mom and has made the choice to lay his own life down to insure his kids know they are his world much like the mother that raised him. My mom has given her sweat, blood, prayers, and tears to unsure that her children would grow out of the seasons of cold dark days into the strong vibrant alive victors  we are today.

It is mornings like these that I think back to the love in my mothers eyes as she kept them open to hear my latest drama, the way she held me when I was sobbing over the latest hurt in my life, the way she would rub our feet after using her hands all day because we were sick and needed a mothers touch. In these mornings I look to the sky and ask my heavenly father to give me the strength my mother had when looking into the next season of dark days. I search my heart for the love she grew, the wisdom she offered, and the heart she had of a victor that came out of her own trauma filled life. I take deep breaths and think of each of my little ones and hurt just a little that they are not all ready to be loved as fiercely and deeply as I was and I long for the day that I can dance with my daughters in the rain as my own mother did. I look forward to the late night talks with my sons, and the joy of getting to watch them all become strong independent victors. Yes, my children now see themselves as victims, as does the world around them, but with the help of the lessons from my mother they will rise up and become victors and so I write………..