If you have loved and lost...

"'Tis better to have loved and lost 
than never to have loved at all." 

- Alfred Lord Tennyson




I have loved. I have continued to love. I will continue to love; no matter how much I have lost. I have taken refuge, comfort and consolation in Tennyson's famous quote: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." It reminds me that NO MATTER WHAT I have lost; I have not lost "love". I may have lost the subject, the person whom I loved, or may have lost them "for a time" but I have not lost LOVE. I do NOT REGRET LOVING no matter how painful that it had become to LOSE that one whom I loved.

Most of us have parents. Some of us even had good parents. Upright mother and father; maybe a bit quirky and not so perfect, but loving, providential and respectable. They may not have done everything right but we are thankful, like so many others, that they did not do everything wrong. I have enjoyed my parents who are both "gone" now. Today would have been my father's 90th birthday (Mom would have been 91 this coming January 18th). I miss them terribly but I don't regret anything that I did for them out of love. I regret nothing and am thankful for so much. 

I lost a child to stillbirth. That is really a loss that no one can prepare a woman to endure. That lose included the loss of my dreams. The loss of being a mother to a daughter of my own. I was going to name her Mikaela Rose (my family name as her middle name) and she was expected to be beautiful. A mixed and conflicting feeling overcame me as I learned that the child whose heartbeat had stopped just a few hours before, was a boy. A beautiful boy, I later found out after I "gave birth" to this precious child. My dreams of being a mom of another boy or girl of my own evaporated into a fog of sorrow and "loss". 

I have lost a love...one that I thought was "the one". One whom I had loved most of my life. I had lost him to mental illness. He was unable to "find himself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". Maybe, it was during this time, that I realized the value of "Singing a New Song" for so many people who did not suffer from mental illness. Unlike a person who suffers from mental illness, one who has suffered mind bending, heart wrenching and soul crushing mental illness and was beaten with verbal and emotional abuse has HOPE for healing, health and wholeness. The loss of that love reminds me of an "eternal loss" as I promised that "I would not return to him...again". I loved him deeply and I am so glad that I had some opportunity to share my love for him, with him. It was a love that mental illness stole from both of us. I don't know which is worse: having lost it or having it stolen from you. I still do not regret loving him and never will. 

Never, ever regret loving someone. Even if it is someone who did not deserve your love. You have LOVED and that is the most wonderful, the most valuable power on the face of the earth that dwells within the human heart. 

Love til it doesn't hurt

A loving person that has endured abuse and mistreatment perhaps due to what we thought was "naivete" was really because we "loved til it hurt". You will find yourself BEYOND hurt and into a place of REAL LOVE in your life; no matter who has hurt you or how badly life has treated you...
when WE LOVE, we win. 

Many of us who have suffered abuse in our lives. We have endured the horrible disrespectful speech and behavior of another person have loved until it HURT and we continued to love through the hurt because either we held a religious belief that "we had to love the unloving" or because we might have thought less of ourselves for not forgiving them for their behavior toward us. We suffered in loving them, not as much for them as we need to "love until it hurt and then some" to prove something to ourselves.  Once we realize that love is NOT intended to hurt and that we don't have to be hurt to love or be loved; then we will be just beginning our healing journey of "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again". 

Are you willing to keep loving even if it keeps hurting? We all have that choice to make. No one is making us take the abuse from another person for the "sake of love" but ourselves. I see it this way...I loved a mentally ill man...very much, but I chose, over time with the help of his abusive behavior to stop loving him and stop wanting to be with him.

Abuse doesn't deserve our understanding; it deserves our absence.

We are worth it!!! 

Are you tired of being broken?

Broken Toys
As children bring their broken toys,
With tears, for us to mend;
I brought my broken dreams to God
because he was my friend.

But then instead of leaving him in peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own.
At last, I snatched them back and cried,
"How could you be so slow?"
"My child," He said, "What could I do?
You never did let go...."
author unknown

Sometime we are NOT like the child in the story; we do not acknowledge our brokenness. Not to anyone else and not even to ourselves. We carry it around with us; like a doll with a missing arm; we feel the pain but won't admit that we need some fixing. 

And then once we do admit our brokenness to ourselves, the areas in our lives that have endured abuse, suffered wounds and even been stunted in growth and healing, we tend to try to hide it from others. We don't "let go" of our pain to trust someone else to help us through the healing process. It is painful. We have problems  trusting others because so many have proven untrustworthy in our lives and we don't want to "let anyone in" to see the mess that we live with daily. 

Sometimes, we may trust and believe that God or a doctor or family member are able and willing to help us; but then again, do we trust and "let go" of the pain so that we can be healed and made whole again. We do not have to live lives of brokenness.  We can "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again"...and this healing journey begins by ADMITTING THAT WE ARE WORTH IT...and that any brokenness that we will acknowledge CAN be healed.

Try it...admit your pain and you will find your brokenness. You are not "less of " a person but will become a whole hearted and healed person as soon as you make ONE STEP on this healing journey. 

YOU can do it. YOU are worth it!!!

Have you FOUND yourself???

What 

is 

YOUR VISION 

for your life????

Do you remember the High School Social Studies or Language Arts (in my case it was "Human Relations" with Dr. Mac) class where you had to write an essay on "What I see for myself in 5 years"??? I remember mine and I STILL HAVE IT. I just saw it the other day and was surprised to see that 35 years after my High School graduation that I am ALMOST to where I envisioned myself to be now when I was only 17!!!

I wish that I would have understood some of the wonderful tools; like personality typing and other self-evaluating tools that have scientifically allowed us to "peer inside" ourselves just by answering a few questions.

I challenge that you FIND YOURSELF today; if you do not know your Jung (Carl; that is) Personality Type, then I encourage you to TAKE A QUICK ONLINE TEST NOW...
Jung Typology Test™ 
CHALLENGE yourself to "learn more about yourself" today. I am glad that I did.

Jung Typology Test™

This free test is based on Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers’ typological approach to personality *. Upon completion of the questionnaire, you will: Obtain your 4-letter type formula according to Carl Jung’s and Isabel Briggs Myers’ typology, along with the strengths of preferences and the description of your personality type Discover careers and occupations most suitable for your personality type along with examples of educational institutions where you can get a relevant degree or training See which famous personalities share your type....and much, much more.

Change your VIEW

What 

does 

HEALING 

look 

like???

• Healing from abuse is like climbing a mountain. At times our healing journey feels like climbing and even scaling a mountainside, we are always pushing ourselves to "go higher" with little to no understanding or expectation of what it will look like when we get to the top.
• Make sure that your FOOTING is secure; this is really an important step (pardon the intentional pun)
• Pause and rest along the way; PACE YOURSELF.
• The "higher you climb, the better the view will look". Seeing FARTHER when we are up higher, gives up greater motivation to continue.
• You will gain a new perspective on your abilities and take pride in your accomplishments.
• Making it to the top is exhilarating; ENJOY the view!
• SING A NEW SONG; live intentionally "in the moment" and focus on the JOURNEY and not just the "end result".

This was an inspired image that I experienced one day while I was trying to explain "how it feels to be healed" on my journey of "finding myself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again".

The part that I did not add are the "other obstacles" that we may run across on our healing journey; the nay sayaers, abusers and inconsiderate and unloving persons who accuse of "of being selfish" in taking time to "take good care of ourselves"...these are VERY real obstacles...we all have persons in our lives who do not encourage us to "find ourselves, heal from abuse and learn to dream again"...they are the selfish people who KNOW that WHEN we are healed, healthy and WHOLE that we will be "Singing a New Song" and we will not want the relationship with them that THEY are currently enjoying; more than likely; you are being abused and your abuser doesn't want you to become aware of their control over you.

IT IS TIME to heal...time to take the time to "be good to ourselves" and to treat ourselves in the ways that we deserve to be treated by others. We deserve to be treated lovingly, respectfully and with great encouragement to live a life where we will be "Singing a New Song".