I’ve been dealing with a bit of writers block lately, actually have several posts in my draft file but nothing seems right. So I am tweaking this one, one of my first that explains why I am blogging again and why it’s so important to me.

To start with, my parents were opposites that attracted, he a boy from Tennessee, who loved fast cars and she from Chicago who loved school, a very prime and proper young lady. Love happened, then a wedding and then shortly after, I happened. I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Lived in the same little house on Lockwood street till I moved away at the age of eighteen. I went to school with the same kids from kindergarten thru high school. Had the same friends thru thick and thin. Broke my teeth in on the pews of the same church that still stands today.  It was our version of an Ozzie and Harriett life, or was it?

My father worked hard, sometimes two jobs at a time. He was a mechanic and side jobs were the norm around our house. There was always someone bringing their car by to be worked on. He spent a lot of time in the garage. It was his refuge. It was his place and we walked in carefully. My relationship with my father was difficult. I understand now as an adult, he didn’t know how to relate to girls, he had two. He really wanted boys and that was obvious by the way he related with the neighborhood boys. They adored him and he them. The boys were always hanging around the garage helping dad work on something or just hanging out. I envied them, they could relate to him on a level I couldn’t back then. Though dad was a good provider, I remember questioning if he loved me. That was answered when I was eighteen years old, when I went thru a very difficult period in my life. But more on that later.

Mom on the other-hand was very attentive, making sure we had everything we needed and even things we didn’t need but wanted. She went to work just to be able to buy us the clothes that were in style for school because she wanted us to feel good about ourselves. She taught me how to conduct myself in public as a lady, made sure we attended church regularly, and instilled Emily Post’s Miss Manner’s doctrine in our brains as if it were a religion. To my mom, it was. Everyone who met mom knew they just met a lady. Mom grew up in a very religious home and because of that she was also very naïve about many things. This worked to my advantage and to my disadvantage as I got older.

On the outside, my life looked ideal. Neighborhood kids thought we had it made. But things were happening to me and no one knew. I couldn’t tell anyone. I lived with guilt and shame. People hurt me. (And I want to make it clear, my mother and father never hurt me. This is not about them.) With my silence came acceptance that what had happened was okay. I was protecting those I loved and those who hurt me. That’s what victims do. Instead of protecting ourselves, we protect everyone else. We have this warped sense of reality that we need to protect everyone around us, because we don’t want to hurt anyone but we forget that we are the ones that are hurt. To heal, we have to protect ourselves first. That begins by first admitting what was done to you and then knowing the fault is not yours!

In Isaiah 40:31 it tells us, “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.”

It’s time that we soar on those eagles wings! No matter what your story is, no matter what you have been thru in life you are not alone, and thru Christ we will not grow weary as we travel together.

Live, Laugh & Eat Healthy,

Sherry