360 Degrees

My daughter has been away since last Friday with her dad on a trip to Pennsylvania. It's the longest time we have been a part and the furtherest. I had no idea how I would deal with the trip and all and I must admit I have done better than I thought. Atleast I didn't get in the car and drive up there on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday like I wanted to. I knew she needed this time with her dad as well as needing to see her family up there. But what a week it was for me!!!! I think God spent a lot of time with me this past week and made me open my eyes to so much that I was trying to close them to. He took me back quiet a bit in time and made me see what I had done and what I continued to do. It hurt. I don't think I have cried that much...ever. I wanted to reach up and turn the time back on the clock....but I couldn't. I couldn't undo all of the hurt that I had impeded on friends and family. I was hurt, too, but it was repercussions of the pain I had inflicted and probably deserved on some part. I let my past control everything that I was doing and I lost control. My past has paved the road I have traveled for the most part. There were times when it didn't but pretty soon it pulled me back over to where it thought I should be. I wasn't strong enough to get over it, to forgive and forget, to stand on my own two feet...so I fell back to it's comfort. The comfort of thinking "this is just how my life is going to be" and "there's no use in trying...you are stuck" and "nothings ever going to change". After this week, I know I don't want my life to be that way anymore. I am ready to move on and move past my dreaded past. I know it will always be there and I will always remember it but I am ready to just remember it, not live in it. Wish me luck!

why do I have to be nice

I have been dealt many hands in my life, a lot of them were unfavorable, hurtful and unforgettable. My dad recently had a heart attack and we weren't for sure what was going to happen as this was his second one. I remember getting the call early one morning and frantically running around getting dressed to get to the hospital as quickly as I could. As I sped off to the hospital I wondered how you can look past everything when ones life is on the line. I don't even really talk to my dad that much anymore. There isn't a close bond, that was severed long ago. Through the yelling, name calling, hitting, degrading, emotional and physical abuse that I was put through for so many years..I lost that bond you are supposed to have. I was treated like crap and should have never had to deal with any of what I was dealt. But there I was, standing beside him holding his hand...the same hand I still felt against my face at times, praying that God would take care of him. All I could do was remember everything that I didn't want to. I don't remember any fun times with my dad....not one. I don't remember laughing with him as I was growing up nor doing things with him like family trips or anything. I just remember the bad and that's what I see when I look at him. Then I wondered to myself...why in the world do I have to be nice? How can you push all of that pain aside and stand there over him and try to take care of him. Would he do the same for me? Or would he sit there and tell me what I did wrong instead like so many times before. God must have a really tough job...he overlooks the bad in everyone and is able to stand there and hold their hands without question. I pray that God enstills in me that same ability to overlook the bad, the pain and the tears and to take hold of that hand.