If You Wish You Didn’t Exist

[Starise]

No worries @Marathoner. The server hiccuped for me a moment ago as well. A relaunch of the browser seems to have cleared it up.

I can tell by your description it was a very traumatic experience. Even though you are such a good writer I think I still fail to completely grasp the depth or the particulars in the detail you experienced them in. A man with a gun pointed at you is enough to cause anyone trauma, especially if that man or men have little discretion of concern for human life and are evil at their very core.

I hope those bad memories have been replaced by better ones going forward. If I look back on what happened to me at that particular time and event it was also a very dark time that made no sense to me at all. To have an enemy attack or confront might be expected but to have someone you thought was your best friend do things to you only an enemy would do is something that to this very day I can't resolve. Like you I was beginning to come unraveled and I guess my built in protection was to look away and form new memories as fast as I could. To move beyond it because living in it was a form of hell. Similarly I lost a lot of weight. I am someone who likes to eat and for probably 6 months I barely thought about food sometimes forgetting to eat. For a long time after that I didn't feel like I was really "me" and instead I had assumed another life that seemed like it belonged to someone else. After some time went by I started to get more comfortable with  what I was becoming apart from all those prior attachments.

This was all quite awhile back yet to this very day if I take myself there I can feel some of the same things. It should make no sense that it could haunt me as I've moved on now and God has blessed me with a pretty good life, yet it seems odd that during those months it happened I feel a deep negative foreboding I need to occasionally push back down again.

Unlike you I didn't have any huge spiritual experience. I just felt God's hand pulling me out of a mess. I knew He was responsible for realigning my life, for making something that was in shambles organized and functional once again.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Starise

[debrakay]

@Marathoner You mentioned you have had problems typing things all out only to have it disappear off the screen.  As you know I have only been on here a short time but what I have found is that if that happens you should be able to right-click your mouse and hit undo and whatever cause the screen to go blank will reverse it.  I have had to do this numerous time in the past couple of months.  Now if you are typing on a phone or an ipad or something electronic without a mouse or ability to right-click, then I don't know about that.  

This thread content.....each of you are in my prayers for peace, comfort and release from the terrors of your past.  For me,  I had to be born-again to be set free from the horrors of my own past.  Praise the Lord.  I am free by His grace, mercy, compassion, and love. I have to walk in that freedom on a day to day basis since I am only grated one day at a time anyway. 

[Marathoner]

47 minutes ago, debrakay said:

 This thread content.....each of you are in my prayers for peace, comfort and release from the terrors of your past.  For me,  I had to be born-again to be set free from the horrors of my own past.  Praise the Lord.  I am free by His grace, mercy, compassion, and love. I have to walk in that freedom on a day to day basis since I am only grated one day at a time anyway. 

No worries, sister. The Lord has given me so much that I want for nothing. He lifted me up, healed my body and mind, put me on my feet again, and then poured His Spirit upon me. He promised to restore everything that was taken from me in a measure which far exceeds what I possessed before, and the Lord has done just that. Christ is true to His every word. 

There was trauma, but there were many astonishing things the Lord accomplished in us both. That's why it's difficult to express with words. The Lord understands and so He comforts me when the memories come.  

[Marathoner]

A wonderful sister in the Lord, @Heleadethme, wrote something which only one who suffers can testify: there are times when we can only praise Him with tears. I think of this and so I write the following. 

We were emptied so we might be filled;
Brought low so we might behold the majesty of His glory;
Rejected by men so we might be chosen of God,
Hearing that the world hated Him first. 

We despaired of our lives for there was nothing good in us,
Acquainted with the folly which defined our days under the sun;
And so, being blind, we cried out to the Lord on high so we might see
The glory of His majesty under the sun. 

And so the Most High God inclined His ear toward us in our affliction,
For the goodness of the Lord is not withheld from those who tremble at His words;
Who are poor in spirit and contrite of heart, of whom the Lord has declared
"I will look upon this one."

Yes, there are times when we can only praise Him with our tears. 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Marathoner

[Marathoner]

Memorials. 

When I'm hard pressed and it seems like the darkness of these streets will never end, I cry out to the Lord to deliver me from this city where He sent me. I can't bear to take another step in collecting used syringes from the alley for they reappear in force the very next day. The young man I saw the week before passed away, shot down in yet another senseless murder.

Gunfire raises me from bed at night, adrenaline coursing through my veins while memories of what I endured hammer upon my mind. I close my eyes, stilling myself so I become like a statue, and this is when I hear her screaming somewhere in the night. I'm powerless to do a single thing. 

Another woman has been cut down and I cry out to the Lord who hears my voice: why couldn't it have been me, Lord? Why did she have to perish but I live? Why did I live when so many died? I'm overwhelmed by memories and so I'm reduced to tears and anguish, living through that moment when the mother whom God gave to me in His kindness took her last breath in this world. 

Why couldn't it have been me, Lord? I swore an oath to stand between her and the bullets of evil men, but now she is taken by something I'm powerless to stand against. Just like the woman somewhere in the night. I would stand between her and bullets but I'm only a man, a worthless man who should already be dead!

I hear the voice of the Lord and He calms the raging storm, bidding me to stand upon my feet so I might remember those things He declared as a memorial to His glory upon this earth. The scars I bear on this body bear silent testimony to the power of Almighty God who delivered me with a mighty hand. 

I stand before a mirror and view the fruit of His promise. There was a time when I strong, but then this body withered away to skin and bones. Now I'm strong once again and this was the promise of Jesus Christ to me when I was almost dead. 

Open your mouth, the Spirit says, and look upon the legacy of what you endured.  I lost most of the teeth in this mouth during the years I wasted away.

Now look upon your right hand and behold the memorial I declared to you. When all is dark and hope fails in the night, remember that I am with you always. My right hand was broken on that day when the Lord came to me in the shadow of death. It's never been the same since. 

What am I incapable of standing against? The will and purpose of the Lord who revealed His arm to me. I'm a skilled first responder, tested during calamity and disaster but when someone's time has come, it has come. It was her time and so His Spirit delivers me from the burden of both the past and present, reminding me not to be dismayed because the day comes.

It's my place to follow the Lord wherever He goes, even here in this city. The Lord prepared me to walk in this place. 

[Selah7]

Early morning greetings . . . seeking Him early 

I think the good Lord (who art in heaven) must be very proud of you who daily pick up your cross and follow Him.  Hang tough, sweet sibs.  And one awesome day, you’ll hear Jesus say this personally to you:  “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Luke 9:23

23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Selah7

[Marathoner]

I continue to be astonished that the Lord chooses the weak and lowly, not the wise and powerful, to carry out His will upon the earth. It's good for us to read the words of the apostle Paul, our elder brother in the faith, who endured terrible hardship in this world. Shipwrecked (more than once)... stoned... seized by the authorities on multiple occasions... bitten by a venomous snake... deprived... and yet the apostle was the chosen vessel of Jesus Christ given to us all, even during these last days. 

Even the prophet Elijah despaired of living so we're in the most excellent company! That great cloud of witnesses surrounds us while we press on. Each of us has a cross to bear, so let us help our brother and sister carry the load. It will be the greatest of honors to witness that crown of glory set upon your brow by the Son of God. That's what I look forward to the most!

[Whyme]

7 hours ago, Marathoner said:

I continue to be astonished that the Lord chooses the weak and lowly, not the wise and powerful, to carry out His will upon the earth. It's good for us to read the words of the apostle Paul, our elder brother in the faith, who endured terrible hardship in this world. Shipwrecked (more than once)... stoned... seized by the authorities on multiple occasions... bitten by a venomous snake... deprived... and yet the apostle was the chosen vessel of Jesus Christ given to us all, even during these last days. 

Even the prophet Elijah despaired of living so we're in the most excellent company! That great cloud of witnesses surrounds us while we press on. Each of us has a cross to bear, so let us help our brother and sister carry the load. It will be the greatest of honors to witness that crown of glory set upon your brow by the Son of God. That's what I look forward to the most!

1 Co 1:26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”[d]

[Selah7]

21 hours ago, Chicken coop2 said:

Thought it was time to bump this thread back up in case anyone needs it. I sure do. So tired of enduring.  

Be strong, sweet friend.

[JustClay]

22 hours ago, Chicken coop2 said:

Thought it was time to bump this thread back up in case anyone needs it. I sure do. So tired of enduring.  

Hi @Chicken coop2…. When Paul wrote the following, he was probably feeling much like you are:  

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 

Paul may even have been ready for God to just bring him on home, but for the sake of those who still needed to hear the gospel, he was willing to remain.  He knew people would be amazed at the power of the almighty God who had brought him through so many hardships and set him on his feet again to keep preaching the Good News.

 2 Corinthians 4:6

6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

God gave you the courage to share what happened to you so that the power of Christ could be seen in you.  We need your very unique kind of light here.  May our Father bless you in a special, comforting way during this difficult time.