memoir.

where hope comes from.

i am working on a memoir, just writing really at this stage.  hoping beyond hope that eventually my story will be shared.  it's amazing as i sit here in starbucks, writing down what has happened to me, to the people i love, there is a voice that sneaks in, "you are damaged, people won't want to be with you if they find out, you bring destruction wherever you go, look at what has been done to you, you deserve this"

and it's weird, i do have this amazing trifecta of death in my life while yet i endure.  i'm not really sure why i am the one who has survived.  i would have obviously traded places in a second to secure elly's future.

my wounds are gaping.  there is no doubt that for me, i could never be made whole without a creator. what would fill the wounds i have endured?  what would give me worth and value when everything i love is torn asunder?

you know how when you're watching a reality show and you see a girl on there sleeping around and she's like "i have no feelings, it doesn't matter! i don't care" and you look at her and you go.... "oh honey, it's written on every line of your face, you do care, you just want love"  and it's not a judgment thing or a casting stones thing, it's just this lie that she has bought into.  obviously i am a girl so i identify more with a woman's way of thinking.  it's just, that's sometimes how i feel too, everyone wants to be loved, everyone wants to be worthy, we just cast out this net hoping something sticks, hoping that something gives us worth.

to have to bear that burden for someone else, to have someone find their identity in my love, that's crazy... cause i'll fail them.  and vice versa, for me to provide someone with their love and structure and support, it's an impossible task.  that's what grief does, it shines this light on how damaged we are, and damaged people cannot fix damaged people.

we cannot get our worth and our value from our surrounding, from our wealth, from other people.  i know, i know, we think we can.  i get it, i did for years, i got it from jim, i got it from my family and sure there might've been a small, nagging hole that was felt, but it was easily filled with superfluous things.  it is only in being crushed that i see the truth.  the truth about my redeemer, the truth about where my value comes from.

it's been so hard to go through jim's things.  because i look around and think "look at all of the stuff that didn't save him" ultimately, the earth and it's trappings cannot save.

even in my brokenness, my value remains secure.  i remain loved.