Love

Ya know, it really is odd to me. I’ve learned to cope without a certain type of love and acceptance. I had learned to accept it as a part of me that I’d never know.

You see a family was designed for the husband to cherish his wife, the wife to passionately love her husband, and the mother and father to love and tend to their blood. No one person, be child, teenager, or adult was created to not know love. Yet, everyday we find souls who’ve never known it, who learn to live with it, who learn to cope with it.

Here’s a few things to prove my point:

“We spoke with Ann Bigelow, a professor and researcher of developmental psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, whose lab has been conducting research into parent behavior and infant development.”
“[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

We have known for a long time that skin-to-skin contact with babies is important for their development. In what ways does it help them?
Particularly in the newborn period, it helps calm babies: they cry less and it helps them sleep better. There are some studies that show their brain development is facilitated—probably because they are calmer and sleep better.

Does skin-to-skin contact with their babies have benefits for the parents?
 It reduces their stress level—they report lower levels of depression, they seem to be able to be more sensitive to their baby’s cues and the babies are more responsive to the mother through the whole first three months. They’re recognizing their mother earlier, so the relationship between the mother and baby is off to a facilitated start. It works the same way with fathers, too.

What is happening in the body—of both parent and child—when there is skin-to-skin contact?
From the mother’s perspective, it probably releases oxytocin. 
The newborn is coming out of a very restrictive environment, so anything that simulates that comforts them. Being touched or hearing a heartbeat is familiar because they heard it in the womb.”

In order for the above to happen it has to be a LOVING touch and from what I have seen and experienced it isn’t just infants. It’s children, teenagers, and adults. If you think about it, what is more relaxing than laying wrapped up in a loved ones arms while listening to the steady rhythmic beats of their heart? We were meant to love and be loved.

With this in mind I never could figure out why my momma’s love always left a spot empty. I had more than enough love from her. She is wonderful and I remember being little and wanting to grow up to be just like mommy. But there was always a spot that was empty. But now I understand no matter how hard she tried she could not fill that hole that was originally meant for the father I never had. Instead I learned to cope with being rejected and unloved by him. The ONLY thing I truly longed for was his acceptance and love. Many years later after I realized I no longer wanted it from him I longed to have it from anyone who could fulfill that roll. Sun up and sun down some weeks that’s all that I could think about, what would it be like to have a father who loved me? I want it. I want to be loved. As pathetic as I am I’d cry myself to sleep, my heart aching for a father to love me. After I finally got angry enough I decided I didn’t want a father, all men were jerks anyway in my opinion, I couldn’t find one that was trustworthy.

However, what is funny about all this is that I’ve found that love is like a crazy drug. For someone who’s lived without it and learned to cope without fatherly love and acceptance you’d think I’d do better. However now that I know it, I don’t function well without that love now.  Joking, but with more serious than even I may know, there is a portion of me that breaks when dad doesn’t tell me goodbye when he leaves the house and he’s just going down the road. In fact I harassed him for not loving me because he left three times without saying goodbye to me this morning. Because I’ve lived without it there is a part of me that just gets all giddy when he hugs me. It’s stupid, but those little things make my day.

It’s the same for a husband and wife, the crazy love drug that is. The relationship is definitely different. My momma’s crazy though…. However she is another one that had learned to cope without love, now that she has it she’s freakin’ scary some times. But it’s in a good way I like seeing her this happy. She’s never been allowed to be her playful loony self. Some times, I do have to look at her and go “Really? You’ve always taught us that when someone says stop you stop, you’ve taught us NOT to hurt someone and to be compassionate when they do get hurt, you’ve also taught us to not be annoying and disruptive.” However, all that goes out the window when she’s with him….. It seems slightly twisted but for whatever reason he seems to enjoy the pain that gets inflicted upon him being that he typically brings it on himself and he doesn’t seem to mind mom trying to make herself known while he’s trying to work. But I love it when they are together because when they are behaving themselves he is so gentle and tender with her and she well… yeah… He tries… Anyway, I’m kidding, sort of, she can be so compassionate and loving to him… Although now that I think about it, it is a rare occasion that she’s not harassing him and playing with him. But that is her way of showing her love, see, when they first met, that’s what took me. They were both so tender  and gentle with each other. I’d never seen a man treat a women like that. So tender and caring, I didn’t know a man was capable of caring like that.

Anyway, moving on, we all have a way of loving each other. Whether it’s through goofing off together, or sitting cuddled up with each other. For married couples you sleep together, goof off, cuddle up, whatever. For Fathers, Daughters, Sons, and Mothers, Daughters, and Sons, it’s playing with them or simply taking them aside and holding them. For me, it’s that skin-to-skin contact. Nobody deserves to be starved of such a love and acceptance. Not women, not men, not infants, or children, or teenagers. Every single person deserves to have someone who loves them dearly. Everyone has a different way of showing or feeling loved, our job is to find the way to show them love. So all that to say this: love your loved ones, don’t let them even begin to doubt that you may not love them because you let that happen and you’ll not only destroy the relationship between you and that person, you could destroy that person as well if they aren’t strong enough, and for you mom’s and dad’s who are reading this. No matter how strong you may think your kid is, I can almost guarantee they are not strong enough to handle a lack of love. But this goes for most everyone too. No one is truly strong enough to go without love.

 

God Bless,

Jessica

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Unity

Watching these guys work yesterday was neat. I got to see a lot more of how they operate together. The first time we hung out at the jobsite I wasn’t allowed on the site and so I couldn’t see much but the majority of what I could see was there were some people who seemed to be standing around while others were working. Well, watching them last Saturday I noticed yes, some have a tendency to stand around but usually because they have a purpose. Contrary to what we may see or think they aren’t just standing there looking pretty. We have one person doing one thing while another does another thing and so on.

Just in welding some stands they have the one doing the welding, the other who is making sure the welder has everything ready to go, the other who is off loading the stands that were being welded, while another prepared the next stand to be welded. While they were welding the pipe it was funny because they’ve got anywhere from 3-6 people standing around the end of the pipe at any given moment. How they all work in such a small space I don’t know but, each person had a purpose. I’m not quite sure what each individual did, but from what I could see it took 2-3 people to put the end of the pipe on, then another to prep the pipe, another to weld it, another to take care of the welder, another to clean the weld, then you’ve got the one operating the forklift, and another getting things picked up. Then you’ve got the supervisor making sure everything is running smoothly and helping where he needs to.

The way they work struck me in two areas. One, when you can’t see God, or it seems that He is sitting up there doing nothing. Keep in mind more than likely He’s got a plan and there will be one thing that will lead to another. He’s doing something over here so that something over there will come through so that in the end everything will come together.  Second, in a family, everyone is or should be doing something. While Dad’s going to work and paying some of the bills, mom’s paying the other bills keeping everything in check, and bringing in a little extra income, while the teenagers do the cleaning and cooking and keeping the minor drama’s from developing into major drama’s, and the little ones are doing school, cleaning up their stuff, helping around the house and so on.

Jason works with his guys in a fashion that just floors me, because they aren’t his workers, they are his guys, they are his buds that he jokes around with and goofs off with while they work. I swear they are Jason’s second family. He’s always bragging on how he takes care of his guys and his guys take care of him. In a family, that’s how it should be. We all work together to create a unit that can operate flawlessly together without conflict, one that everyone knows what to do and how to do it. It’s how things should work. Now, no, they wont always work like that. No matter what it is, whether it’s a job, or a family. But we can always do our best to come up with some sort of unity between everyone.

With Every Drop

I had a momentary melt down the other night. Anyhow, I was playing Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Cinderella” on my guitar when I noticed there was a spot on the guitar that was holding a small puddle of tears. Tear drops on her dark guitar, kept coming to my mind, I got cleaned up and ready for bed when a brief overview of my struggles began to flood my mind. I sat down with my guitar and a pen and notebook and then was the beginning of my song.

No, it’s not perfect and I want to get a friend of mine who writes music to help me put it together better, however. “With Every Drop” became a story of my thoughts and struggles that flood me on a almost consistent basis. But it also is about my overcoming’s. It is written from my golden child looking into the broken child. My golden child is seeing all of the struggles but knows that the broken child can make it through. It’s about a girl who has lost herself and fears that she couldn’t be forgiven, much less loved, she has dreams and hopes and memories that will only serve to taunt her, dreams and hopes that will never be fulfilled.  She continually questions her worth, and wonders if her wounds can ever be mended. Some times she doesn’t see herself for who she is, she’s weak, she screws up, she can’t keep on any longer. 

And then…

And then she begins to understand with every tear drop, it tells a story, tells a story of her strength and her victories, with every drop there’s a beauty, for someone to be so vulnerable, there’s a beauty. All she wants is her pain to go away, her memories, her past, her mistakes, but with every drop, though it may not seem like it, she’s overcoming. After the golden child sees her strength she begins encouraging the broken child until the broken child begins to understand, she is strong, she is courageous, and even though she may lose it, she will overcome. 

No matter what your struggle is, you can reach a point at which you can be ok. Society beats us over the head and tells us that we can’t be weak, we can’t cry, especially guys. But reality is, some times, you have to be weak, you have to be vulnerable for you to overcome whatever you are going through. It took my youth leader months, to get me to accept the fact that it was ok for me to be weak or to cry. It wasn’t till he convinced me that if I had a problem I could talk about and ask for guidance. We are so stuck up with having to put on this front that is completely fake 100% of the time that we can’t accept a moment of weakness. Ya know, maybe if you could be weak for just a moment, make yourself vulnerable for just a moment, and with the RIGHT person, you’ll find that having a moment of weakness is ok because in the end you know you’ll overcome, you’ll be ok. Maybe in a situation like mine where your deepest desire is something that stems from your past and there is no possible way that that desire will every be met. But, there is healing to come, no matter what your situation. As long as you are actively looking for an answer you can overcome. I don’t care how much pain, how much guilt, how bad your past or present, or how much you question your very existence. You are always strong, even when you are weak.

Be strong, you are dearly loved.

Jessica

 

 

Self-esteem and Humility

My last post I discussed our or more so my prodigal side. I want to go a little more in depth.

A few days ago I began looking at some things that I had dealt with or thought I had dealt with. Like my self-esteem, my past regrets, stuff like that. See, I realized that I still blame myself for a lot of the problems with my biological dad. If I would have he would have been happier, if I hadn’t he wouldn’t have been so upset with me and mom. It was my fault that the way he was. I still struggle through the memories of him yelling at me and disowning me in front of the many people there for lessons on a Saturday morning. Or the time I gave him a hug as a nine year old to tell him thank you for making me and my friend waffles and he pushed me to the other side of the kitchen and told me to never touch him again. I was unwanted, worthless, a screw up, and when he went on those rants like that I didn’t see much point to my existence since I was such a horrible kid. I remember the late nights talking to my friend telling her that I should’ve never been born because my family would’ve been happier without me and that it would be better if I just died.

The irony was that I really was a good kid, still am. I started my own business when I was 14 and prior to that I was working for a pet sitting company, I started with them when I was probably 10. I helped with all the house chores and had dinner on the table and despite Matt’s horrible attitude towards me I’d get up at 6 in the mornings and pack him a lunch just because, even though we’d find later that he would throw it away and still I persisted.

I’ve noticed that a lot of that has been slowly creeping back into my life. Feeling like I’m unwanted and that I’m just a burden, and all I ever do is screw up. A lot… Most of the time, I’m pretty sure. I suck.. But, my tries don’t go unnoticed. I do my best to fix all the stupid crap I create. Unfortunately no, I can’t go back and find a better way to handle things, but I can always find a new way to handle a situation. When I’m feeling irritable I find that it works better for me to just stay away from my family because I’m bound to ruin something, on the other hand, I sit in my room or go outside and really all I want is for someone to just come in and sit with me. I’m a huggy kind of person, I’d be happy to just sit in someone’s arms when I’m in a crummy mood. However, other times I’ve found that I can actually be out and about but I have to be doing something so that I can keep my mind busy, and some times I’m just good to be relaxed and ok.

In the process of learning all this stuff that I obviously have to deal with, these unknown truths about myself that I just didn’t want to face. I’m also having to keep in mind the truths that are ever so hard for me to believe and I’m getting to the point at which I just want to right them again and again until I can finally believe it, but I’m loved, I’m special, I’m worthful, I’m valuable, I’m not a screw up no matter what anyone says, I’m not a burden, and I am wanted. For whatever reason, it is incredibly hard to believe that about myself, and all I want is to hear that constantly until I believe. Not because I’m selfish and want to make it known of how awesome I am, but simply because I don’t believe it and I want to. I want to have a healthy self-image of myself. I want to be steady in who I am. I want to KNOW this and be confident in me but at the same time humility and humbleness will be my best friends.

The first time my completely awesome long lost daddy told me he loved me, it threw me back a bit. I sank, I couldn’t believe that he actually loved me. Everything in me wanted to fight those three little words. Every past insult started attacking me because who was I to be loved by someone like him? Someone who’s heart was so kind and gentle and who’s words were so soft spoken and meaningful. I didn’t deserve it. Right? I was just a worthless piece of crap. But I’ve come to a very true conclusion and that is this.

I don’t care who you are, how badly you’ve screwed up, how jacked up you are. You ALWAYS deserve to be loved. You always deserve to have someone treat you like the precious jewel you really are. Because down inside that is what you are. You are a jewel waiting to be discovered. You aren’t a screw up, and some where there is someone in this world that you have impacted that loves you, and don’t you dare think for a moment that there could never be anyone that you would impact because I’m telling you now, there is bound to be someone. Every precious human being was placed in this crazy world for a reason, you may not see it now but there is a reason. You are precious, I am precious, but always keep in mind, that humility must come first. If you lose humility and humbleness your self-esteem is nothing.

God Bless,

Jessica