When Faith Is All You Have To Hold Onto!

Sitting numb with fear, I gasp for air as if I’ve forgotten how to breathe.  I regurgitate, “I can’t breathe,” but no one hears my pleas for help.

To say I cried me a Noah’s Flood would be an understatement!

Adrenaline floods my system and surges like it’s trying to escape.  Tears of anguish leave me trembling.  My slumped posture screams defeat.

As I hugged myself through the confusion of the courtroom, my bundle of joy was swaddled away in handcuffs.  Unable to flee the situation, shock ricochets up his spine.  It was almost as if you could smell burning flesh.

The puffy face and eyes were a dead giveaway to the verdict and the pain projecting from my body.  The bailiff hands me a box of tissue; he knew one or two wouldn’t do through the many issues.

This is when you doubt what you were once so secure in!

Doing Time With God!

No one is prepared to lose a loved one.  More excruciating, parents are never prepared when their child becomes incarcerated.  The loss is compelling, lamenting the death of their future seems almost self-serving, even selfish.  But it is a death, a loss of hope and dreams, with an evil twist of life.  And oftentimes, it delivers more grief due to the shunning and loss of relationships.

As a victim of abuse and addiction, orphaned and tossed to and fro, add in depression and suicidal tendencies along with being a domestic violence survivor, these traumas have strengthened me and molded me into the beloved I am today.

But when my son was arrested, my heart was never prepared to undergo this battlefield, this loss, the stigma and longstanding costs; spiritual, emotional, relational, financial and physical.  These costs were associated with an event reiterating a generational stronghold of rage in need of being severed instead of being swept underneath the rug.

Scurrying up the strength to share my grief and remove the veil of shame I was hiding behind, one by one people started trickling away when they heard my son got into a fight and was doing time for his crime. 

Oh, how they hounded me and became my best friend only to hear the news flash. 

Once I opened up my heart, it was as if I had the plague…

I was ousted. 

The tragedy of it all, friends and family trickled away, leaving both my son and I unsupported and completely alone, but…

We were both doing time with God!

Family member’s searing attacks vomit, “I don’t give a shit about you.  I’m not coming to support you, I’m coming to do something about this.”

As if my 24-hour days weren’t enough…

That’s called performance-based love, bordering more along the lines of abuse.

Where’s the love in that statement?

Sadly, their “concerns” were full of hot air and never materialized into even a visit with my son.  Maybe it was better they didn’t communicate with him since their actions supported similar conduct as to why he was incarcerated than support filled with needed love, hope and patience.

Why is it people try to make you feel guilty and blame you for their own behaviors and actions?

I hope and pray I’ll always be able to own up to my mistakes while forgiving others for theirs…

Prisoners of Hope!

Being a prisoner of hope, seeing light despite the darkness, is helping me pour love into my son’s emotional wounds. I know what it’s like to make mistakes and be abandoned because of them.  Being wrapped in unconditional love and offered a second chance to start over is a treasure worth digging for.

Physical violence has no place in my life, God’s Great Love overrides any mistakes and bad choices one makes. Rebuilding my son will take a lifetime, but we’re all works-in-progress anyways, right?

When faith is all you have to hold onto, you continue to see how God restores and turns even our most painful trials into good. 

God ended up being my ever-present, faithful and dependable friend that held me and carried me through the roughest few years I have ever walked through. Without His Love, I would have isolated, become depressed and probably fallen into addictive behaviors (Jesus Juice ♥) when all hell was breaking loose. 

Through His amazing grace, I was able to press through and become a justice ambassador with marching orders to speak life that restores those incarcerated. 

After all, my God changes things…

This mess will be more than a message!

How do you cope all alone underneath all the shaming and rejection delivered by the world?

Acknowledging our Lord is with us holding our hand, never leaving nor forsaking us, empowers us with confidence to receive this gift that keeps on giving which overflows into our children. They’ll experience relentless, unconditional love! Love never stops loving!

Those who are loved by God, let His love continually pour from [them] to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of Him (1 John 4:7 TPT).

The God of all comfort broke through and transformed all my wailing into a whirling dance of praise!

Seemingly insurmountable challenges are the breakfast of champions for three years, two months, and ten days. But who’s counting?

A Mother’s Love Never Gives Up…

Do you know how hard it is to love when you’ve never experienced it before?

Mighty waves of restoration crashed upon me causing me to be stronger than ever before along with stepping into increase filled with life and love.  God’s love is enthralling.

Lifting up my eyes and looking about kept me from turning inward, focusing on myself and my suffering.  Pain is demanding, often suffocating.  It’s hard to believe that God is doing something in and through our lives when they’re riddled with pain, but that’s the blessing when faith is all you have to hold onto!

Until next time…