Reason behind Shaken for Restoration
I was recently asked why I had chosen a blog as a means of sharing my story, my testimony if you would call it that. Why would I wait all these years?
My explanation is simple this is my avenue to share publicly. Not just my story but my thoughts, insight and whatever God has instructed and inspired. However all my post are very personal. See for years I have privately shared things I have gone through and my thoughts with many but the oh too familiar looks of pity, the debates or worst yet disbelief stopped me from sharing more. Who would chose to continually put themselves in that place. However in the last couple of years, 5 to be exact my life was forced into change and so my interactions with people and mindset changed also.
How I mentored, how I pastored (at the time), who I was as a friend, how I listened and how I shared then came from a different place. A lot if times from a very surface space then. The death of my bonus father followed by the death of my natural father 23 days later caused a shift in my life. That void placed in my life coupled with the sudden cold and distant relationship sparked within my family opened a new way of thinking and seeing. Death surely brings out the true character of people, things you didn't know or see prior. My natural father in his life transformation taught me compassion, forgiveness and that given the opportunity anyone can change. He’d gone from strung out on drugs living under a bridge, handicapped from an attack on the streets to be a Pastor helping others to recover and regain their productive place in society. My bonus father taught me unconditional love accepting, loving and protecting me from the day he stepped into my life despite the thoughts of others. These two men impacted and shaped me.
When God saw fit to call my father and bonus father home I was far from ready. I felt there was so much more I needed. My foundation was shifted. Despite all I had endured I was still a daddy’s girl. But their time of transition was already written to happen yet I know God does all things well. Maybe a month or 2 prior to my loss God saw fit to have a phenomenal man enter my life, my spiritual father. He allowed that man to speak into, correct, love and guide me in the areas that still needed grooming. He encouraged me to do all God had put within me to do and not worry about people. This year one month before this blog page was to begin God called that man home also. My heart shattered just as it did the 5years prior and just as with the 5 years prior something was sparked. I felt the push to do what I knew I was supposed to.
What’s interesting about a grieving period is it's yours alone, others may be present but it's yours to own. And we believe those closest will honor that space and though some around you may some very will won’t. Just as you have been their counselor, sounding board and outlet even in your pain they look to you and expect the same. Life for them hasn’t changed. In acknowledging that I allowed the spark to ignite this flame of my sharing space, my time to go forth. The space to help, to guide, to heal someone else that has sat in silence.
In this five year evolution I lost the capacity to do and be some things. The friend I was I can be no more, the sister I was I can be no more, that wife, mentor and pastor I can be no more. Now exist one with no capacity to enable, a being with compassion but no space for compromise. My desire to see all healed and purpose filled is so great its heartbreaking to see anything less. I know that all I have encountered in my lifetime all the things that have shaken me, all the things that caused me to bend though God wouldn’t let me break were for this time of restoration. Restoration not just of myself but of those who my words can impact, those who my life is allowed to touch, those who have been silenced.
I dare not take this space for granted
My writing, my sharing is my healing and happy place. So in the words of my spiritual father the late Bishop Saint Christopher Zebedee Dowtin III I’m using my happy. Welcome to Shaken for Restoration
#ShakenForRestoration
My explanation is simple this is my avenue to share publicly. Not just my story but my thoughts, insight and whatever God has instructed and inspired. However all my post are very personal. See for years I have privately shared things I have gone through and my thoughts with many but the oh too familiar looks of pity, the debates or worst yet disbelief stopped me from sharing more. Who would chose to continually put themselves in that place. However in the last couple of years, 5 to be exact my life was forced into change and so my interactions with people and mindset changed also.
How I mentored, how I pastored (at the time), who I was as a friend, how I listened and how I shared then came from a different place. A lot if times from a very surface space then. The death of my bonus father followed by the death of my natural father 23 days later caused a shift in my life. That void placed in my life coupled with the sudden cold and distant relationship sparked within my family opened a new way of thinking and seeing. Death surely brings out the true character of people, things you didn't know or see prior. My natural father in his life transformation taught me compassion, forgiveness and that given the opportunity anyone can change. He’d gone from strung out on drugs living under a bridge, handicapped from an attack on the streets to be a Pastor helping others to recover and regain their productive place in society. My bonus father taught me unconditional love accepting, loving and protecting me from the day he stepped into my life despite the thoughts of others. These two men impacted and shaped me.
When God saw fit to call my father and bonus father home I was far from ready. I felt there was so much more I needed. My foundation was shifted. Despite all I had endured I was still a daddy’s girl. But their time of transition was already written to happen yet I know God does all things well. Maybe a month or 2 prior to my loss God saw fit to have a phenomenal man enter my life, my spiritual father. He allowed that man to speak into, correct, love and guide me in the areas that still needed grooming. He encouraged me to do all God had put within me to do and not worry about people. This year one month before this blog page was to begin God called that man home also. My heart shattered just as it did the 5years prior and just as with the 5 years prior something was sparked. I felt the push to do what I knew I was supposed to.
What’s interesting about a grieving period is it's yours alone, others may be present but it's yours to own. And we believe those closest will honor that space and though some around you may some very will won’t. Just as you have been their counselor, sounding board and outlet even in your pain they look to you and expect the same. Life for them hasn’t changed. In acknowledging that I allowed the spark to ignite this flame of my sharing space, my time to go forth. The space to help, to guide, to heal someone else that has sat in silence.
In this five year evolution I lost the capacity to do and be some things. The friend I was I can be no more, the sister I was I can be no more, that wife, mentor and pastor I can be no more. Now exist one with no capacity to enable, a being with compassion but no space for compromise. My desire to see all healed and purpose filled is so great its heartbreaking to see anything less. I know that all I have encountered in my lifetime all the things that have shaken me, all the things that caused me to bend though God wouldn’t let me break were for this time of restoration. Restoration not just of myself but of those who my words can impact, those who my life is allowed to touch, those who have been silenced.
I dare not take this space for granted
My writing, my sharing is my healing and happy place. So in the words of my spiritual father the late Bishop Saint Christopher Zebedee Dowtin III I’m using my happy. Welcome to Shaken for Restoration
#ShakenForRestoration
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