When I read through my list of survival rules, my heart sinks. By age 7 or 8 I’ve found a way to do what Daddy wants me to do by explaining it to myself my way. For all my supposed independent thinking and determination to be my own person with my own will and my own voice, I failed. Or did I? Read the rest of this entry »
By the time I’m 7 or 8 years old, I have a daunting list of survival rules. Later they backfire in every part of my life. In the meantime, they have the virtue of seeming to get me through. Here they are, Read the rest of this entry »
Until the last two weeks, this question never crossed my mind. Now I can’t leave it alone. If the answer is Yes, how can that be? As noted in Unpacking My Suitcase, I’m not yet sexually aware. But I’m carrying an unwelcome load of something in my female body and spirit. Read the rest of this entry »
Is there a better question? This past week I searched for an answer to ‘Where is my Mother?’ But I couldn’t find one; I kept getting mired in unfathomable complexity. Yes, Mother was a complex person, especially in contrast to my father. But I needed to find another approach. Read the rest of this entry »
I wish I knew. As a child I asked her to tell me her story. Sometimes she gave me bits and pieces, but she didn’t seem to think her story was very important. Especially if that meant talking about how she felt when she was growing up. Besides, there was always another baby in her arms needing attention. Read the rest of this entry »
I feel awkward making observations about being beaten. I don’t remember anyone talking with me about them, commiserating with me, comforting me or asking how I felt. After each beating I simply walked out of the room and right back into life. Read the rest of this entry »
I was groomed to be a victim. No one used those words, but that was the sad outcome of supposedly good intentions.
My father’s mission was to break my will. This wasn’t a secret. It was in keeping with biblical teaching as he understood it. One day he would answer to God about his efforts. I would have to answer for mine. Read the rest of this entry »
I grew up in a strict, rule-oriented household. Actually, there was only One Main Rule: Good Girls shall obey their parents in all things.
But the proof is in the Big Picture. So just to make things perfectly clear, here’s what the One Main Rule looked like on a daily basis, Read the rest of this entry »
This episode in my life was a smelly, rotting stench in me all the way through school, college and my first years of marriage. Even after I told my husband about it, I still smelled the old man regularly and without warning. It was a living, breathing, stinking rotten nightmare.
Despite this, I never wrote it down or reflected on what it reveals about me, much less about my relationship to my parents. I simply tried to put it away and let the past be the past. Done. Over. Finished. Time to move on. Read the rest of this entry »
Some things are just plain wrong. No grand theological framework, no appeal to the Bible, and no wisdom of the church or its elders can ever make them right. Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth 