I grew up in a home where women weren't celebrated or built up by other women. Their achievements were never acknowledged or appreciated for all the work it took to achieve them.
A woman's worth was defined by the pain they suffered rather than the courage to overcome it and never were the crowns on each other heads held up by one another. Instead of building each other up with love, they tore each other apart with cruel judgment, hateful resentment, and bitter lies. Because they knew no better.
Men were idolized for being violent, traumatizing, and narcissistic to every woman in our house. They were put on thrones they didn't deserve or build. With the excuse they loved us and this was exactly what love was meant to be like.
We each were projecting our inner unhealed trauma on the women around us because before now that's all we knew. It not only hurt the people who surrounded us but as family and blood, it hurt us too. As a young girl, I grew up in a world not knowing how to love myself the way I deserved to because I watched generation after generation of the unhealed, hurt, angry, and graceless women before me.
I watched them hate themselves so much that everything and everyone around them became a target for that pain including me. Without fully understanding that as a child I needed love too I would grow into the woman they had become over the years.
I became everything the generation of women before me were. Accepting bad behaviours, appreciating things that should've been ignored, committed to situations and questions that were bringing me down. I was a product of the environment I lived in without fully being aware or nurtured in a way that made it possible to live any other way.
I didn't stand a chance in all honesty and the sad part is most of us don't. I often wonder at times now that I am older how is it we ever come from such a bad place and end up in the best place ever. Strong, relentless, brave, wise, and fully accepting of the dark and light within ourselves. Appreciating and loving each of our scars and knowing without the bad decisions we made none of this would be as it is.
Forgiving ourselves daily rather than hating ourselves repeatedly and knowing that as long as we do our best every day it will always be enough. I guess some things are too strange to understand for some but I know that when I ask myself this there's only one answer God. It has and always will be in his hands, whether we want it to be or not.
That's just how life works for me, and I am good with that. So, regardless of what has happened before me, I know that what comes after me is what we call a "ripple" effect. I grew, I healed, I transformed, I accepted, I moved forward into a place of healing and I know that will heal everyone that comes after me.
The women who stand next to me, their children, and their children's children will know the strength it took to sit with their anger, their pain, their suffering, and their loss and use it in a way that heals others rather than hating on themselves and others.
I am not sure what made me so different. The grace of God? Or the heart he gave me? But somewhere deep inside me, the truth about love grew amongst the hate and pain that surrounded me. It grew so deep inside my heart nothing else really stood a chance it was only a matter of time. It wasn't until one day when I needed it the most- I can still remember the very moment it happened for me. It's something I don't ever think anyone forgets.
That moment you grow tired of your own bullshit! All that love that had been stored up inside me burst out of my chest and the years of suffering became a distant memory and from the years it took to understand that anger and sadness come from a place of pain where trauma has gone unhealed and unheard for so long.
I also understood what made me different from the women in my life was God chose me. For whatever reason that reason was I am grateful. The women before me failed only when they stopped trying and I think that is the difference. I never give up and he knew that about me when he created me. "A brave heart inside a warrior soul!"
He entrusted a light so strong, so brave, and so life-changing in me that he knew nothing stood a chance. No generation curse, no pain, no suffering, no setbacks, and no circumstances or challenge was ever going to be too great. He just knew I was the one.
I have to admit there have been times when I am on the edge of anger and pain but there he stands with me reminding me of the sacrifices he put in place for me to be here today. His love reminds me to remain graceful regardless of the pain I am suffering, his strength reminds me to forgive to be at peace, and his faith in me reminds me that all the suffering is teaching me the most valuable lesson in life.
"To trust the process and to trust nothing we suffer is ever in vain..."
Whether it be a lesson or blessing it is all for the greater cause of our own growth to becoming a better person for ourselves and everyone who surrounds us.
Growing Pains...
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