KLOVE Sings to my Heart!

My emotional state was crushed.  Because of a phone call that I may talk about in the future.  I could almost feel the chains and chaos of my youth closing in on me again, trapping me again.  After the phone call I closed myself off in a room alone and cried.  The pain was too big to contain.  In order to try to escape the pain I imagined myself living somewhere new, taking on a new type of lifestyle, one as disconnected from my abuse as possible.  Escaping to this imaginary alternate life separate from reality helped me cope temperarilarly.  But time did not stand still, it kept passing, and I had places to be and things to do.

I loaded all my kids, almost a half dozen, into the mini van, and started to drive.  We were heading out to meet other homeschooling families from our co-op, at a harvest festival in a small town almost an hour away.  I think as far as the Lord was concerned that was the perfect thing for me, because that meant he had my listening ear for two hours.

I was crying still visibly upset.  I turned to K-Love in hopes it could offer comfort.  I first heard Overcomer it sung directly to me.

"Overcomer"

Staring at a stop sign
Watching people drive by
T Mac on the radio
Got so much on your mind
Nothing's really going right
Looking for a ray of hope

Whatever it is you may be going through
I know He's not gonna let it get the best of you

You're an overcomer
Stay in the fight ‘til the final round
You're not going under
‘Cause God is holding you right now
You might be down for a moment
Feeling like it's hopeless
That's when He reminds You
That you're an overcomer
You're an overcomer

As the song played I slowly moved out of the deep feeling of hopelessness that was threatening to overtake me.  The song healed me, so that by the time it ended with a promise of hope I could believe it.

There's nothing He can't do
He's telling You

I wish I could recreate that sermon of songs that God sung to me one song after another.    I wish I knew what songs they were.  It was like a skillful hand off of a baton in a relay race.  Each song sung to me, exactly where I was emotionally, healed that feeling inside of me, and opened my mind to something more.  Just in time to hand me off to the next song that sung once again to my hurting heart, right where it hurt, healing me through music.

By the time I reached my destination I was no longer feeling angry, like the world was against me.  I did my best to be sociable with the other Homeschoolers and not call attention to myself during that Harvest Celebration.  I thankfully was feeling more composed because of the healing music.

When I was back in the minivan with my kids, driving home again, complicated emotions started coming up again.  I quickly reached over and turned on the radio.  It was a miracle, I knew it was a miracle now.  Yet another song singing to me exactly where I was emotionally.  And the best of the miracle is yet to come.

It is impossible for me to tell you how complicated the topic of Forgiveness, Repentance and Atonement is for me.  In short it is a SIGNIFICANT trigger for me.  In a little longer than short, I talk about some of my issues here ( What do you have to confess of....).  The Lord cleared a significant bolder in my path this day, and I began to see a bit clearer about his Attonement.

I found myself crying again, this time for the relief of understanding.  This is what I learned to understand that day.  Thank you to all who have prayed for me to be blessed with this and other similar understandings.

I understood the Lords love.  I understood he loves all of us, every one of Gods Children.  I understood this meant he even loves my perpetrator father.  I understood he hurts inside, even for my perpetrator father.  He loves all of Gods Children, even the worst among them.  In fact Jesus's love was so great that he atoned for the sins of EVERY person, even if they would never turn to him for healing.  He loved so great that he took on the sins and suffering for my father, even if my father mocks his atonement, even if my father takes his beautiful gift and uses it as a tool to abuse.  Words are not strong enough here to describe what I am feeling. My father mocking, disgracing, abusing, manipulating, lying and abusing in the name of the atonement was not enough to remove the Lords love for him.  The Lord loved my father enough that he was willing to have his greatest gift treated as trash, if only to give my father an opportunity he would not take.  That is real love, that is real love that I can begin to see and understand.

But as my heart found this healing and soft place, it had to harden and protect its self again.  "Well," I said to myself.  "That may work for the Lord, he may be big enough to do that.  But that does not work for me.  I can not, I will not, give anything more to that man, risk anything more that man, love him any more, or soften towards him anymore.  That is for the Lord to do.  For me it is expedient to protect myself."

But even as I closed part of my emotions off in understandable protection, I knew inside this moment of understanding, this miracle of healing, brought on by song, was a significant moment in my struggles to heal from Spiritual Abuse.

Thanks for Reading
Jean Marie,

P.S. I am charmed by the Christian songs I hear on KLOVE.  They have an amazing ability to truly understand that life is overwhelming difficult.  They sing of struggles and trials like they really know how it feels to crawl through adversity and hope it is enough to sustain you.  Then I read Christian commentaries and they speak of this idea, we do not need to be strong alone, we need instead to rely on the Lord.  I really feel LDS culture could benefit by taking these elements into its self.  We, LDS are trying to so hard to be strong, be perfect, fit in an ideal.  We miss this idea, that our trials are to show us our weakness, so that we can rely on the Lord, and he can strengthen and sustain us.   We are afraid to show our weakness to ourselves, or anyone.  Like somehow admitting the weakness admits defeat.  But it is in these moments we are not strong enough, that the Lord shines through in his glory.  It is in these moments that he carries us and sustains us.  In some ways I am still fighting this battle on my own, determined to be strong enough.  Somehow my trust issues are triggered and I don't feel I can take down my fight, and lean on the Lord.   What might have happened if at the moment I was in that Steak President's office I stopped being strong?  What might have happened if I collapsed on his floor from the weight of my pain, as I resisted doing?  I feel strongly that that Steak President's heart was in the right place, but his awareness, and knowledge weren't.   For me right now, I can still feel inside that I am not yet strong enough to lean on  the Lord, and give my will to him.  For me that would take faith more than I have.  Though the rest from fighting would be welcome.  I am thankful I am healing now, and understand I have more healing to come.