Captivity

I must accept God's continual presence in my life as absolute fact! I am parched for him. I want to surrender completely to you. I am so saddened it has taken me this long to surrender.

Captivity is anything that keeps me from have the abundant and full life with God. Lord, I've been captive and didn't even know. Please break these chains and set me free. I want victory in Jesus. I don't want them to be words. I don't want triteness and pettiness. I want be free from this bondage.

God's presence

Matthew 14:25-32
25And in (A)the [a]fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea.
26When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is (B)a ghost!" And they cried out in fear.
27But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "(C)Take courage, it is I; (D)do not be afraid."
28Peter said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water."
29And He said, "Come!" And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
30But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, "(E)You of little faith, why did you doubt?"
32When they got into the boat, the wind stopped.
God is present during the storm. God is present is this storm.

Realizations

I've been thinking about the letter mother sent to me about Ron. There is more to it than what's written on the paper. Divide and conquer themes run rampant.

It would not surprise me at all if the ulterior motive was to divide Ron and I. A split. Ultimate divorce. To make me distrust Ron too. She has never given any indication that she has did not love Ron as a son, that she did not trust him with everything in her life - including her life. AND then out of the blue he is untrustworthy and has been for years.

Now I struggle for real words - the ones that come out of my mouth. They are much easier to come off my fingers. This year to me has been amazing. I know I've said that at least once in this journal.

I probably would have kept taking the horrid treatment my mother kept dishing out except that she turned on my family. She turned on my baby first. This was harder to put together because of the distance in miles, but we did. Then she turned on Ann (actually, she turned on her again, but her behavior toward Ann during her move was so juvenile). You don't say things to your children like, "I know you think you love me."

Through all this, I've found that I've been distancing myself from her. I can't trust that anything I said would be interpreted appropriately or realistically. I've felt manipulated at every turn. In reality I've been manipulated my entire life. Then of course there was the letter about Ron. This was the final straw in my eyes.

He is struggling with severing the relationship completely. He is struggling because he is the kind and generous and loving man that I married. No, I take that back. He is more kind and more loving and more generous than he was. It is amazing to me that he can think about picking her up for church, but he can.

I do not want him to be alone with her. I do not trust her. I don't say this out of malice. I say this out of fact and self preservation. If she were anyone else, I would have severed the ties ages ago. I would have come to the conclusions that it has taken me this entire year to draw years ago if not decades ago.

I know now that God has used this year to draw me out and away from her so that I could sever the relationship when the time came. The hardest thing in all this is to recognize that your mother has used you for her own gains -- which I truly believe are to make everyone miserable because she is miserable. This is a shame, but it's not my shame.