Turn To Stone

Constructive destruction is what I can use to describe being sobered up to reality, what God intends, and your ability to see the world with his blinders. Constructive destruction wrecks what you thought you knew of God, what you thought you know of yourself, and the world.  It wrecks the walls that you've built up to keep the outside out.  It smashes the emotions that you've bottled up for years. And, it gives life to the ashes so they swirl around you to encounter Him.

I wrote that last year.  The Lord was moving in me to start to write again but I was bogged down by the weight of his request. It would require me to be more transparent and vulnerable.  I wasn't ready. Truth be told I wasn't ready to write this one until last night when I woke up with what felt like an anxiety attack. As I tried to steady my breathing tears started to gently fall.  I took a deep breath and got my sketchpad & began to draw.

I was in seventh grade and things were changing rapidly.  I went to junior high after being at the same elementary school from kindergarten through sixth grade.  MTV was brand new and I walked home with my friends with cable TV just to watch the latest videos...ahh, the joys of being a tween and watching Duran Duran.

I was walking home with my friends one afternoon when my brother came rolling by and yelled at me to get in the car.  I said I wanted to walk with my friends.  He insisted that I get in the car, stopped it, and got out and shoved me in and took off.  He started rambling, yelling at me, and calling me horrible things.  He scared me. He was drunk.

My brother was my defender until that day.  Sure we argued, fought, and had sibling rivalry but I always knew he had my back. That day I found out how angry he was with me. He yelled at me that I had ruined his life. Told me he wished I was dead.  He pinned me to the wall and began to beat me.  I knee'ed him and ran to my room and locked the door.  I tried to call my dad but my brother had taken the downstairs phone off the hook. My brother got to my door and began to fumble with the key. I remember he kept getting it open and I would push the button to lock it. I remember crying and being scared.  I remember he finally gave up when my dad pulled int he driveway.

I told my mom on the ride to school the next morning. She told me that I was exaggerating and needed to give my brother grace.  It hurt me that she thought I was exaggerating. It hurt me that my words had no merit, no value, and no worth.  She wasn't going to help me.

This cycle of my brother picking me drunk from school continued. I started to hangout with a new circle of friends.  My old friends knew what was going on and had seen it.  They asked questions that I didn't want to answer.  It came to a head one afternoon when I actually got to walk home without my brother.  I was in the kitchen when his car pulled in and before I could blink he was in my face, screaming at me, and drug me to the gas stove.  As he turned on the burner he grabbed me head and told me "your face isn't gonna be so pretty anymore" and shoved my head near the burner.

I kicked him and grabbed a bottle of cleaner from the sink. I yelled for him to stay away but he didn't. I sprayed the cleaner in his face and kept spraying it until he yelled and ran for the sink to flush his eyes.  I ran outside and just started running down the street to get away and he was right behind me yelling.  I ran and as I got to my friends house her mom was pulling into the driveway.  She saw what was happening and yelled for me to get in her house and lock the doors.  She told my brother he couldn't have me.  She told him she would call the police. She took a stand for me.

I called my dad and he came and got me.  He let me confide what was going on and that I wasn't alone.  He gave me permission to hangout at my friends houses and not come home.  He made a plan with me about how to avoid my brother.  But it didn't always work and my brother continued to verbally and physically abuse me.

I was 12.  I was ashamed.  I believed that I was "exaggerating" and that I deserved all the anger my brother had for me.  I started to believe that I had ruined his life by being born. That I was a worthless. And, that he and my family would be better without me.  I started to write in a spiral notebook what was going on daily to document and confide to God.  God wasn't stopping my brother from drinking but I prayed for that in my spiral.  God didn't stop my mom from calling me a liar and telling me to treat my brother better and he wouldn't be angry but I prayed she would know and believe me.  God wasn't stopping all the thoughts of being worthless but I wrote prayers to God to show me my value. 

I was worthless and if my parents didn't protect me why would I confide in friends.  Instead, I turned my back to my old friends from grade school and turned to new friends. My new friends knew that pain of ; worthlessness, being alone, and burdened.  It was a presence of despair.  That spring I took three bottles of Benedryl and prayed to God to forgive me but I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to come home, Heavenly Father.

That afternoon my brother came home. He wasn't drunk. He saw the bottles in the bathroom trash and went to check his sister.  What he found was a very, very tired sister. From what I know my mom came home shortly after and he ran to her.  My mom was a nurse. She mixed raw eggs in a glass as my brother got me to the toilet. I collapsed there and she got me alert enough to make me drink the eggs and start to vomit.  She kept making me drink the eggs until I couldn't vomit anymore.  She told me she was mandated to take me to the hospital. She started to cry and told me how I had embarrassed her and put shame on our family.

Instead of taking me to the hospital she called her friend who was a psychologist. They talked and she took me to him the next day.  I told him that I didn't want to live.  I told him about my brother.  And, he talked to my mom before letting me leave. I went back to see him for a few weeks daily after school.  My mom or my brother would drop me off and pick me up.  We got far enough along that he asked for my family to come in for a counseling session.

He allowed me to tell my family what was going on, to share my pain, and emotions. My mom crumbled in tears. My dad looked at me and said " You are an embarrassment you couldn't even kill yourself next time do the job right or stop this".  My dad walked out and my brother followed him with my mom chasing after both of them trying to reason with them.

I was left alone.  I used my words and they had no power.  I shared my emotions and they were trampled.  I got mocked and ridiculed in that office.  I shut down my emotions that day.  Emotions make you feel and hurt.  I was done hurting. I prayed and told God that no more was I going to be used and left vulnerable. I was done.  I knew that God was supposed to be powerful but He did nothing to help me.

My dad's words from that day still burden my heart. Even in adulthood I hear them when I'm stressed and don't know how to make things better.  The sweet blessing is that I realize Jesus Christ was with me as my BFF back then.  I realize that my Heavenly Father had premise and purpose over me that he sent my brother and mom that day to be his hands and feet.

 He's takes my heart of stone and channels it to glorify Him through total transparency through this blog.  He created me to bear his light, to teach, to train warriors. He gave me perspective with what happened to me in junior high. He gifts me promise and purpose through using my words to write. He gifts promise an purpose when I'm draw.  I see what writing and art have done for me and know that is how I'm to bear His light to the world.

I played my ELO record in my kids art class as they drew cosmic rainbows.  It seemed like the perfect background sound for the class.  The song "Turn to Stone" is on that album.  It reminded me that I tried to turn my heart to stone so that I wouldn't hurt, I wouldn't feel, and so I could cope.

It reminded me of when Jesus was coming through Jerusalem at Passover and everyone was cheering and going crazy for him. The leaders told him to make the people stop and he said that if he did even the rocks would praise him.  Even when we think we have closed our emotions off & built stone walls those walls still blaze with his light. The things that we protect and hide from the world roll like stones when we choose Christ as our Savior and believe it as truth.

Here's a glimpse of me crumbling as the stone walls that I've built start to crumble with God's light and intensity.  I can say yes I was going to give up at 12 but God said no.

I was supposed to be named Cherie when I was born.  Long story short my mom didn't know how to spell Cherie so she guessed and wrote Sherry on my birth certificate.  When my dad saw it he said "Well, she's Sherry now".  I'm on the leadership team of TSMKC. We were to be crowned by Sisters of Crown this spring.  They had us share about our names and if we knew the meanings.  I shared that about my name, that it is biblical as the "dry wine".  I shared that I have a dry sense of humor at times and I can whine like nobody's business. I shared about how I got the name Sherry rather Cherie and sat down.  One of the Sisters of the Crown looked at me and said "Do you know what Cherie means in french". I told her no.  She said "it means beloved, Sherry, no matter the spelling God claimed you as beloved at birth".  The rest of my rocks that I had fell that night at Christ's feet.

He claimed and called me since my birth. The Earth knew I was his beloved because of my name.  I want you to know that you were called "beloved" at your birth by a Heavenly Father that doesn't say you are an embarrassment but his beloved.  You are a gem in his crown. Since my crowning I've been writing about being a ruby.  What are gem are you today? How can you shine with light and be grace and hope to the world. My blog is how I choose to shine the brightest today. 

Peace be with you- Sherry

UPDATES;

• Continue to pray healing over Emily. No more seizures no more epilepsy only purity and tenacity remain. That her brain be healed and be reconnected so that her memory is restored so she can retain information. That she would return to college this fall and finish her degree to be a counselor and go into mission work with children and families. 
• Pray over my ability to earn form art classes enough for my trip to Wagner, South Dakota this summer. I will be spending my time between Wagner and Marty teaching art classes to kids at Boys and Girls Clubs.  I will be teaching adult art classes in the evenings at the Wagner center and at All Tribes Fellowship.  If you would like donate gas money and help me build an emergency fund contact me. I know I will need help but am faithful that I'm going with God's premise. 
• Dale is moving back from college this weekend.  Pray for bubble wrap of protection over him. 
• This blog is exactly why it is so dear and dire in my heart to have a tween/teen art class monthly at my art studio.  I want my studio to a creative sanctuary for teens that I didn't have.  One of the best comments from a teen from last month's class was "Sherry I don't know you but I like your vibe". 
• Pray over my art studio that it would serve my community with light, grace, and hope.  I see it becoming a beacon of hope to kids, teens, and adults.  
• I'm going to offer a "caregiver" class for those that are caring for ill family members or are ill this month.  I know how creativity helped me get through chemo and radiation and blessed my kids too.  That class will start this month at my studio please let me know if you are interested.  It will be free but you can give me a "tip" in my tip jar to help me continue.