No, You Don't Understand and I Pray You Never Do

I'm going to tell you the four most infuriating words in the English language: "I understand your pain."

No, you do not, cannot and I pray will never be able to understand my pain. Even my siblings cannot understand my pain because they did not suffer the same things I did. They didn't survive the beatings I did. They weren't told the same things I was told. They didn't suffer the loneliness and heartache I did. There's only One who understands my pain because He was right there beside me when I went through it. He watched it as it happened and He wanted to desperately stop it, but He would not overrule free will. He shielded me as much as He was able to and even miraculously stopped the abuse at times, but because someone in this world wanted to inflict pain and suffering on me, I went through some hell that no one on this earth can ever understand.

I know that others went through things, maybe even something very similar to what I experienced, but they didn't experience MY pain, my trauma, my suffering. That means no one can know my pain. Or understand it! Heck, even I don't understand my pain, at times. I pray no child ever has to endure what I went through as a child. I've had people try to tell me my childhood wasn't bad; that I had a good home, etc. No, I did not! There may have been quiet times, but my home life was not good. I walked on eggshells around my own home, hoping and praying the monster that lived there with me didn't know I was there. That I could walk through the hall to the bathroom without making a sound because that might infuriate him and I would get beaten just because I happened to be there.

The monsters weren't under my bed or in my closet; the monster lived in the room across the hall. He was in the living room or the kitchen or dining room. If I laughed at a TV show, I might get beaten because he thought I laughed wrong. If I went to the store to get medicine for him, I might get beaten when I got home because he thought I took too long. There was never any warning that what I was doing was making him furious and therefore the beatings would come out of nowhere for things that no one could reasonably think would cause anger or violence. Several of the beatings were for telling the truth. So, I learned that the truth wasn't always the best way to deal with things. At times it felt like just breathing was enough to make the monster come out.

No, my childhood was not good. No, my home life was not good. No, you cannot understand the pain that wound up stored in my heart, soul and memory. And I pray you will never be able to understand that kind of pain, that kind of terror and that kind of twisted life. But, I rarely talk about the things that went on, so you can't really understand how bad life was for me as a child. You don't know the many nights I was awakened to screams of pain and terror. Sometimes coming from my own mouth. You'll never know the fear that was with me every waking moment and sometimes invaded my sleep causing dreams that were horrifying because they were so realistic and so very close to what was happening when I wasn't asleep. Many were playing out what my child's mind thought would be the inevitable conclusion for what went on inside the four walls that I felt were my prison.

I know that I'll never understand someone else's pain because I didn't experience their lives. I can empathize, sympathize and be there for them as they work through their pain, but their pain is their own and I can never know it or understand it. I just hope that somehow, some way, I can help a child escape the kinds of things I lived through. Whether it be by shining a light on abuse or by recognizing the signs and alerting authorities to rescue that child from their situation. I will do whatever it takes to help a child who is in those situations

If you suspect a child is being abused, neglected or abandoned, please contact the authorities; police, child protective services or even the district attorney's office. Get someone to check on that child's situation. Children are a gift from God and should be treated as such. Not as punching bags or someone to take anger out on because the adult doesn't know how to control their anger or disappointments. No child should ever know the pain of being abused by the ones who are supposed to love and protect them. Or feel hate coming from those who are meant to be their guardians and teachers.

Hard Relationships

There is such a difference in how the world says we should live and how God wants us to live. I know most everyone understands a little bit of that statement, but for some reason even most Christians can get misled by some of the more subtle ways which are different. Take relationships for example: the world says if they are hard or you don't get complete fulfillment or joy, just walk away. If you get your feelings hurt, walk away. But God says if relationships are hard, stay. If things aren't always to your liking, stay. And we tend to follow the world's lead these days more than God's.

A little over 10 years ago, I had to change doctors because my original orthopedic surgeon semi-retired. My new surgeon was not a Christian, and in fact told me that he did not believe in God. I was upset about that and I had mentioned to the associate pastor of the church I attended that I was going to have to get a new doctor because I didn't really like the fact that my surgeon didn't believe in God. I was kind of taken aback by the pastor's reaction. But, ultimately, he asked me one question that caused me to pause: what if I were the only Jesus that surgeon would ever see? What would happen to his soul if I walked away and never allowed him to see the Jesus in me that he needed to see?

Well, I didn't change doctors; and every time I went to see that surgeon, he always did the same thing when he would first come into the room: shake my hand, shake his head and say, "I just don't see how you are still walking!" Each and every time, I would answer: "It's really very simple. I get up in the morning, throw my legs over the side of the bed, reach up and grab God's hand and put one foot in front of the other." This exchange happened every single time I would see the surgeon. For more than seven years. Then after one appointment, as he was getting ready to walk out of the exam room, the surgeon stopped, turned and looked at me and said, "I got saved last weekend."

Now, I'm not saying I'm responsible for that man being saved, but I know one thing for certain: if I had changed doctors, he may not have ever gotten saved. Because he may not have seen Jesus in anyone else at that early period of him being my doctor. But, I have been told that it wasn't what I said to people that influenced them as much as what they saw. I don't just speak the words, I try my best to live them. When they see me walking the talk, that's what makes the biggest impact. Words are great, I love them, but words by themselves are not going to change someone's life. They have to see that what you say is how you live before it makes an impact. Trust me, if I had been a foul mouthed complainer with my surgeon, he wouldn't have ever thought of giving his life to God. But because I gave praise, honor and worship to the Almighty, he knew that my salvation was more than skin deep and that it truly had been instrumental in keeping me on my feet for over 20 years after they said I'd be paralyzed and unable to walk.

I have relationships today that are not easy. I get my feelings hurt or my needs get ignored, but if I were to end those relationships how could I show those people that Jesus is real? That God can change a persons heart and life into something much better, greater and more loving? What if I am the only Jesus that person sees this week? This month? This year? Ever? If I chose to walk away, would that person ever get a chance to see Jesus in someone else's life? I have no idea! Only God knows if there is someone else in that person's life who will show Jesus to them. But, I know this: if I walk away I might be taking away their only chance to see Jesus at a time when they need it most! And I'm not willing to take that chance with their soul.

God will tell me if I ever need to walk away from a relationship and He will never tell me to do so just because a relationship isn't easy. God's relationship with mankind has never been easy, but He never walked away from us. And I, for one, am extremely grateful for that.

Losing Mom

I am one of those odd people who had more than two parents. Yes, I had a mother and father when I was born, but my father abducted me when I was four. I didn't see my mother for 9 years, until shortly after my 13th birthday. We had been separated for 9 years, 3 months, 2 weeks when she came back into my life. For exactly 9 years, my father's third wife was my step-mom. But, my relationship with my mother wasn't fully restored when we reunited. No, I actually wound up with another "mom" when my father's girlfriend rescued me from a motel on the Bossier City strip when I was 14, after my father had abandoned me there for six weeks.

Between the time after Bonnie left and Ann taking me in, I had lived with my father's sister and her husband for a time, then my father's parents before he managed to get me removed from them and I went back to my aunt's. Between the ages of 13 and 17 I moved almost 15 times. But, that's a story for another day. Today's story is about Moms.

I lost my mother, Catherine Sue McElwee on 28 November 1998 when I was 35 years old. Mom and I never had a really great relationship, but we did have a relationship, for which I am grateful. It wasn't really until she was dying that I finally learned that it was her husband that was keeping us apart, and not she, herself. It wasn't until the week before she died that I really, truly understood that my Mom loved me, deeply and that I was important to her; that I mattered. By the time I learned that, she wasn't able to speak due to the brain tumor that killed her. Her death completely destroyed me for a while.

I lost Bonnie the moment she pulled out of the school driveway on 27 September 1976 heading to her parent's home in Waycross, GA for the final time. It was exactly 9 years, to the day, from when she and my father had taken me and my brother from our Mom in Altus, Oklahoma. Ironic that she left us on the anniversary of getting us, but less than a year after getting us, Bonnie gave birth to her miracle child; the child she was never supposed to be able to have. So she didn't really need Darren and I after 2 August 1968. There were attempts at reconciliation with Bonnie over the years because I truly wanted to believe that she loved me, but I never felt it from her. I was merely the son of her former husband to her.

My 'angel' was Annie Lucille Carson Hanson. She had no obligation to me, but when she learned my father had left me in a motel room on the Bossier City strip, she drove from her home in south Shreveport and picked me up, telling me to pack all my belongings and put them in her car and she took me back to her home and gave me a sense of belonging, of love, of acceptance and made me feel like I mattered to someone. That I was important to someone. Someone wanted me to be part of their life. She saved my life and she saved my heart.

I didn't make it easy for Ann, though. I had experienced so much rejection and abandonment in my young life that I made her prove, repeatedly, that she loved me, wanted me and wouldn't abandon me like everyone else. I tried her patience, her love and her endurance. But, through it all, she never gave up on me. Though it took me a lot of years to finally realize, she was the first person in my memory that truly showed me she loved me. For no other reason than she just did.

I remember once asking her if I could call her "Mom," and it hurt me when she said no. She told me she wasn't trying to replace Bonnie as my mother and I told her Bonnie had never been my mother. And I didn't really have memories of my Mom, so she couldn't replace her. But, still she said no. I later realized that she didn't need to be called Mom to be my Mom. Because she was that from day one. She was my protector, my provider, my instructor, my guide and my security. She was everything a mother is supposed to be, yet she didn't need to be called mother to justify it. She didn't need to be honored for doing it, and she didn't require me to say thank you. In fact, every time I did say thank you to her, she downplayed her role in my life as if it weren't everything it was.

Ann and I had a very special relationship. She confided in me and I confided in her. I told her almost everything there was to know about me. My secrets (or almost all of them,) my fears, my passions and my desires. I never really rebelled against Ann, because I was always too grateful for what she had done, and was doing, for me. Ann told me things she hadn't told many people, and some of them I never truly understood why she confided in me, but I knew that she trusted me with her secrets and I never let her down by revealing them. I never broke a promise to Ann. She was the only person who had ever put that much trust in me and I would have died before breaking that trust.

Ann had three kids when I moved in with her: Lisa (1 year older), Glen (9 months younger) and Ken (4 years younger.) Ann never treated me any differently than she did her own three kids. And her kids were sister and brothers to me. We truly fought and loved like brothers and sister, too! Since Dad never gave Ann any money for groceries, utilities, etc., she literally had taken me in and raised me without any help. And she never asked me for anything in return other than respect. And she taught me what respect was because she gave me respect. Not because I had earned it, but just because I was a person. She taught me how to give to others who were in need, without expecting anything in return. She taught me how to love people without expecting anything in return. She taught me that even in our need, we still have things to offer to those who are less fortunate than we are. She didn't teach me any of this with words, though. Every thing she taught me she taught me by example. She lived it and she taught me how to live it.

In the early years of her relationship with my father, when she would break up with him, I'd have to leave with him. But, most times we were back at Ann's within a couple days. Years later she told me there were some of those times she only took him back because of me. It broke my heart to learn that she put up with his abuse and use and other behaviors because of me, but I realized that was her choice and I didn't have any responsibility for it. But, I am so grateful she did. In the latter years, when she would throw him out, I would hear her tell him that he was to leave me there. Of course, he didn't have any problem doing that because he never wanted the responsibility for his children, anyway. If he had, he wouldn't have left me in that motel for six weeks without me knowing where he was or how to contact him.

Through the years of my relationship with Ann, I didn't always treat her with the respect she deserved, however. It wasn't that I really rebelled, but I had my moments of not really wanting to hear the things she needed to say to me. But, she was always right when she would tell me those things and eventually I would listen to what she was trying to teach me and do the right thing. But, I was always stubborn about it. And she always taught me to stay on the straight and narrow, to do what's right and to be honest. It was odd to me that she was the most honest person I ever met and she was in a relationship with the most dishonest person I've ever known: my father. They were truly the exact opposite of one another in every way. She was responsible and she worked hard; he was irresponsible and lazy. She took care of her children and he couldn't care less about his. She had a mother's heart and he didn't have one, at all, it seemed. She could stretch a dollar like no one I've ever met and he blew money without having anything to show for it.

After many attempts to move out of Shreveport, I returned from Los Angeles in August 1989 only to discover that Ann had met someone and had been dating him for a while. His name was Bill and Bill didn't much like me. Ann told me he had asked her why I was still hanging around her since she and my father had split up so many years earlier. He never understood what Ann meant to me or what she had done for me and my relationship with Ann began to falter. Even after I moved to Nashville, though, our relationship continued for a little while. It wasn't until after Ken's death that I had to let the relationship go.

My continued contact with Ann was causing problems in her marriage to Bill and though I hated to let go, I knew I had to. It wasn't right to put Ann in the middle and make her choose because she would, of course, have chosen her husband over me. And I understood that, but that didn't make letting go any easier. Letting go of the one person in your life who had shown you love and acceptance and proved to you that you mattered is extremely hard to do, even when you know it's the right thing to do. It's like ripping your arm or leg off your body and throwing it in a trash heap.

I won't say I severed all ties, because I didn't. Any time I had a real need for prayer there was only one person on the planet I would call: Ann! She was the most amazing prayer warrior I have ever known. Even knowing that God would hear my prayers, I knew He heard Ann's and I made sure if it was something of vital importance, she was the one I called to pray for me. And she always did. She never rejected my prayer requests.

Then came the darkest day I think I've ever faced: 8 October 2015. I saw a post from Lisa on Facebook that Ann had passed away earlier that day. I knew she had been in very poor health for a year or so. She had beat lung cancer in 2014, but soon after she suffered heart failure and was bedridden the last year or so of her life. I had heard people talking about a light going out in the world when a loved one passed, but I had never truly experienced it until that day. The world suddenly became colder and darker and I truly felt lost. It was like a part of me had been ripped out of my soul.

In my life, there was only one person I was ever 100% certain loved me while they loved me and that was Ann. She was the only person who had ever made me feel like I mattered while they were in my life or me in theirs. I had never once had any doubts about her love for me and now she was gone beyond my reach and I would never be able to tell her, again, how much I loved her, respected her and how very, very grateful I was to her and still am, to this day. Without Ann, I wouldn't be the man I am today. I wouldn't be the Christian I am today. I wouldn't even be here, today.

Yes, I know my mother loved me. But, I also know that Mom had prioritized others over me. I never got to have the relationship with her I wanted. Ann had given me what I needed and wanted. And she had never held that back during the times I needed it most. She had always been there for me and I wanted so desperately to be there for her if and when she ever needed it. She is my Mom in every sense except the word. She was from that very first day when she picked me up at the Colonial Inn and took me into her home and into her life, heart and family. She will be until eternity ends as far as my heart is concerned. I didn't get to call her Mom, but she is, was and always be exactly that to me. And I miss her so!

Life Is A Roller Coaster

One day you're up: every single thing seems to be going your way. You're happy, joyful, full of energy and ready to take on the world, single-handedly. The next you are so low you can't even see the mid-way point toward the mountain top. You feel utterly worthless, useless and there's no hope in sight. Some days you feel somewhere in between, where some things are okay, but nothing's really great. These are the days of our lives. Good, bad and indifferent. No one gets to coast along the mountain top every day, but at the same time, no one has to endure the lowest part of the valley every day, either. What most of us don't realize, though, is we do get a choice for most of our days.

It doesn't matter what your circumstances look like, you make a choice each and every morning whether you are going to be happy or sad, good mood or bad, depressed or glad. It's all in your attitude and the best way to keep things under the full, bright sun is to count your blessings. Stop looking at what you don't have and start counting all the many things you have that are not the basic needs of life. Yes, even those are blessings, but think about how much above the basics you've been given, or have achieved. God has blessed each and every one of us in some way that we should be grateful for. It may just be that you are still alive and breathing, but that is the greatest gift of all in this life. That we are still here to love and be loved. That we have another chance to make a difference in someone's life. And being able to make a difference is one of the best blessings I can think of.

Stop thinking about all the wrongs that have been done to you and start thinking about all the right you can do for others. When we give, we elevate our mood and our attitude and achieve that sense of calm, peace and joy. It's not in receiving from anyone, not even from God, that we achieve our best peace, joy and love. It's in our giving! Give of your time, your excess, even out of your need, give! It hurts my heart every time I hear an adult say their favorite part of the holidays is receiving gifts. I've never gotten as much joy in my life by receiving as I have from giving. To brighten someone's day by giving them something they've longed for or something they may not have known they wanted, but they find it fun or amusing. Giving opens my heart up and allows the love I feel to flow out. To see someone smile, even just a little, because of some little something I've done for them warms my heart and soul and gives me joy, unspeakable!

Even if all I can give someone is a smile, I want to be the person who does that. I want to be the one that people say, "I see Jesus in that man." And the only way they will ever see Jesus in me is for me to give them what He gave me: love, mercy, grace, forgiveness and blessing.