Broken Pieces

Broken Pieces

Today while having a discussion with a very close friend about forgiveness and the power of it, I received some mighty words of wisdom and a very powerful picture lesson.

 This is my interpretation of her explanation;

She said that every time that we have an interaction with someone and we take offence or are hurt we leave a piece of ourselves with that person and many times go away from that relationship because of the pain with unforgiveness in our hearts and we think everything is still OK. When in truth we have a lot of little pieces of ourselves with all of the people that we have not forgiven. The moment that we forgive each person those pieces of ourselves are returned to us and this is how we become whole.

As she was explaining this analogy to me something amazing happened. I began to see a visual picture of understanding of just how powerful releasing others is to being a whole person. I loved this word picture.

I have always embraced the truth about forgiveness but this picture added to the many instances that I have personally experienced the power of releasing someone that has done you wrong.  But something else was added to what she shared as well, I began to understand what happens when someone else has something against you and is holding a piece of you and refuses to let you go.

Now like everyone else I have forgiven many people not because they deserved it or even because I felt it would make the situation better. I forgave because I had a understanding of how bitterness can set in when we hold un-forgiveness in our hearts and minds towards another one of Gods children. I have done this to set myself free and to be able to love the way God says we as his Sons and Daughters should respond.

During a specific incident I had an individual that was very close to me refuse to forgive me for something she felt she was right about. I had over a period of time released her in forgiveness and had asked her to forgive me as well. She chose not to accept the gift I was offering and instead made the conscious choice to continue to keep a piece of me. Our relationship that was once very close was now estranged.

Even though we were not in constant contact I could feel that there was something that was still holding me and I needed to make it right. I am not into the practice of forcing anyone  to do something against their free will. So I began to pray and ask God to help this person to forgive me. It took almost 3 years but it happened.

 I saw her at many events but each time she avoided me and I could feel the pain of what she was carrying and it made my heart sad. I wanted to be free from her un-forgiveness so I continued to pray. Then one day while I was at a prayer event she walked in through the door. Somehow I knew that that day she would forgive me.

During a special prayer time I was asked to pray for her by one of the leaders and as I blessed her and spoke Gods word over her life something happened. Later that day she came up to me and spoke a word of blessing and release over my life and the piece of myself was returned to me.

Through this situation I began to understand not just the power of me forgiving others, but also the power of receiving forgiveness from others. These small pieces of myself can be used to torment and hold me from being the person that God has always intended me to be.

I began to start to pray for anyone that was holding anything against me in their hearts and minds.  I began to call back the pieces of myself that were being held hostage.

Then true freedom and the feeling of it started to flow my way.

My prayer is that this visual explanation would touch your life as well and that you would begin to call back all the pieces of yourself into position so that you can become whole again

Forgive and be forgiven and walk in the power of it.

I was my own Drug Dealer

Now I know what your first thoughts must be when you read a title like this one but read on before you make any assumptions, judgments or refer to your already established preconceived ideas and beliefs about drug dealers.

I was a drug addict and I was addicted to the drug Fiorinal. It came in a pill form that is taken orally that contains butalbiltal, aspirin and caffeine.  It was prescribed for me by my heath care professional as I was a chronic migraine suffer. Now for those of you that have never suffered a migraine you may have some difficulty understanding how I could be a wife, a mother of three, professional business woman and a Christian leader and still become addicted to drugs. But if you have ever had one migraine or like myself suffered daily with a pain so excruciating that you thought your head would explode and that surely you had a bomb going off in your brain and this was it- your last moment on earth. Or at the least you felt like you wanted it to be. Then you will fully understand my story.

Now all drug addiction starts with one main ingredient- pain. You have some sort of pain and you want it to subside, go away or just be able to forget it for a while. My pain wasn’t just internal, it wasn’t imaginary, neither was it getting any better, as a matter of a fact it was getting worse and more frequent. Like every human being that suffers, I really just wanted it to stop. For many years I tried natural ways to handle the intensity of these headaches that were quite debilitating and most of the time I just suffered through the pain and became more resilient.

So when my doctor offered Fiorinal to me I thought about it and felt that the benefit to me would be worth any of the risks of the side effects. Never did I once imagine that becoming addicted would be a side effect.

This is what happened. The Fiorinal actual began to work. Whenever I felt an aura or the beginning of a migraine coming on I would take a Fiorinal and sometimes it wouldn’t go any further and if it did then it would just be a light headache and end very quickly. This was a miracle drug to me as I had suffered with migraines from a very young age and nothing had ever given me this type of result.

But then after renewing my prescription a few times I remember my husband asking me if I thought maybe I was taking too many of them. I became irritated and angry, I even suggested that he was more worried about all the money they were costing than he was about me. Yes as any drug addict can tell you money wasn’t an object to stop me from getting my next fix. Fiorinal was not cheap, it was pretty expensive but it was worth the relief or at least that was the lie I was telling myself so I could live supposedly pain free.

 In truth I had increased the dosage prescribed, I was taking it more frequently and even if I had a thought that my head might begin to hurt I popped in a pill. After some secret soul searching I had to admit to myself that I was addicted. But what was I going to do? I couldn’t go back to the pain.

In here lies the dilemma that every addict asks themselves- do I go back to the way it was? What do I do now? I was faced with the truth that I was addicted but felt powerless to stop. As I put the pros and cons on the scale to measure it was very imbalanced. The drugs were heavily winning. In my mind I needed these drugs to continue with life. Or did I?

I was brought back to my early childhood when I was a thumb sucker for comfort. Sucking my thumb was something I began as a baby in my crib all alone to soothe and comfort myself when no one was giving me love and affection. It continued into my childhood and even adolescence until I was 12 years old and my buck teeth began to protrude out. Then one day I just threw away the embroidered pillowcase that I used to scratch when I slept and sucked my thumb. I had tried everything to stop up until this point. I had put the most disgusting things on my thumb, wrapped it up at night, hid it under my pillow while I slept , but every morning when I woke up my thumb was still in my mouth. Then one day I just decided that I wasn’t ever going to suck my thumb again and I stopped. I never sucked my thumb ever again. Cold turkey is what they call it. I made a decision and I stuck to it.

That was what I would do now. So I fired myself as my own personal drug dealer. I flushed away all the pills I had left in the toilet and to this day have never taken another Fiorinal or other drug for the migraines. The withdrawal symptoms were difficult but I was determined to beat this addiction.  I was also willing to face the pain and instead of masking the hurt I would go on a search to find the root cause of why these headaches had such control in my life. I am glad to say that I am no longer a migraine sufferer but the way I received that miraculous healing is for another story.

  They now have a warning attached to Fiorinal -This medication may cause withdrawal reactions, especially if it has been used regularly for a long time or in high doses. In such cases, withdrawal symptoms (such as nausea/vomiting, mental/mood changes, seizures) may occur if you suddenly stop using this medication. Consult your doctor or pharmacist for more details, and report any withdrawal reactions immediately. Though very unlikely, abnormal drug-seeking behavior (addiction) is possible with this medication.

I really wish that this warning had been on the bottle I began using when this drug first arrived on the market. But then I wouldn’t have had the understanding or the courage to face the truth about the pain that I was experiencing that was the catalyst for these migraines. Truth comes to us in many ways and my prayer is always that no matter how difficult or painful the process, that aligning my life with Truth would be a foundational principle that I choose to live by.