You’ve got to be kidding me!
I think I said this at least a thousand times today. Have you ever refinanced your home? If not, let me tell you that they want every stinkin bit of paperwork from your last two years of tax returns….and just about every other financial document you might have in your possession.
Neal and I are refinancing to take advantage of the low interest rates but ‘you know who’ gets stuck with the paperwork!
I spent two hours today (yes TWO hours) copying old tax returns and getting all of the paperwork in order. THEN I set about trying to fax it over to the mortgage guy. Yes, fax…it is still good for something….or so I thought. Apparently my fax/copier/printer/scanner can’t take more than a few pages at a time and when I tried to feed it extra pages it would stop all together and then start over as a new document (erasing what had previously been scanned) or get jammed. This took another HOUR before I lost my mind!
Neal happened to walk in the door at that very moment. I had the stack of papers in my hand babbling and pacing like I was in an insane asylum. Gingerly he took them from my hand. “I’ll take them to work and scan them,” he offered. I felt the insanity seep from my body like water from a spout.
Two seconds later I received a text from a young woman struggling with multiple ways of self-harm. I’ve been corresponding with her for a while and have been with her as she has gone through treatment and continues with the struggle. In this text she pointed out the continuing struggle and her frustration towards those that are wanting to help her. “I hate my life,” she said.
I’m going to be honest. That statement frustrated me even more. Granted, I know she is young and the enemy has a hold of her like no other but at times after helping someone for so long you want to hear that they want to help themselves not that they are frustrated with the help and don’t value their life. It’s moments like these I want to reach through the phone and take her by the shoulders to give her a good SHAKE!
My frustration isn’t towards her it’s towards the enemy and society for the influence it provides to cause this dreadful struggle.
I’m desperate for her to know her worth. To know God in the way in which she can believe she is a survivor and not a victim of ED or self-mutilation. My heart aches. I wish I could have a time machine to throw her into it and beam her into her moment of freedom where she’ll look back on this young ‘self’ and weep for who she once was and yet rejoice for the victory she proclaims.
An hour later on my way home from picking up my boys from school I receive a phone call from someone referred to me. She mentioned not ever talking to anyone about what has been done to her. My boys were in the car so I knew I couldn’t talk at the moment so I asked if I could call back. However when I went to call back ten minutes later she was ‘out of range’ and an operator told me her cell service couldn’t take the call! 🙁
Yes, one of those days. GET BEHIND ME SATAN!!! 😉 “For God so loved the world…” and He loves me, YOU and these young women so I know all will be OK. I just need to have a new day.
Ever have one of these days???
9:39pm – 3 hours AFTER I wrote the above entry! OH MY GOODNESS!!!!
I tried to publish the above blog entry at 6:30pm and it wouldn’t publish. The computer kept freezing up so I had to log out adding to my frustrating day….so I walked away from it and headed to my friend’s shop, Jennika’s, to get my childhood best friend a 40th birthday gift. On my way there I got a hold of the young woman that had tried to call me earlier. I ended up talking to her for an hour while I sat in my car in the parking lot. To hear this young woman’s story…WOW.
Here is a quick break down( as much as I can safely give) early 20’s / was ‘taken’ at the age of 15 from her home country / sold and used for prostitution / smuggled across the US border / sold again / ‘saved’ by a man who got her out (I still need to hear a bit more about this b/c it’s too sketchy) whom she is still with / has managed to get her high school diploma, and a certification in a service career AND has college credit to go on and get a college degree
May I remind you she is in her early 20’s and speaks two languages? Amazing amazing young woman. Amazing SURVIVOR. 🙂
She read my book that someone gave her and she needed to talk to someone that ‘understood’ (thank you GOD!)… so I listened. Then she asked me HOW she could overcome. What?! I reminded her of how she HAS overcome! I reminded her of the survivor she is and that she is amazing. By the end of our talk she was laughing and telling me she wanted to remind herself of ‘how amazing’ she is every day. (ALLELUIA!) It will be a long road but I can hear it in her voice…she can overcome anything. Her past does not define who she is today or what she will achieve tomorrow.
I’m blessed to have ended this day with the gift of hearing her story and reminding her WHO she is in God.
Blessings
Shannon