When you have lived a life as I have,((up to this point), changing daily thanks to God, therapy, my husband, and amazing friends), you teach yourself not to "feel" things. That if something "hurts", it is you that is the problem, not the situation. You just FEEL too much. That you are overreacting, and being "too" sensitive. Oh, and my personal favorite I used to use on myself all the time. . . "Just get over it!" (As if its that simple).
     These phrases used to all be part of my inner dialogue, and a major part of my believe system.
Some other lies I believed were, . . .
If you "feel" you hurt.
If you cry you are weak.
If you show emotions you will fail.
    No one told me these lies or forced them upon me. In fact, no one talked about emotions at all really, and you know what? We still don't.
    Even in  the church I feel we sugar coat some of our sadness and pain with this phrase especially, . . . "Well, so and so has it worse." Can I, just for a moment, let you know that there is no scale on emotional pain. If you hurt, you feel because you are alive. Yes, someone may have it worse, but that doesn't diminish your hurt. There is no scale! (blog post in the works on that one).
    First off, I do believe that God will help us, fight for us, and guide us. He also has an amazing ability to find something in a horrible events that can bring us clarity, or help us shine for Him even brighter. But if we thought about it for a moment, can we recognize that maybe sometimes we, or people we know, use statements to brush off, or aside the pain they are really feeling. And a lot of times we let them, cause lets be honest, sometimes emotions make us uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that so many of us apologize for them, (yes, I'm raising my hand, me too). There are many days that I wanna say bring on the Novocain, and numb it all up again. Because truth be told, feeling is hard,  messy, and gosh darn it hurts! But if I could remind you of a verse that the Lord has reminded me of time and time again lately, 
              John 11:35 Jesus wept.
  Yep, the Creator Himself "felt".
 I truly believe when we unnumb, and stop  apologizing for feeling, we can have a deeper relationship with Our Heavenly Father and who He created us to be.
         So what do you say?         
​     Will you start to feel with me?
     

      "OK, we get it. Enough already, you have issues. You have shared enough! SHUT UP ALREADY!!"
      This is the inside me voice. The one that sits in the back high on its pedestal judging. Judging all my words and actions. "Play the part. Walk the line." The voice that says. . ." you're making it all about you. You talk too much.  Shut up already." It vocalizes the doubt I may feel. Hugs the self hatred I hide.  Makes it about earning instead of grace given.  The old me. The one who lacked self esteem. The one who needed approval.
     Yes, I deal with this voice too. But it's just a voice, not a soul. It doesn't speak truth. Just talks. So on the days when it tries to speak up. Or when I doubt and start to listen to it, I will choose to remember why I share my story. Why I am open. Why I air my messy life on the internet.
    GRACE! Because of redemption! Because I know how to silence fear now. FAITH. Faith in action. Each time I share, each time I post, I am speaking truth. I am believing in grace. I am punching fear in the face and saying, "NO!" I will not be silent!" I will not pretend that just because I am a Christian I have it together. I will not let the fake me rise again, because I like the real me. I might even love her some day soon, and I believe she is loved. Not because of anything I have done, or will do but what the Savior in heaven has done for me. I hurt, and I  bleed. I get confused, feel sad and feel angry. The point is I feel. I have fallen on my face before, and I will again. But next time while I'm down there, . . I will look up. I will sing of His praises. I will pray. I will feel without believing lies. I will live. I will love, and I will share. 
      I want people to know they are not alone. That anyone can break. Anyone can fall. God will pick you up no matter how many times. With grace. With love. With patience. So as I share, or overshare in these blog posts or face to face. Do not look at me, but the One who rescued me. Saved me. Loves me. Lay down His life for me. For you.

 I write my story. My life. To heal and encourage those who need it. A reminder that there is light. There is help. There is a God. One God, and He is calling you.
 

           I found her! Can you believe it? She was here all along!    Apparently she had been hiding for quite a while. Silenced by her doubt. She thought I didn't want to hear her. I guess if I'm honest I didn't for awhile. It wasn't her fault. I comfort her with that thought. But guess what, if I hadn't broke I wouldn't have found her.  She and I are becoming good friends. Our thoughts intertwine. We weed through the bad and good, then laugh or cry, and finally we heal and move on. We have realized we don't have to protect our heart anymore. We have a Saviors that has that job covered. We talk a lot now. We come up with ideas, some random, some have heart, some silly. That's us. That's me. Because we are one.  I'm learning to like me, spend time with me, . . . be me. The me I was created to be. And in turn saying good bye to her. I don't need her anymore. It's a process. It's long and tiring, and at times I wanna throw in the towel and tell her to come back and numb the feelings.  But I'm starting to realize that numbing makes it hurt worse when you feel it. So, we have talked. Said our good byes. And with open eyes I am seeing . . . .
          Seeing things that I like about me. Seeing my army around me. Seeing God use me even through this storm. I am also learning. Learning to breath.  To feel. To just be. (Probably one of the hardest things for me during this process.) 
       Through this process so far I have been blessed to gain a greater understanding of grace, forgiveness, and acceptance. I am learning to be me. Like me.  I know I am have not completed the  journey, but I am choosing to look at how far I've come, instead of how much further I have to go.  I know, without a doubt that I will eventually be able to say with confidence I love me.   
        So here I am vulnerable and learning to be ok with it. Feeling the feelings. So, . . . I may hug more, cry more, overshare, and it may make you uncomfortable. I apologize in advance if it does. But I found her, and set her free. And in that freedom I am becoming who the Lord created me to be. 

       Much love friends. Whatever part of life's journey you are on, you have my prayers and a God that handle anything. 

     There are moments in life where we feel we have it together, and then there are the moments where we have no idea what we are doing. We bounce from thought to thought with no direction. Even our moments sometimes feel as if they have slowed. We at time find it hard to communicate our thoughts or feelings. Feeling numb and raw at the same time. Not sure where we are suppose to go emotionally or physically. But there is a constant in this hazy fog we are in, . . . .God. He is unchanging and unwavering. He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. We can not shock Him, He sees it before it has happened. His love is a constant even when we are a drift. It doesn't mean we won't ever feel foggy or confused. That our eyes won't push our tears beyond our control. But He is still there. He is the calm in the storm. He is the hand holding you up in the midst of chaos. He is there. He is here. I want to encourage you dear reader that it is ok to not be ok sometimes. You don't always have to know your next move, or how to react to circumstances. And as a good friend of mine reminds me often. Jesus wept. He cried, it's ok for us to cry. It is not a weakness or a burden to Him. It is ok. Because God loves us so much that he weeps too. Stay in your Word dear friends. Hugs from a far as we get through this life together by the grace of God. 

        Words, words, the world is full of words. Many say nothing at all. Some just said to fill space. Too many. I feel overwhelmed by speech lately. As if I have forgotten how to communicate properly. My brain wanders within its self constantly, and I feel it is a burden to pretend I am in the present. Many times I will shake my head in the middle of a conversation, thinking somehow it will bring be into the present moment. To somehow break the chains that hold me in my mind. Many times I will blame it on "mom brain" or lack of coffee when I ask you to repeat something over again to me. I notice myself avoiding eye contact constantly. Worried that you can see the crazy I'm trying to hide. The lack of sleep because anxiety loves to visit in the night, keeping me up for hours. My mind won't ever rest, keeping me constantly exhausted. I wonder if I have somehow lost me. If I will someday turn back into the happy girl that laughed a lot. If there will be a time where I can look back and see how far I have come. And that right there is what keeps me going. I do have hope that this will end, and I will be a better version of who I was.  I believe I will laugh without effort again. That this terrible anxiety will release my heart and mind. I have hope in a new day. I have hope in a healing only God can provide. I have hope. I also want you to have hope. I want you to see that that I am in the middle of this chaos, and emotional healing. That I hurt and feel heavy, but I know I will heal and you will too. I pray my journey through these rocky roads I am traveling now can help you. That sharing my personal emotional struggle can make you not feel so alone. That we can be Christians, and still struggle with emotional trauma, depression, and anxiety. That its ok for us to get help. That its ok to not be ok. I know my sweet husband didn't sign up for this to be me right now. I thank God for him and his support. And to my friends that just let me be quiet, or let me cry, thank you. To those in this struggle right now, I get it.  Don't let the devil silence you. Get help, find someone to talk to. The hardest step is the first. This is only my advice, and I send my prayers. Let God be your guide. Much love friends look up, there is hope.

    I have kicked, spit on, and hated her. I have told her she is worthless, weak, and disgusting. I have not let her say what's on her mind. I have edited and held her back. I have photoshopped a smile on her face while she was drowning in self hatred. I have told her she is unlovable. I have starved her, and told her that her hunger pains were a punishment for her ugliness. I made her believe no one would love her. That no matter how hard she tried she would fail at any and every task. That she could trust no one, and had to earn all their approval. I convinced her that others opinions of her matter more than anything. I made her believe that she deserved all this punishment and more.
      And you know what? She believed me. She not only believed these lies, she taught others that they should believe them too. She accepted the physical and verbal abuse from others. She spent countless hours picking apart every ounce of her physical appearance and personality. She never felt good enough. She was always lonely, sad, and depressed. If by chance someone saw her true inner beauty and commented on it she would disregard it as a lie, and move on. Pretty soon I didn't need to involve myself in this battle because she took it over. She was the accuser and punisher all in one. She berated herself, she took on all the lies as truths and filled her heart with them. 
     Then one fateful day she let her mind wander. She wondered what it would be like if she didn't believe these things. What if all that she believed to be true about herself were really lies. What if the truth was the opposite of what she thought? That's when I started to loose my grip. . . . . 
      She decided to read about what the Creator said about her, not her mind. In a quiet desperate moment she prayed. . . . 
      "God, please show me who you say I am, because I don't know anymore."
      A simple prayer, but to the Creator it was a melody to His ears. So she started reading.  What she found in that book was truth, grace, and freedom. The lies I had told her started to fade in the background. One by one she stopped believing what I had told her. She started to speak more. She started laughing and being happy. I was furious, all this hard work to keep her down was failing. So I tried tripping her. I made her world crumble little by little. I took people out of her life thinking it would devastate her, but to my frustration God put more in. Next thing I knew she had an army beside her! Any lie I would try slip in she had four truths she would throw back! She started calling me a liar. Telling me to shut up! Can you believe it?! Who did she think she was?! She started telling others I was a liar, and not to believe me. She was really pissing me off! 
      So I threw all I had at her. I threw sickness, stress, worry, and every emotional burden I could think of. I wreaked havoc on her mind. I brought every bad memory to the surface of her mind. By the time I was done I was exhausted, . . . .  spent.  . . . .but it was worth it when  she started to cry.
      Yes! I thought, finally! Get her back to where I had her. I sat back and watched my handy work. Feeling quite happy with myself I looked at her with a sneer. That ought to teach you I thought. . . . . But it was not done. . . . .
      Wait . . . .what?!!! I had to rub my eyes to check that I was seeing correctly. I still heard her tears, but she wasn't alone. Her army that He had built for her was there! They were picking her up and wiping her tears. They were reminding her of all the truths, and that she wasn't alone.
     She stood up, so I tried to knock her down again, but somehow she was stronger!!!! How is this possible? 
      Not only was she stronger, but she was madder than a hornet. She came at me guns blazing. She spoke truth. She lived truth, and she loved with her whole heart. Her heart, the one thing I had worked so hard to break. Now it was healthy and filled to the brim with love and hope.
        Hope. I hate that word because I know its connected to "Him". the One on High. I now know who she got her strength from. Where all of her army got it. That's why they are stronger than me.
     Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up completely. I still got some curve balls ahead for her, but if she keeps building that faith I don't know if I can break her.
  

Obviously, you can tell this is about me. It is my story. My life.  Many of you know me now, not how I was. This is my way of sharing the realness of life. This is dedicated to my army, (you know who you are), thank you!!! Read your bible friends. Devotions are nice and sweet, but armor yourselves with the truth. Don't believe the lies anymore. Much love and prayers friends. 
​Devonne Ramer 

     I know I am a broken person. Broken and healed, (by God's grace), time and time again. But some days I truly feel it. Broken. As if my insides are made of very thin glass. One wrong turn, or  slight breeze may destroy all I hold together. And try as I may I feel suspended in time, afraid to move or I will start to crack. And one small crack is all it takes for all I'm holding in to break.
     Broken. We have all felt that way from one time or another. Old wounds or new ones festered and blistered. I think I have had a false impression, or idea that when you trust and believe in God you don't worry or hurt the same anymore. I am learning for me personally I don't believe that anymore. The realization hit me the other day. Let me get a little personal here so I can explain . . . . My mother is scheduled for a major heart surgery coming up very soon. She has had one before, 20 years ago to be exact, and we almost lost her that time. I won't get into all the details because I don't want to think about it, even though my mind had been replaying it over and over in my mind for the last month. Needless to say it was a scary time, and we are so blessed to still have her with us.
      So as it's been getting closer and closer to this date my heart has felt a little more broken. I have been hard on myself to stay unemotional, because after all I trust God and He's got it under control. But last night as I finally allowed myself some quiet time to think about it, and  . . .  I broke. I felt ripped in two. And I cried. I cried and sobbed so hard and so long I didn't know if I could stop. As tears kept coming I cried out to God. I told Him I trust in Him but I'm still scared. That I can't erase these terrible nightmares and images from the past. And I told Him I was sorry I was crying. (Yes I actually prayed that). It was then that I remembered a verse. "We are made in His image." I finally realized that He  understood my emotions better than me. That it was ok to be scared, it didn't mean I had less faith. In that moment I allowed myself to fully break because I truly believe the healer Christ Himself was holding me. 
     So it's ok to be broken like me. Just because we break doesn't mean we can't be put back together again. It doesn't mean the pain will last forever. But I also think it's ok to  acknowledge it, give it to God, and when the tears fall please know He is holding you.

      I can go days, sometimes months without writing, just absorbing details of everyday life to write down for another day. Then there are days, like today, when I feel I cannot type quick enough.
    I want to share something that has been on my heart for awhile now, but was really driven home today. . . .  I need to remember to look past me. What do I mean by that? Not just see my needs, my wants, my problems, but look past myself. As you know, I am a bit of a story teller, and  I normally have a story that helps me understand something I feel God is trying to teach me, so here it goes. . . . . 
     I was waiting patiently in the restroom waiting for my son to finish up. It was just me in there. A woman came in to wash her hands. She started washing her neck as well. I made small talk with her because those of you who know me know I talk to everyone. She started to talk about why she was washing her neck. She had just come from a throat ultra sound. She has throat cancer, . .again. She also found out she might loose her last vocal cord meaning she could potentially loose her voice. 
      Let that sink in for a  moment. No voice. Finding a whole other way to communicate. How would you handle that? 
      She stated she is just trying to stop crying so she could go back to work. I swear I thought I could hear my own heart crack at her story. And yet it wasn't just a story, this was her reality. I asked her if I could hug her and she said yes. I asked if I could pray for her and she said yes. I said a quick prayer for peace and for her to have a beautiful day feeling loved. I let her go and she continued to talk some more. Her thoughts, and fears if this potential diagnoses, and I listened. I encouraged her in taking time for herself only when there was a long pause. But mostly I listened. I looked past me, and what I saw was someone hurting that needed to talk. I didn't care if I would be late to my own appointment. It didn't matter in that moment because I needed to look past me. After about 20 minutes she gave me a hug goodbye and left. I said I would keep her in my prayers and thoughts.
     Why is this important? Why do I feel compelled to share this story? Because what would happen if we all looked past us a little more often?  Here I was for my sons ear infection appt while this woman may never be able to tell her children she loves them again. How small our problems seem when we look past ourselves. When we take the blinder off that make us just see our needs, our wants, our desires. And more than that, looking outside ourselves and just listening to someone. Just listen. No advice, sometimes not even a word of encouragement is needed. Just listen. It's a hurting word out there. We need to be the light God created us to be so we can shine for Him. If we can lighten someone's load isn't it worth it? So lets look past ourselves more often. Take off the blinders, and be a light in the dark word.

Mathew 5:14 You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Blessing my friends, and I pray God helps you shine your light for Him. Much love and many prayers as always, Devonne Ramer​