For some reason lately my mind has been walking the hallways of the past and so many things have come to surface. One of the things I've come to realize lately is that during my life I have applied a lot of superficial band aids over the wounds in my heart.

Instead of facing and dealing with a lot of things I tended to put them in a basket and and cover that basket over with a virtual cloth. Maybe I felt by covering the hurts that I would not have to face them because in a sense I could not see them. So I went through life with that basket covered and turned a blind eye to the emptiness within my own heart.

I spent my life trying to make others happy and did whatever it took to do that. Many times I did things I did not really want to do but it made someone else happy. I spent many years living with an inner pain in my heart and my soul because instead of taking care of my own wants and needs I did for others.

I stayed in 2 bad marriages because for some stupid reason I did not want to rock anyone else's boat. I took physical and mental and emotional abuse because I felt I deserved it. You see that superficial band aid covered up what I wanted and what I needed. It stopped me from taking care of my own wants and needs to the point that I let others run my life and rule what I did right or wrong.

That superficial band aid made it possible for me to hide what was happening to me. It hid what was happening to my heart and my soul. It hid the wrong that I was doing. It hid the person I truly wanted to be. I spent my life making wrong choices.

My turning point came when I lost my will to live. On cold February morning I woke up and decided that I no longer wanted to live. You see I felt like I was at the end of my rope. I just could not take any more. I felt like I had nothing left to live for. My daughters had left to live with their father and that left a hole in my world and in my heart that nothing could ever fill. I had been through more abuse and some of the worst kinds of  abuse in my life by my early 30's than most people I personally know had been through in 70 years. I had lost both my parents and felt I was very much alone in the world. I felt that all I ever did was mess up in life. My third marriage was again abusive and again I had made a bad choice. My then husband was a bad alcoholic as well.

I went to bed that night with my mind made up to kill myself the next morning. I had been in the barn earlier that evening and had brought into the house rat poison. I intended to ingest it after my husband at the time, left for the day. It had been a night of him in a drunken abusive stupor and me in tears and hating myself for being the cowardly person I was. I felt if I took the rat poison and followed it down with some of the rye he had left on the kitchen counter it would be a nice easy way out for me.

Well in the wee hours of the morning my phone rang and on the other end of the line was my youngest daughter with the news that is partly responsible for me being here today.  She informed that I was finally a grandmother. My eldest daughter had had her first child.

When I hung up that phone I had the deepest pain in my heart and the loneliest feeling in my soul. This was mixed with the joy of becoming a grandmother. An honor that at the time I did not feel I deserved.

I sat there at my desk and thought about things. I thought of death and of not ever seeing my granddaughter.  I looked over at my bed and saw my drunken husband lying there in a pool of his own urine and I knew that there had to be another answer.

I sat there until the sun came up and as I watched the sunrise I heard someone talking within my head, and no matter what I did the voice would not go away. I had given myself to Jesus in the spring of 1982 but suddenly I knew that what I had done was put another superficial band aid over things. Believing that since I had given my soul to Jesus I was a Christian.  I suddenly realized that I was not a Christian until I started acting like one. I was not a Christian until I started to "Let Go-Let God"

Suddenly I realized what I had done all my life up until that very morning when my phone rang.

I had stolen, I had lied, I had cheated, but do you know who from?  Yes, I had stolen from myself, I had lied to myself, I had cheated myself, I had let myself down. I also finally realized that more importantly I had done all those things to God as well.

All of a sudden that morning I finally realized that I had a big hand in all that had happened to me in my life. Along with the other people who had brought me pain and heartache I had helped them deliver  it upon myself with ease.

The voice in my head had moved to my heart and I dropped to my knees there beside my desk and I prayed harder then I had ever prayed in my life. I prayed for guidance to do what was right for myself and for others concerning me. I prayed for the strength and the ability to change my life for the good and to stop being a coward. I prayed to be able to make a move in the right direction for my life. I asked God's forgiveness for being such a coward as to want to die when I had so much to live for.

As I prayed I felt a warmth come over me like that of being held close in someone's arms. When I rose from my knees I felt weak but I felt good. For the first time in a long time I felt peace within myself. I went into the bathroom and had a long hot shower and then I went into my kitchen and made a cup of tea and I went out to the barnyard and stood and watched my animals as they greeted the day.

That day I waited until my then husband left the farm and then I backed the pickup truck up to the kitchen door and I filled it with 45 boxes of personal things. I went into town and rented a tiny little house and I moved into it. For the next 9 months I worked every hour I could until I had enough money to move back to my hometown. I left Alberta, Canada and returned to Ontario, Canada on a cold crisp December afternoon.

On my drive back from Alberta to Ontario I prayed and I prayed and I made up my mind that no one would ever lay a hand on me again and no one would ever abuse me in any form again.

I vowed I was going to finally live my life my way and no one was going to interfere again.

I arrived back in Ontario, Canada in the wee hours of a very cold December night. I moved in with my daughter and son-in-law and my grandchild. I lived with them until the first of February and then got my own place.

I remember my son-in-law telling me how proud he was that I had come so far in such a short time.  I continued to work and reshape my life to the best of my ability.

Today I am pretty much who I want to be and pretty much where I want to be. I have never let a day go by without prayer and I have never again wished to die. Today I am the proud grandmother of 3 gorgeous granddaughters and 2 wonderful grandsons. Today I take care of others by choice. Today I try to bring hearts together in peace and in happiness.

Today I am the person I should have been many many years ago. For that I thank a middle of the night phone call and I thank God. I thank God for helping me to see what I could do with my life and I thank God for giving me strength and courage to go forward instead of backward. I thank God for yesterday's lessons and today's actions. I thank God for being my "Higher Power". I thank God for helping me to be me.

God Bless 
Misker