Burdens to Blessings E-Book

Kim Crabill

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 241

Beschreibung

From the time Kim Crabill experienced a life-altering trauma at age four, she became an expert in hiding her hurt and confusion behind a mask. The trick, she discovered, was to sing a little louder in choir, study a little harder at school, and smile a little wider with friends. Then no one would notice how damaged her heart was.   Kim became a classic overachiever academically and socially. As an adult, she could even speak before crowds with her mask fully intact. But she could not hide from the pain of her past, and pain that expressed itself through anorexia and diet pill addiction, loneliness, depression, and anxiety attacks.   In her transparent story, Burdens to Blessings, Kim invites you along her journey from shame and sadness toward healing and hope. In the process you will encounter the upside-down truth that God uses you because of your hurt and uncertainty. The very things you regret the most—the things you hope no one ever discovers about you—are what God wants to use to enrich your life and the lives of others around you.   Discover the confidence and courage to quit hiding and show your true self to God and others. Then watch out, because you will be showered with opportunities beyond your wildest dreams to help other hurting people change their burdens to blessings.

Leseprobe

BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC

Racine, Wisconsin, USA

BroadStreetPublishing.com

BURDENSto Blessings: Discover the Power of Your Story

Copyright © 2016 Kim Crabill

ISBN-13: 978-1-4245-5296-2 (softcover)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4245-5297-9 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188, USA. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked MSG are from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Scripture quotations marked NLV are taken from the New Life Version, copyright © 1969 by Christian Literature International. Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NCV are taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NET are taken NET Bible® copyright ©1996–2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked CEB are taken from the Common English Bible, Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible. Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible, copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation.

Used by permission. Any added emphases are those of the author.

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Printed in the United States of America

16 17 18 19 20 5 4 3 2 1

To my mother,

whose final choice of honesty

freed me to live in truth.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

Brown-Bag Burdens

CHAPTER ONE

A Princess Story Goes Wrong

CHAPTER TWO

Dare to Believe

CHAPTER THREE

Seize God’s Timing

CHAPTER FOUR

Fight for Your Future

CHAPTER FIVE

Step Out and Discover

CHAPTER SIX

Embrace Today’s Opportunities

CHAPTER SEVEN

Never Give Up!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

Brown-Bag Burdens

(What You Need to Know Before You Read Any Further)

It all began in our local grocery store. I had prepared for the Bible study I’d be leading the next day and was now grabbing a few snacks for our introductory session. As I walked down the paper goods aisle, I had this overwhelming urge to purchase, of all things, brown paper lunch bags. Now, I have to stop here and explain why this urge was so phenomenal. You see, as a Southern-born-and-bred woman, I don’t “do” ugly brown bags! I prefer raspberry and lime green with a hint of polka dots or powder-pink with an orange sherbet stripe. A brown paper bag would never enter my mind except as an object of derision. So you can imagine my dilemma as I stood looking at those bags and thinking that the urge to purchase them was a “divine” urge. I was pretty sure I was not only supposed to buy them, but also to hand them out to my guests.

Oh no, no, NO! I plowed on past the bags, determined to ignore my urge. You’ll be sorry! was the next thought to enter my mind. Do you really want to fight these crowds again just to come back and buy those ugly bags? Because you will be buying them!

Who is talking? I asked myself (though I was pretty sure I knew). Is this a joke? (Again, I knew the answer to my own question—it wasn’t a joke.) I reversed my cart and returned to the aisle with the paper bags. Just looking at them made me cringe.

I tried bargaining. You know, I suggested, if—and I mean if—I really will need paper bags I will just stroll on over to the gift wrapping section. At least there I can buy some pretty bags! I can coordinate with the season or, even better, with my kitchen décor!

I was pretty proud of my proposed compromise, but the insistent voice was not. No! Not raspberry and lime green with a hint of polka dots, not powder pink with an orange sherbet stripe, not seasonal, not even trendy taupe … only plain old brown paper bags will do.

We all have “brown paper bags” that we carry around to hold our hurts.

With my confusion and frustration rising, I grabbed the silly bags and stuck them in the back of the grocery cart underneath the raspberry-colored toilet paper.

Driving home, doubts crept in. “God, was that You? As crazy as this sounds, are You behind this brown bag incident in which I just embarrassed myself at the grocery store?”

Turns out He was behind it, and soon I knew why.

Ladies, Pack Your Bags

Standing before the group the next morning, I gave each woman in the room an ugly brown paper bag. Then I asked, “If you could pack anything in this bag that you would like to eat, what would it be?” What a wonderful icebreaker! Our answers told a lot about who we were and where we came from. It was fun! But no one was prepared for my next question: “What’s in the bag that’s eating at you?”

Over the course of the previous evening, I had again asked God, “Why the bags?” Then I spent time listening for His answer. I began to realize we all have “brown paper bags” that we carry around to hold our hurts, tragedies, disappointments, unfulfilled dreams, abuses, addictions, and more. None of us, Southern or not, like these bags. We just aren’t quite sure what to do with them. We try to hide them. And, oh yes, we definitely try to pretty them up with our busy little lives, happy little smiles, and peppy little personalities. But no matter what we do, we know they are there, don’t we? I can say this so assuredly because I carried around my bag for more than twenty-five years.

The worse part about bags and their burdensome contents is that they eat away at us no matter how cleverly we try to deny their existence. They nibble at our peace and happiness. They erode our confidence and competence. They gobble up our sense of self-worth. Then, when opportunities come—to serve in our churches, to be a PTA officer, to invite a new neighbor for coffee, to just participate in life—our damaged selves respond in one of two ways: We say yes to all of it to prove our bags cannot hold us hostage, or we decline every opportunity out of fear that participation of any sort will expose what’s in our bags. Either way, our bags full of burdens rob us of real life.

I knew God was behind the brown bag idea because He and I had previously “done business” with my own brown bag. As I found the courage to open my bag and let God see what was in it, I found an amazing thing: God was standing there in the ugly brown bag! He wasn’t put off by my hurts and burdens; He was right in the midst of them, and He was waiting for me there!

That’s a long story that will unfold as you read this book. For now, get yourself an ugly brown paper bag. Don’t feel pressured to do anything with it yet. Eventually, chapter by chapter, you’ll discover ways to use your bag. At times, you’ll want to stash things in the bag. At other times, you’ll feel led to take a fresh look at its contents. The bag will become something unique for each woman who uses this book, but one thing will remain the same for everyone: When you look in your bag, God will be there.

And because of His presence, all those things that have been eating at you will get transformed. From within that ugly bag of burdens will spill forth blessings that God will use to refresh and feed you and the multitude of hurting people all around you. So grab your brown bag and let’s get started.

CHAPTER ONE

A Princess Story Goes Wrong

I have found that when a person finds the courage to be herself and share her story, it gives those around her the freedom to be similarly vulnerable and transparent. This is where burdens become blessings. With that outcome in mind, I begin my story.

Travel with me back to 1962. I was four years old and living in a small town tucked near the Blue Ridge Parkway with a mom, a dad, two brothers, and two sisters. Being the youngest, I was the princess. Not that I was surrounded by royal trumpeters or ladies-in-waiting, but I was surrounded by my daddy’s love. Every time he looked at me, his big smile let me know how much he loved me.

I couldn’t imagine anything better than life in this small town. I delighted in waking each morning to the sound of WBOB, the local radio station, and the smell of bacon on the stove. Even my regular chores were made fun by the fact that, after they were done, I could spend time in my palace—an old reconstructed coal shed. Every afternoon at 3:00, with Mama close behind, I would run down the steps of our white-framed house, across the train tracks, and into the heart of our town where I would watch for Daddy’s head to pop up over the hill as he made his way home from the textile mill. He always made me giggle at his look of surprise that I was there. Even though he was exhausted from a long day of shift work, he would break into his big smile. That was my signal to start running—right into the arms of this man who loved me so much. I can recall the sense of security I would feel each time I tucked my hand in his to begin our walk home. My dad was six foot four, so my arm would soon become completely numb from holding it up so high for so long to maintain my grasp of his hand. But that was OK—I sure wasn’t letting go!

The Day I’ll Never Forget

The day I’ll never forget began as a beautiful autumn day in Virginia. The leaves glistened with changing colors. The air was crisp and cool. As I headed to my palace to play, I had no reason to expect that this wouldn’t be another great day for a four-year-old princess.

When I heard Mama and Daddy calling me to come in, I wasn’t surprised. I had noticed company arriving. But when I walked through the front door I was startled by the mood in our little home. It seemed so gloomy. And why were all eyes on me? I lowered my head, hiding behind my long blonde curls. I felt embarrassed.

Mama was holding my “church dress,” my black patent leather shoes, and my favorite hair bows. Even though I noticed the sad look on her face, I felt a rush of excitement as she told me I was going to wear my favorite clothes to a very special place that day. But then I saw something I had never seen before: tears sliding down Mama’s face.

Later that evening, dressed in my Sunday best, I stood at the back of the church, waiting, with a rice packet in one hand and my packed suitcase in the other. I kept replaying Mama’s strange words to me: “Kim, you know how much we love you. You must always remember that. But today, things will change. You are not going to live with us anymore. Kim, I know this will be very hard but promise me that you will try to be a big girl.”

As the organ’s music neared its end, I began to understand that life as I had always known it was ending as well.

It would take years for me to understand that Mama and Daddy were not my biological parents. They were my grandparents. Linda, who I thought was my sister, was in fact my mother. The “special place” I had been dressed to attend was her wedding to my biological father. After the ceremony, I would leave to begin my new life with them.

I hadn’t believed Mama when she said I had to leave. I was sure Daddy would make it OK. Hadn’t he always made things OK? I knew he loved me way too much to let me go.

The organ was silent now; the vows were said. My new parents approached me and said it was time to go. Be a big girl, I told myself, and I was truly trying to be and probably would have been had I not seen Daddy. The eyes that had only beamed with excitement and delight when he looked at me now revealed sadness. Had I done something wrong? What I saw in his eyes overwhelmed me, and I began to sob. I stretched out my arms to him. “Please, don’t make me go. Please!” Then, turning to those who were taking me away, I tried bargaining: “I’ll give you my hair bows and my black patent leather shoes. Just, please, don’t make me go away!”

The next thing I recall is total darkness. I was in a new house, a new bedroom with no sounds, no familiar smells, and no stream of light like the one that flowed from the streetlight outside my other bedroom. Fear engulfed me. I felt so small in such a vast darkness that I was sure at any moment I would forever be lost. Shivering, I pulled the covers up to my chin, but it didn’t help. I wasn’t shivering from the cold; I was shivering from fear.

Amid the darkness, I could hear something. I listened intently. Was it Daddy? Had he found me? I knew he wouldn’t let me go! But it wasn’t Daddy. It was only a song, one I’d heard before. “Jesus loves me, this I know.” I used to sing it while swinging on the front porch at night, serenading Daddy. Many times at song’s end, I had giggled in disbelief when Daddy told me that, as much as he loved me, there was someone who loved me even more. No way, I recall thinking. How could that be?

Now, as an adult, I know my “Daddy” was right. He had planted truth in my heart: There is someone, Jesus, who does indeed love me more than anyone else can. And it was Jesus who made His way through the dark night to a lonely little girl who was about to begin a turbulent and sometimes terrifying journey toward understanding and accepting His great love.

Meanwhile, the pain had begun, the pain no one else knew about. The pain of a four-year-old girl snatched from the only home she had ever known. Literally pulled from the arms of her daddy as tears streamed down his face. That memory evoked such grief and loss that, for many years, I was unable to stumble my way clear of the devastation. So I tucked away that profound hurt deep inside the darkest corner of my heart, marking the beginning of a life full of pretense and masquerade, beginning with a little girl’s desire to conform and please; spiraling into a teenager’s diet pill addiction, anorexia, and suicidal tendencies; and leading into a young woman’s depression and life of lies camouflaged by busyness, social events, and church membership.

The moment you lose who you are, you start to become who everyone else perceives you should be.

My foundation had been shattered on that fall day in Virginia, my safety and security ripped away. I wasn’t who I thought I was. I wasn’t where I thought I belonged. I began to lose myself in a tumult of unanswered questions. Looking back, I realize the moment you lose who you are, you start to become who everyone else perceives you should be. The moment you lose what you thought you were supposed to do you begin to do what everyone else expects that you should do.

Nothing But a Mistake

One scene from my new life stands out vividly in my mind even today. I had run upstairs to my bedroom to escape the tension and quarrels that were a routine part of life in my new “home.” As was my habit, I left the door cracked open just a bit so I could gauge if the argument was escalating or about to settle. The words I heard this night would govern for decades how I would view myself: “If it hadn’t been for that mistake, we wouldn’t be trapped in this mess.” The rest of the argument made me painfully aware I was their “mistake.”

Those few words sparked my downward spiral from perceived majesty to a mere mistake. The rejection of my birth parents was much more memorable to me than the simple, unconditional love of my grandparents, who had made me feel like a princess.

The Lady in Gray

Within a few years, my new family had grown to three children. I had a little brother and a baby sister. When I was ten, my dad moved us from Virginia to Mt. Airy, North Carolina, where we lived in a small house across from a cemetery.

During long summer days, I would often sit and watch people come and go from that cemetery. At one burial, my heart went out to the lady in gray who had stayed long after the service ended. I noticed that each day thereafter she came to the graveside and just sat. Her shoulders shook, and I knew she was crying. One day I could stand it no longer. I approached her.

What a sweet lady! Even in her sadness she seemed interested in me. Her smile, her gentle voice, the way she looked into my eyes drew me to her. She asked my name and age, remarked on how pretty I was, inquired about where I lived and went to school. Over the course of several visits, I came to cherish my time with this lady in gray. She didn’t seem to care that I was a mistake; she seemed happy that I was there. Eventually I learned that the newly filled grave held her child—a daughter whose life had been claimed in a motorcycle accident. She explained that even though she felt sad about her daughter, she knew she would one day see her daughter again, and that gave her joy.

I understood her sadness, but I could not understand the joy she spoke about. When I asked her about it she whispered to me, “Jesus. He is the one who makes things OK.” In subsequent conversations she would talk about how Jesus was helping her, how Jesus was her strength and her calming force. She said He was the reason for her joy and the reason she could smile even in sadness. I thought Jesus sounded like my granddaddy, and I knew they were friends.

She told me that her daughter was now with Jesus, and that He would come one day and she and her daughter would be reunited.

I tried hard to understand. Every time she spoke of having her daughter taken from her I would feel the sting and hurt of being pulled from my grandfather’s embrace. I’d see the hurt in his eyes. But as my new friend told me about this Jesus, my heart leaped for joy because He made things OK; He reunited separated people.

I told her about the song I had heard the first night after being torn from my granddaddy. “Jesus loves me, this I know.” I described how that song had brought me peace in the midst of the dark, dark night when I had felt so alone. “Is this the same person you speak of?” I naively asked.

“Oh yes,” she answered, “but not just a person, Kim. God! And He loves you! He longs to live in your heart, and He wants you to be ready when it is time for Him to come get you.”

Come get me! How did she know how desperately I needed someone to come get me—how badly I wanted to be rescued! How did she know? Could she sense the pain? The abuse?

“He loves you, Kim,” she repeated, and then she looked toward the sky. “In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, the trumpet will sound and Jesus will split open the skies and take those in whose heart He lives.”

I heard someone else calling my name then, calling in anger. “I have to go,” I told the lady. She hugged me tightly and said, “Hurry on, little one. Continue to be a sweet little girl, and always remember Jesus loves you. He’ll be coming soon for all His children.” That was my last conversation with my nameless friend in gray.

That night, thunder and lightning wakened me from my sleep. No rain fell, but it seemed as if the lightning would rip the sky wide open. The words from my friend at the cemetery came to me: “Jesus is coming back for His children. He will split open the skies.” I began to tremble and cry. Is Jesus coming tonight? I wondered. Her words seemed to echo from the skies, from the mysterious swaying of the trees, and from the silent gravesites. I grew convinced that this had to be the night Jesus was coming back for His children, and I was not ready. And what was worse, I didn’t know how to get ready.

Not until sunrise did I feel safe enough to rest my head upon my pillow. From a little girl’s perspective, my endless pleading for Jesus to wait had worked. Unexplainable as it was, I had discovered a new calmness. I was sure everything would be OK. I was completely unaware that my sincere cry was all Jesus had needed to come into my life. Didn’t you have to be in a church to make such decisions? And when would I ever find myself back in such a place to make my decision? These questions haunted me for a long, long time. I was oblivious to the fact that my name was being written into the Book of Life, and that heaven’s inhabitants were in praise because of a sinner’s repentance. And I didn’t have to know; my incomplete understanding didn’t make it any less true.

My lack of understanding, however, caused growing confusion and doubt when my life didn’t get better. Had I not been told He would make all things OK again? I could only assume there was more to accepting Jesus than anyone had yet told me. Meanwhile, I had to find some way to survive the continuing abuse and heartache at home.

Send in the Masks

To this day, I can’t tell you who taught whom to mask. I can tell you, though, that mask wearing became a way of life, a means of survival for a troubled family in a small community. As we stepped across the threshold of our home into the outside world, we became what the community perceived us to be.

And what was that perception? Well, just count us among your ordinary church-going, choir-singing, all-American families. Mother and Daddy had great careers; we lived in a beautiful home; all three kids were well behaved, academically skilled, and athletically inclined. We were admirable! A family to be respected! An example to follow!

Yet, the inside was very different from the outside. Inside, we suffered silently. If anyone noticed—at church, at school, among the neighbors—it was never talked about. We smiled, we laughed, we did the walkathons and sat in the Bible studies. Outwardly, we did everything that was expected; and then we closed our door to hide the alcohol addictions, domestic violence, abuse, lies, and more. As for me, I appeared to be just your regular straight-A student, Beta Club member, Miss Teen Time, and fun-loving and gregarious cheerleader. Yet I felt alone and confused. Knowing there was another world and I could not participate in it made me wonder if even God had deemed me a mistake. I silently suffered with an addiction to diet pills, anorexia, depression, and life-altering panic attacks.

But no one knew! No one outside the walls of our home had any idea. Or if they did, they never questioned the façade. Not the neighbors we saw every day, not the teachers or other students at school, not the minister with whom we interacted at each of the three church services we attended weekly, not the ladies who sat beside Mother at the office day after day or in Bible study week after week, year after year. They didn’t know because we didn’t want them to know. We oh-so-proficiently protected the secret. We dressed stylishly, walked confidently, smiled, smiled, smiled, and never but never maintained eye contact for too long. We learned to use body language to intimidate all who dared approach too closely. We manipulated schedules, knew when to change the subject, kept others talking about themselves. Oh yes, we knew how to protect the secret. Time ticked by, and we kept playing our game. Days became years, and the little girl became a teenager and then a woman.

My relationship with Mother was yet another in a series of “performances” in which she and I indulged when necessary. But no matter how cordial our relationship appeared on the outside, at its center was anger and resentment. Time with Mother served only to remind me of a life I believed she had stolen from me. She could have chosen to let me stay where I had been cherished, accepted, and safe. Yet she had watched the hurt; she had seen the tears. Slowly, steadily, the years hardened my heart against this woman for whom I had no respect and less love. My hurt was all her fault.

Me? A Mom?

I had found success in almost everything I undertook: school, career, community service, volunteering. Everything but relationships, that is. I had failed miserably at those. I kept people at arm’s length and promised myself I would never again fall victim to love. So how did I find myself married and, soon after, pregnant? I awakened to the reality in horror!

With each of my previous endeavors, I was prepared. I had studied and researched exactly how to achieve “success.” But I had no picture of what success looked like for a mother. I knew only one thing: I did not want to be like my mother.

I dug out my old early childhood development textbooks. I perused every parenting manual I could find. Nonetheless, I felt utterly unprepared and unqualified to be a mom. Still, the day came. Arriving at the hospital, I was placed on a stretcher and taken to the delivery room. I shivered against the room’s cold ugliness. It was old, painted gray, without a whisper of any color or personality. Funny, I remember thinking, it’s as though even this room is repulsed at the thought me giving life!

But I had little time to consider the room’s décor or its latent message before my contractions began. When they started, they really started! One hour … two hours … three, four … ten hours later, I heard the shouts. “It’s a boy! Ten pounds, six ounces.” The nurses immediately nicknamed him Little Hercules.

Everyone bustled about me, yet I felt as if I were in a bubble where everything moved in slow motion. I could hear, but all the voices seemed muted. My eyes found my husband’s, and I reveled in Lee’s tears of happiness. I saw relief in the doctors’ and nurses’ eyes. Despite the intensity and length of the delivery, all had ended well. Then, unexpectedly, I felt a precious warmth: Was someone placing this newborn into my arms? But I’d had no time to prepare!

Reluctantly, I held him. Immediately, I loved him.

The once bleak and uninviting room became the most beautiful place on earth as I held my baby Trey. The most incredible, instant, spontaneous, and unconditional love I had ever experienced erupted from deep within my heart. I was astonished at my feelings.

In my peripheral vision, I glimpsed a nurse moving toward me. Surely she wasn’t coming to take my baby away? Immediately, I felt myself flexing, holding him ever so tightly. Not my baby, I vowed silently. You will never take my baby from me!

And then it happened! In an instant, my whole life flooded back, crashing in on my heart. I had been Mother’s baby. Until that moment, I never could have understood. I had never known a mother’s love. But now, I was living it. My mind raced as my heart tried to catch up with this new truth. “She loved me!” And when confronted with the prospect of someone taking me away, she had also fiercely responded, “No!”

God had presented me with the truth, and the truth now presented me with a choice.