For such a time as this.....

I am Sarah, a faith walking Abba follower, Work-In-Progress Survivor, mother of amazing daughters...and sometimes I am fearful and sometimes I am confident. Sometimes, like right now, I am a bit unsure where to start.

I suppose I should start with what brings me to this place at this time. Why I can recognize the need for a space like this.

For the longest time, I searched and searched for the degree I needed in order to provide a good life for my youngest daughter. One I could accomplish quickly because I needed to rebuild and provide like RIGHT NOW! I am a "helper" with a huge heart by nature and always enjoyed medicine, so I went the route of EMT. I got all the way to the end of the class--the "in-classroom" portion, right at the time when hours on the ambulance needed to be logged and all the ending requirements before state testing. My professors were heartbroken when I told them I had to walk away. We had just sat through the last lectures over the last week, and it haunted me. I cried through the entire class because it had to do with child and elder abuse and what we were and were not allowed to do according to the law. It broke my heart so deep that I went and talked to my professors the day after testing. I just couldn't be around children and walk away because the parents told me to, knowing there was abuse happening. I feel the same about the elderly, don't get me wrong, but this made me think too much about my own kids, so that's where my mind and heart were stuck.

After EMT school, I took some pre-requisites and then settled into the "Photography & Multimedia" degree at the local community college. Until I ran into some unexpected expenses I could not cover, I was very happy in school, but it still wasn't sitting well with me or what I felt drawn to. But, I had to be working somewhere, doing something. So, eventually, I ended up at the casino nearby as an attendant.

Even with my attention being diverted for some time, the knowledge that there was something else was well-known by my heart, so I could not forget it. Doubts and fears made me wonder, but hope refused to let go. I lost my job and there were things happening with my teenage daughter, so I stopped working for a while. Some sort of mom "control" even though all I wanted was a safe home. The safety and serenity that I had worked so hard to curate for us both was constantly at risk. because of too many freedoms and my lack of having good, solid, consistent boundaries. Okay, yes, granted, I'm probably still taking on more responsibility for her actions than is mine to take, but I'm a work in progress. And I do want to do better, am working to be better and the more time she is able to spend near her sister, the happier she is. That's all I really want for my girls--them to be happy. They don't have to have a lot -- though it would be nice to see them comfortable and working in a field they love, not one they had to settle for. To be happy because they know there are so many blessings on any given day. And that no matter what happens, they never walk alone. What more could I ask for?

But then.... what should I be doing? what is my purpose? the thing that I can love so that I can better help my girls and walk into retirement already working in what I will spend the rest of my years doing? I believe, finally, that I am not an exception to the rule and God has been healing me, but what if I am still too broken to even be able to grasp or go after it? What if I'm wrong and it's really going to take most of the rest of my life to be fully healed from trauma?

These have been the fears. The lies that want to hold me down, hold me back from a lot of things, but mostly life. Life because it can't help but lead me to here, to you. If I sit in isolation because it seems easier, believing the lies, then what? Someone else will come along? Probably. Maybe. Somebody with more smarts, more experience.......a degree in something helpful within a space like this. I don't fear being too old, I fear not measuring up or being good enough to be picked, to be the one for the job.

I still have bad days; I'm not even going to pretend like I don't. But it feels like there's an opportunity here, for this space. Because I've learned where to lean. Where to find my healing.

It's not hard to see how this is already becoming a place to offer hope. One where I can hold a hand out to whoever shows up. Because shared experience can be so healing and is so needed, especially for those who have felt alone for so long. So unworthy, so unseen, so forgotten....and yet. For some reason, there's still an ember of hope. I don't know what it is for you, but I have no doubt that it is still burning or else you wouldn't be here with me now.

I can't say "long story, short", but I can keep this last bit simple and to the point. I grew up in a strict home where church was important and the Bible was taught, but not how I understand it now. I spent a few years on my own and then settled into a relationship that was an unplanned reuniting with the father of my first daughter. He was busy getting into trouble when I called from the home for unwed mothers and I naively believed I could never raise a child even decently at my age, so the papers were signed and the family was chosen as a semi-opened adoption (our information would be freely available when requested--with our approval & through the adoption agency--at whatever age the child was ready to meet). The resulting relationship we had when I finally went back to my home state for him, spanned over 2 decades. Engaged by year 2 for almost 10 years and then married for 15. I knew well, already, how to love someone based on who I knew they could be. And I knew how to lay down and do what I was told. So, they were abusive years. The vast majority of my life, I learned to stay small. I learned that God loved me, but I had messed up too much, made bad decisions and was just an all-out failure because I knew better. I was raised in the church, my parents always told me what a screw up I was and when I went to God, HE really didn't have much to say to me. I settled with trying to give HIM to others instead.

It took the death of my oldest child, a concussion, the knowledge that if I died, God only knew what he might do to our youngest.... this is why I finally left. And over the last 7+ years, I have learned that a lot of what I believed were lies. That I have come a really long way, but still need healing, still learning, still searching--for more knowledge though, and tools. I've learned to replace a lot of those lies with truth. And I've learned to sit and be quiet and listen. That helping people is what I was meant to do after all. That unbeknownst to me, the aloneness, unworthiness, smallness that I felt for so long---together with the abuse that warped my mind and tried to destroy my heart...would be the very things that would prepare me to look out, to see you and to hold out my hand to say---you are not alone. You're not. And I'll sit here with you until you're ready to talk. And when you're ready and willing, I'll share with you how joy is possible even on the worst days and healing is a real thing. And that your hope has not died for a reason.

There's so much more to talk about, but today, I really just wanted to say hi and welcome! I'm grateful the time is now and that you are here.

With a sincere heart,

Sarah Dean