‘Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablets of your heart’  Proverbs 7:3  God wants for us to remember.  So it is written.

And so that is where your name is written ‘M’.  You have been written on my heart.

And I write these words, for you, for me.  I Remember.

This story is so unique to me.  Your journey, your experiences as you have shared them.  Bringing you to this moment.  This place in time.  I will attempt not to make assumptions, about you or your future.  But i will make observations based on our many conversations.  Mostly this will be about me… but as it applies to us, you must be included.

Ultimately, my desire for you is a richer, fuller, peaceful life.  I pray I can help you decide to live that way.

I call upon remembered stories, shared moments, intense moments, smiling, laughing and tearful moments.  I struggle deeply.  And my struggle is not with you.  Not directly.  The struggle is with decisions.  I can make mine.  I want to be able to make yours.  I cannot.  And so I struggle.  Fixers love to fix..  Sometimes when I fix or assemble things too quickly, I leave spare parts on the table when the job is ‘done’  You are not a quick fix job.  You are a special person in my life…. for life, I would hope and pray.

I have said to you, “I must do what I must do, you do what you must do.”  That is a bad statement.   This is the new note written upon my heart.  “With God’s help, I will do what I decide I must do, and I will be here to love you when you make your decisions.  I will not make those decisions for you, but will be here to lift you up, attempt to soften your fall, and walk by your side as you suffer or enjoy the consequences of those decisions.”

As I have watched you now and listened to your stories, much of your life it seems has been a reaction to others’ bad decisions.  Forced to make decisions at a very young age that now shape your today.  Father, Mother, Sister, Boyfriends, Girlfriends, have all caused you to make decisions at a very young age which have set the framework for decisions you continue to make today.  Though I hardly agree with some of your most important decisions, I am here.  I will go NOWHERE.  That is my decision.

It is difficult for me to realize that our history is really just around 80 days in length..  A long time when you are in a balloon circling the globe.  So very short in the world of relationships.  But truly the depth and intensity of this 80 days is, as I have shared, like no other in my entire life.  You are on the Mount Rushmore of my best moments in life.  You are on the Mount Rushmore of the worst moments.  And you are perhaps the best “just friends” woman I have EVER known.

Last night as I wondered where you might be, and knowing that “he” was taking you out, God brought to my mind the moment.  The moment I knew.  When I actually caught a glimpse of just how smart and funny and conflicted and caring you were, you are.  We were sitting at my filthy dining room table, having a business building session.  And for some reason I shared this pyramid with you.  I’d used it in sales training before, but for some reason I knew you had to see it.

I have the notes from that meeting.

You were the first person I had ever shared this with that truly was at the ‘Safety’ level.  And it was like it popped in your brain.  A light, I saw the light come on.  Lots of business and sales people that I trained in the past are at the Belonging/Self-Esteem levels.  You were the first person with a business, a good, hard working business woman, who was just floating in the Food/Water/Shelter/Warmth mode.  And lots of folks do live at this level, and I have.  But you were the first for me.   The “he” in your life provided shelter in his mother’s house.  But with those physiological needs met, you were in an unsafe living situation.  And so after you left my home that day, sometime perhaps over the following 48 hours, God spoke to my heart.  I decided to provide a safe place for you.  I could not decide for you to accept.  I could only decide to offer.

So you need to know, and I know you do know.  My house is now your house.  The bedroom is yours.  The home is ours.  The bedroom is yours.  The dogs of Casa Canine and I are so pleased that you are a part of this place.  Because of you the house is richer and cleaner and happier and brighter.

Just know that you are free here.  You are safe here.  You can work on understanding “Love and Belonging” here.  You already a part of my love and belonging.  I am honored that as you struggle to work through all of your historical issues, you choose to do it at Casa Canine.

I have learned so much.  You have written on my heart.

“M” first appeared in my blog in Feral for Real posted 1/11/2014