Check Out Survivor Love Letter Tumbler: It's Incredibly Passionate, Consoling, and Inspiring!

On Twitter, I came across a cool website I want to share with you.  It's filled with beautiful love letters to survivors from survivors.  There's probably a better way to do this, but I'm not sure how, so here's the link to the website.   You have to check out the beautiful letters on Survivor Love Letter Tumbler's website.  They're incredibly passionate, consoling, and inspiring!

Keep Resurrecting Your Spirit!

In my blog titled, “Resurrecting Your Spirit,” I encouraged you to focus more on your self-care, and I’d like to do that again today.  Like I said before I don’t understand why we routinely neglect our spiritual health because it’s the key to our wellness.  Our spirit is our true self.  Also known as our unconscious, it’s essential to our recovery. 

Psychologists and therapists guide us through our unconscious as we work on healing our lives.  However, I believe they only scratch the surface since they don’t delve into our spirit.  They’re not spiritual advisors, so they can only take us so far.  That’s why we need to be proactive.

If you’ve started working more on your self-care, please step back and take a look at the goals you've accomplished and those you have not.  I encourage you to set new goals and mark your calendar 30 days from now and each time you set new goals to re-evaluate how you're doing.  

Pat yourself on the back about the goals you've accomplished.  For the times you fell short, don't beat yourself up about it, just figure out how you can do better.  Keep doing it and doing more of it.  Keep resurrecting your spirit!

Your Redemptive Suffering

As a Catholic, I’m reminded that Holy week is supposed to be a time of contemplation on the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that all Christians commemorate.  Whenever I reflect on the crucifixion, I can’t help but think about rape survivors and their suffering.  The cruelty, evil, and humiliation that innocent, men, women, and children suffer from being raped or sexually assaulted.

A poem in my book, A Rape Survivor’s Reflections: My Poems and Practical Exercises, seems appropriate along with some positive words of reflection that follow.  Please note the words in italics are God’s, not mine.

Redemptive Suffering

Are you kidding me?

Who am I?  The virgin Mary?

Well, my name’s Mary, and I’m no virgin,

but then you already knew that.

Tell me why.  Why is there suffering at all?

I know we’re all suffering unless we’re physically dead,

so why not kill us all and let the world end.

I’ll give you your answer,

but first answer ME.

Why do people, hate, kill and maim?

Why do they torture, prolonging the pain?

Why do they cheat, steal and lie?

Why do they want a bigger piece of the pie?

Why can’t they be happy with all they’ve got?

Why can’t those that have, help all the “have-nots?”

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s okay to want more,

but it’s certainly not right just to hoard.

Then there are talents.

I gave everyone some.

To some I gave more.  Others only have one.

How many people do you know, tell me now,

that have found and really use the talents they have?

How many have done so and are eternally glad

to go to work every day and get paid

for what they feel is essentially play?

You know the answer, and, of course, I do, too,

because so many come to me unhappy like you.

So, tell me why.  Why is there suffering at all?

You know you’re all suffering unless we’re physically dead,

so why aren’t you doing something about it before the world ends?

Inspired by Fr. William J. O’Malley, S.J.’s book,

Redemptive Suffering: Understanding Suffering, Living with It,

and Growing Through It

(New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997.  Print).

Who Inspires You?

and

What Can You Learn from Them?

Like any good father or mother, our divine creator shares our unjust suffering and keeps reaching out to pull us out of the darkness, knowing that our triumphs over evil will inspire others, so our victories become lights in the darkness transforming the world.

Write about who inspires you and what you can learn from them.


Download my book for FREE in the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble, or on our ePub distributor’s website at Smashwords.com.  Purchase my paperback and Kindle eBook at Amazon.com,  Unfortunately, Amazon.com would not allow us to sell Mary’s eBook for FREE.  However, I do have the mobi file which I can send you for free.  Just email me at mary@apprenticebutterflies.com.

As a survivor of childhood sexual violence, my faith in God saved my life.  By the grace of God, I held onto my faith when I began having suicidal thoughts.  Today, I am a happy and peaceful person no longer suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Thanks be to God!

During one of the darkest times of my life after the abuse, I was living at the YMCA in the Gold Coast in a room the size of a large, walk-in closet and working as a security guard in a River North condo building.  That’s when I was blessed with the remarkable experience and privilege of writing a book I never wanted to write, A Rape Survivor’s Spiritual Journey: My Poems and Practical Exercises.  Visit my website, listen to a clip of my website theme song, and download a FREE PDF of my book. 

Below is one of the poems in my book.  Please note the poems with italics are God's words, not mine.  I hope it consoles you.  

Return to Live!

You hate me.

That’s okay,

but I still love you just the same.

I know that you’re not you, AND you’re in agony and pain.

I see you suffer and hear you cry.

I wish you’d turn to me,

and see me cry beside you

and hear my gentle plea.

Come back.  Come back.  Come back to me!

Let me hold you in my arms.

I loved you into life.  Please let me love you one more time.

I’m here and love you SO much it makes me cry to see

you struggle all alone and no longer call on me.

Hate me.  Yell and swear at me if that’s exactly how you feel.

Just keep talking.  Don’t shut me out.  I’m not going anywhere.

Go ahead.  Do it.  Right now.  I’m always listening, you know.

Remember, you can hate me, but away I’ll never go.

Return to me.  Return to live

the life I meant for you,

and through your suffering and pain

you will find your life renewed.

Inspired by Ezekiel 18:32.