My Dear God(ess)

*trigger warning SA & suicide*

Dear God(ess)-

I’m in the midst of reading my 3rd book from Rebecca Campbell ‘Light is the New Black’, I went backwards so now reading her first book last. There was a prompt a few days ago to write a letter to you. I usually do the prompts as I go one by one before moving on, but this one I saw and just kept moving. Knowing I would eventually come back to it, but not until I was ready. I’m scared to write this letter to you. I have felt abandoned and disconnected from you most of my life. I’ve had reason to pray, but I never heard you answer. Was I asking the wrong questions? Was I not good enough? Growing up in the Episcopal church and being surrounded by Southern Baptist gave me quite a complex about doing right by you or else. Or else what? This wasn’t what I knew, what I remembered, this “man” who required obedience. Did I not remember correctly?

I knew coming into this life that I was hear to clear the karma that I myself had obtained over lifetimes and that of my ancestral lines. I’ve reincarnating within the same ancestral lines for a few generations now. I have been the predator once, but the one being preyed on in all others. I’ve had other lifetimes too outside of this family line as well, but this incarnation was to clear all the karma that I had accumulated within those lifetimes plus that of each ancestral line on my mother and fathers side. I made agreements with many as we do before coming back into the body- we agree which souls will teach us which lessons we are here this time to learn. There are many that I signed- so many beautiful souls have entered my life and touched it in a way that forever changed it. There have also been some not so beautiful souls that have forever altered my life in unimaginable ways. 

I now know that I signed up for my dad to show me the duality that can exist within one person. How one person can embody all the goodness that there is in the world and also be the monster that haunts your dreams at night. The two year old girl with the hand over her mouth and belt threatening her silence being touched by her father while he pleasured himself did not… She cried for you, she begged you to make it stop, she pleaded to take the pain away, the misery. And maybe the only way you could do that was to help me forget, to make it into a dream, so I could survive another day. I asked time and time again to take me away from the torture, but you left me…. And then others joined and you still left me… And it went on and on and on for years to come and I begged and pleaded for you to take my life, but you left me. How could you just leave me there? How could you allow me to go through that for so long? With so many people? And then when I finally started to have my own say in what I do with my body at least some of the time- it was taken again by another and then I gave it away to anyone who asked because that seemed safer as they would take it anyway. Why didn’t you come save me?

All those nights I would lie in bed and dream about dying, where were you? All those times I was driving by that cliff and would imagine for a second going off where were you? I know Eric, Maria and Grace saved my life when I tried to take it skiing. I finally had an opening, I couldn’t turn and I just let go- but you wouldn’t let me. Why wouldn’t you let me?

No matter where I go, what I do, the pain could never escape me. It followed me like the plague. I attracted it, I felt like I deserved it. It was all I knew so why wouldn’t I believe that about myself. Time and time again- I was used and abused. And then he came along, did you send him? I know we’ve spent lifetimes together so maybe it was just that time. But he came and then it all stopped. And little by little, day by day, year by year, I’ve tried to get better. And each time I started to feel happy again, something would go wrong. Someone would die, I couldn’t have a baby, work, friends, life…. Where were you? How much more did I really need to endure? 

When I told Trish about the abuse I experienced at the hands of my dad she looked me in the eyes and said “honestly, how much can one person handle?” and for the first time in my life I finally felt seen. And as I write this it hits me, that until that moment I was still the victim. As much as I thought I was the survivor, I was only the survivor in the stories I allowed myself to heal until that point. And it took me 37 years to finally unravel the puzzle that was my brain and uncover the memories that I buried so I could finally process them and start to heal… Was that you?

While I do believe, or at least want to believe, that you are real and you do hear me- I think deep down I still have some fear. Fear that you won’t answer my prayers because I am not good enough. Fear that I really am the horrible person they told me I was. Fear that I really was at fault for all the abuse I experienced at the hands of others. Fear of myself- fear of my rage and darkness I held deep, deep inside. Fear I really was alone. Fear that all of this would just fall away and be an illusion and I really would be the crazy one. Fear, just lots and lots of fears… Can you hear me?

Dear Emilie-

I’ve always been with you, by your side, listening to your pleas. This life was not an easy one, but it was not ultimately designed by me. Your soul is on a big mission this time around, you have to help do your part to change the world. To heal yourself so you can heal others like you. There are so many others like you, and they need your strength, your voice, your presence, your words, your energy, you… You are being activated more and more by the day, more magnetic- you know you are noticing the difference. You are starting to attract instead of repel- you have been in repelling mode- which you also knew. We’ve been waiting for you to step up, step in, be ready to take these next steps. We could only help you so much, you had to take the first steps. You had to see what was right in front of you. You had to face the shadow yourself, that is something we cannot do for you. And even if I thought you might break free earlier in the plan (I know you worry about those palms because you like to BEAT deadlines not meet or heaven forbid miss them), you are on the right path and at the right time and in the right moment and all that is waiting for you still will be yours. 

Those times you didn’t take those thoughts further, I was there. The days you did not continue to drive straight and took a quick left turn, I was there. The days when you would drive incredibly drunk and high at an extremely dangerous speed around the curviest road in the county, I was there. The days when you would dream of your funeral, I was there.The day you closed your eyes after your ski got stuck and hoped to die, I was there. The times you took too many pills, I was there. The times you imagined slitting your wrists and bleeding out, I was there. The times you cried and cried wishing to die, I was there. Why don’t you think you died? We held you so you did not go further, even if you could not hear us- we were there. You cut off your ability to communicate early on- I know it was too scary to “see” the way you “see” when they were hurting you, but in doing that you couldn’t hear me either. All the times you called to me, I spoke back, you just were not opening up enough to listen. All those joyful moments you lived for with your friends- that’s always been what you lived for. You can and have created what you did not have in a family, you can relax now. We’ve got you and you can hear us. Trust what you are hearing, things are about to change in a big way. 

Now go write your own letter… Rebecca is right, it is truly healing.