Storytelling

I have a story to tell that people need to hear.

And it's not because I am super cool or I traveled somewhere no one has ever been and took pictures that I want to show you, or whatever else. It's because...because it's my story. And honestly, that is enough.

But usually we don't believe it's enough. It's just my life - who cares? I'm broken and make mistakes, do embarrassing things, have some laughs. Not storybook worthy. But it is. Life is precious. Life is a miracle. The God of the Universe, for one, cares about every step that I take.

But He already knows my story. More of it than I do, actually. So if it's not about telling the story to the One we really know cares, then what is it about? Two things, I think.

1. When you tell your story it changes you. It affects you. My favorite counselor told me that the more you speak things out loud, the less power they have over you. As someone coming from an abusive relationship, there were(are) so many things and secrets and words that were spoken over me that hold power. And you know what? The devil loves when I stay silent. When I keep it to myself, and just relive it in my darkest moments. Sit in the corner and just play the tapes over and over in my mind. That's how you come to believe the lies. You repeat them to yourself instead of speaking them out. When you put to words your most traumatic experiences, your worst fears, your deepest insecurities - you give them a chance to be set free. If they stay in the deep dark corners of a locked trunk then they will sit and rot and infect the other junk around them. But if you open them up - shed light on them - you have a chance to let them go. And it's certainly not as easy as that - but the journey there is worth it.

Setting fears and lies free is a process. But I've found my counselor's statement to hold very true. Once I started speaking the things that were happening behind closed doors, they got just a little less scary. As I shared them with a few trusted people, I gave those dear friends a chance to speak truth over the many lies I had come to believe.

People can't support you, love you, encourage you, offer a shoulder to cry on, or a warm latte on a bad day if they don't even know you're struggling.

Once you start sharing your story you'll see...healing is usually right around the corner.

2. When you tell your story it changes other people. This is where most of us shake our heads and say no way could my story have an impact on someone else. Yeah they might feel empathetic or sad for a minute but it's not really going to change their life. But what if it could?

Think of all the stories people have told you. Did any of them change you? Change your perspective on a tough issue you were struggling with? Give you hope that you didn't have before? Put a face to a crisis and suddenly you're moved to action?

God is the most magnificent story-teller. He tells stories about ALL kinds of people. Strong, weak, wounded, broken, arrogant, faithful, obedient, disobedient...and these stories are important. They change us. And the best part is that God is a God of redemption. So it's not just about brokenness or sin or even following the rules. IT - the ultimate story - is about God's saving grace. About Jesus' work on the cross. Shalom. Wholeness. And that is how all of our stories ultimately end. We have the chance to accept His grace.

The especially cool part about this is that we can see little glimpses of that bigger storyline in our everyday experiences. In the beautiful moments of joy, and in the hard ones. And that is why we tell our stories.

That is why I want to tell my story. (And why I want to hear yours.) Why I believe it has power. Why people need to hear it.

Because the story I have to tell is not really about me at all. Yeah, it's my story, so I'm in it. But I am not the focus. The focus is what God has done and is doing and will do through a seriously imperfect child of His. I think He wants to use my story to change other people, and to change me.

I don't know how, where, why, when, what...but I think everyone has a story that people need to hear.

Will you share yours? Maybe not today or tomorrow or even two years from now. Maybe you share it with me, or maybe you share it with someone you haven't even met yet. However it happens, please know that it has power.

Power to change. To encourage, inspire, convict, humble, relieve, excite. Maybe all of the above. But you'll never know if you don't share it.

For freedom.

Responses to my last post, as well as conversations I've had this last week have led me to wanting to follow up on what I said about emotional abuse.

I believe that in any type of abuse there is a victim as well as a perpetrator.

Emotional abuse is unique in that it takes place over time, as I mentioned before.

These leads to a confusing situation where the victim at some point recognizes what is being done to him/her. It doesn't take long to know that what is being said to you is "not ok." I knew after the first night my husband raged at me that it was "not ok" that he treat me that way. But I didn't know exactly what it was, what caused it, when/if it would happen again, or what to do about it.

So I let it happen again.

I believed him when he said he would change. I trusted that he would never physically hurt me, as he promised. I hoped against all hope that this night would be the last. But it continued. And I let it.

This is so hard to describe, and I worry about people who have been abused finding offense here. I also worry about people who haven't been abused not being able to understand that point I'm trying to make. Again just trusting the Lord with this.

I let myself be emotionally abused. My pride does not want to admit that. But it's true.

But why? Why would I allow that to continue?

Because I didn't know any better. Because I thought it would stop. Because I literally did not once consider divorce in my mind, until he brought it up one night after our neighbor called the cops on him. Even still, I was not going to walk away. I told him over and over again that I meant it when I said "I do." I meant forever. We would work it out.

Before I made the choice to move out I remember talking to my pastor at church just begging him for help. I had run out of ideas. I had tried all I could possibly think to try to be a better wife, to be more understanding, to be healthier for myself, to show him my love better...I was in counseling, being mentored, in a bible study, reading books on marriage and being a good wife, etc etc. Tried to set boundaries with him, new tactics so we wouldn't fight as we had been, etc. Eventually my pastor said this:

"Nicole, this will go on as long as you let it."

That statement shook me to my core. I'm grateful for where my heart was when I heard it - completely desperate for change, knowing that I literally could not survive much longer if things continued as they were. I was so depressed, sick, tired, hopeless, and losing myself more and more each day. I couldn't let it go on any longer.

It wasn't good for me or for him. It was not God-honoring to let myself be trapped, enslaved to fear.

There are situations in which the abuser recognizes what they are doing, and does actually take steps toward change. In this case, someone might choose to stay, seeing the hope for a different outcome.

This was not my situation. I wanted it to be...but it wasn't. He was no more ready to change than to admit he had done me any wrong. I wish it had been different. Once I moved out and was out from under the cloud of confusion that abuse puts you in it became very clear to me that I could not go back unless things changed. But they didn't. He wasn't ready to face it. And he made that abundantly clear. So we separated.

For freedom.

Freedom that everyone deserves.

Deep down we know we deserve this freedom. We can feel the ache for it inside us. But it can so easily become covered with hurtful words, uncertainties, insecurities, and other priorities. Is it more important to save your marriage even if it means losing yourself? For a while I thought it was.

But now I don't think so. At least it wasn't in my case. God has more for me than living in fear and under abuse. I'm confident of that.

It is my most fervent prayer that others living in abusive situations would also be confident of that. That they deserve to be treated with respect. To be valued for who they are, not who someone says they aren't. That they would not let someone treat them this way for a second longer.

That they would find freedom.

Emotional abuse

This post is about Donald Trump, but not really. It's about something much more important. Emotional abuse. A friend posted an article on facebook a few weeks back about the emotionally abusive tactics Trump used in the first debate and I found it to be absolutely on point.

To clarify - just because Trump used emotionally abusive tactics during the debate does not necessarily make him or anyone else who has done some of these things an abuser. Emotional abuse is enacted over time. As defined by Kali Munro, a psychotherapist:

"Unlike physical or sexual abuse, where a single incident constitutes abuse, emotional abuse is made up of a series of incidents, or a pattern of behavior that occurs over time. Emotional abuse is more than just verbal insults...Emotional abuse is a series of repeated incidents - whether intentional or not - that insults, threatens, isolates, degrades, humiliates, and/or controls another person."

Much of what I hope to do moving forward involves helping educate people about emotional and verbal abuse. It's not about one time where someone got out of control and said things they didn't mean. For me it was an almost daily occurrence of him putting me down, blame-shifting, denying, lying, controlling, etc.

I am going to discuss some of the tactics mentioned in the article by Elana Sztokman, which you can (and should) read here: http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/09/trump-emotional-abuse-tactics/.

1. Lying
Seems pretty obvious. What's unique with an abuser is that they unapologetically lie - all the time. So much so that it actually catches you off guard. As Sztokman says "It's extremely difficult to have a normal conversation with someone for whom facts and truth are irrelevant. This is one of the first and most disarming tactics of an emotional abuser. It's the twisting of facts and thus the elimination of basic rules of fair discourse."

This works well for Trump in a debate, so that at the end of it there has been no real discussion - no back and forth. How can you discuss something with someone who just lies point blank?

As I experienced it, this "elimination of basic rules of discourse" was one of the most frustrating aspects of abuse. To not be able to have a productive conversation about anything is very discouraging, to say the least.

2. Denial
Sztokman says that "denial, like lying, changes the rules of fair discourse. It makes it very difficult for the abuser to be held accountable for their words when they say whatever they want and then refuse to continue to engage about it."

It's not just that someone occasionally denies doing or saying something because it puts them in an unfavorable light, it's repeatedly denying obvious facts to the extent that they often actually convince themselves that their lie is true. This causes arguments to spiral very quickly into the classic "yes you did" " no I didn't" vacuum. If they continue to refute your claims of truth, it's only so long before you: A. Get tired and give up or give in or B. Are eventually confused about just what the truth is. They seem SO sure of their side - was I the one confused about what had or had not happened?

3. Blame-shifting
So far the abuser is boldly lying to your face, denying what they did or said, and now watch out cause they are going to blame you for all of it. For example Trump blames Hillary or the media for twisting his words. It's not that he was lying, it's just that they mis-interpreted, or they were "not nice" to him.

In a relationship one could be blamed for arguing (aka trying to get back to the truth), for being rude (perhaps accusing them of the lying they just did), for causing the problem in the first place (trying to address an issue in the relationship), and for being the one who clearly didn't want to solve the issue (wasn't willing to believe their lies or denial).

From the article: "It also has the effect of making the person it's wielded against feel defensive and angry, desperate to clear their name and get back to the truth."

4. Moving the goal posts
Classic politician move, yes, but when used over and over again in a relationship it can be abusive. "the manipulator, in order to avoid having to answer for an issue, will redefine the goals of the exchange. It aims to 'humiliate the victim, to keep them preoccupied so as to accomplish nothing else with their time, or to simply wear them out.'" This works in a debate, in a press conference, and in a marriage. Waste their time, keep focusing on some small irrelevant detail, and eventually the fight will be over with them never having to address your concerns, hurts, or questions.

5. Projecting
This can be on a small or very large scale. The manipulator "accuses the victim of doing exactly what he is being accused of."

For example with Trump, "he has created an entire campaign around the idea that Clinton is the most dishonest politician in history, despite the fact that he is actually the most dishonest man in American politics today." Tricky, isn't it? Maybe from the outside it seems like this should be obvious when it's happening. But when it's subtle, it can be so confusing.

In a relationship this could look like the manipulator accusing the victim of not being a good wife/husband/etc when really they are the one not showing care for their significant other.


**Basically, the point is for the manipulator to make the victim feel like they are to blame, they don't have a solid argument to stand on, and they should probably just give up now. Psychologists have a term for this and it's "crazy making." I don't think there is a better way to describe it than that. Once you are made to feel like the crazy one, you've been convinced it's your job to work on things and do better next time. And that's why you stay. Or at least one of the many reasons.


Please feel free to reach out if you have questions about this. I'm happy to answer anything (and of course there are also TONS of awesome resources online to learn more about this). I'm praying God will use the pain I went through to help others understand what they may have experienced, or may still be experiencing, and lead them to freedom as He did for me.

Choices

I've been thinking a lot about choices this week.

Each day provides us with unlimited amounts of choices. Some we have to make quickly - what do I want for breakfast? What should I wear today? Some take a little more time - what do I want to plan for this weekend? Where should I go on my next vacation? Some we won't make for a while - what do I want to be when I grow up? Where will I retire?

Some choices we make without even thinking much about them. Sure, I'll go on a date with you. Yeah, I'd like to see you again. You want to come visit? Yeah do it! They seem small, and really quite easy to make at the time. The choice to see someone again that you enjoy being with? Easy. Obviously a yes. But all of these small choices begin to add up. Now you've seen him every weekend this month. You said yes to being his girlfriend. You're dating long distance. Now there are new choices. How often to go visit him, how many days to take off of work, how many nights a week do you want to talk on the phone? Again these choices still feel pretty easy, and like there aren't huge consequences to them. Do I want to stay up a little later to talk to him? Yeah, why not? I can have coffee in the morning and sleep in on Saturday. Should I take a weekend to go visit him and meet his family? Sure! It'll be fun, an adventure.

But then...one day you wake up and realize you love him. You've been talking about marriage. This is real. So many small choices have been doing something. Moving this thing along. Is this where you want to be? Do you want to be with him forever? You know what....yes. Yes I do. It seems like such an obvious choice. I know I love him. So yes - yes again - let's keep this moving forward.

Small, easy choices. Adding up. Seems simple. Life is moving, jump on for the ride!

And you know what? Even sitting where I am now...I'm not sure I would change those choices. I'm not sure I would know how to. If I put myself back in that moment, in that frame of mind, in that season of life...I don't know if I could make any other choice. Because it's not my choices that I regret. It's not my choices I would change. I am okay with what I did. I fell in love with someone, I fell harder than I ever had before - than I ever knew possible. I said yes when he asked. I said I do in my white dress at the altar. And I meant it. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I would sacrifice whatever it took to be with him, to spend those lazy Saturdays laughing in the park, to make strong coffee and pumpkin pancakes in the mornings together, to talk late into the night until our voices were hoarse. To dance in the kitchen, to watch him play the drums at church. I made the choices that led me to love him, to marry him, to fight for our marriage in every way I knew how.

What I wish is not that I could go back and make a different choice.

What I wish is that we could go back and he could make a different choice. That we could go back even to just a year ago, when I made the choice to move out of our apartment because I just couldn't live with the abuse any longer. I want him to choose to fight for our marriage. I want him to choose to take steps toward change. I want him to own what he did to me, what he said to me, and truly repent, turn around, and choose another way.

But he didn't. He didn't make that choice. Honestly I don't think he even knew how to. So many small choices - to have another beer that night, to say those words in anger, to refuse counseling, to try to willpower his way out of it all, to apologize and really believe it will somehow be different next time...all of these seemingly small choices had added up. They'd trapped him. He said yes to the devil's promptings too many times. It was all he knew to do. And he was not willing to do the impossibly hard work of climbing out of that trap, of reaching to Christ to save him, of admitting that he was broken and in need of serious repair. He wanted to just keep saying yes to what felt comfortable. Because that's what he knew. Those were the choices he was so used to making. The unknown can be paralyzingly terrifying.

So he stayed the same. And I couldn't.

I made a choice to pursue freedom.

Because living in fear, under abuse, and utterly hopeless is not what God designed for me.
And living trapped in addiction and fear and brokenness is not what God designed for him either.

It was the hardest choice. One of those choices that changes everything. A choice that feels like it shifts your whole world. And as impossibly difficult as that choice feels, it's almost like you don't actually have any other options. Once you know that freedom could be found again, that staying enslaved to fear does not do anyone any good, that maybe this is really what's best for everyone involved...how could I choose anything else? My heart ached for freedom. For the ability to make those small choices about my day without fear of if he would be mad, or yell at me for what I chose to do or not to. For the text I didn't send but should have. For the friend I chose to call and shouldn't have because I was preoccupied for 10 minutes instead of sitting with him on the couch. For the laundry I decided to save for tomorrow, for the papers I brought home to grade, the run I went on before he got home so I could start dinner for us. All wrong. All choices I got yelled at and ridiculed for. It was impossible to make a "right" choice in his eyes. And that might sound dramatic but my goodness was it true.

A friend who had been in a similar situation said "The only thing harder than staying was leaving." It's so true. Truer than you can imagine. More on that later. For now, I am grateful for a God who showed me that I did still have a choice. There is always a path to freedom. This wasn't the path I wanted to take...at all. But he made the choice to stay in the broken patterns of abuse, and so my only path to freedom led away from him.

I don't know what choices are ahead of me. For today I'm just going to focus on the small, easy choices in front of me. Where they are leading I'm not sure, but life is moving - whether I'm ready or not.


We can never go back. We can only go on and on.
-Joy Williams

Double Portion Farm

Story #2: Emma and the Farm

Emma is a 25 year old Ugandan who is the manager at Double Portion Farm. The farm is one of CLD's projects and was originally started to help cut costs at the school by growing food to feed the students. It has turned into an incredible mission to share farming and business techniques with interested students/interns who come for 9 month terms to learn from Emma and the other guys at the farm.

Emma has been married to Agnes for about a year and just became a dad! They had a baby boy named Jeff who I had the pleasure of meeting when we were there - he was 22 days old when I got to hold him! Such a sweetie.

Listening to Emma talk about the farm is inspiring and exciting. When he was showing us around the farm our first time there he said: "This is my mission field. This is what I am so excited to share with people everyday - how to farm God's way and do it with joy!"

The farming techniques they teach are from a Zimbabwean farmer who started a program called "Farming God's Way". It is basically a return to traditional ways of farming (compost for fertilizer, mulch, etc) instead of what many farmers do now (slash and burn, using GMO/hybrid seeds which they have to buy again every year, etc). The farm has seen their outputs increase significantly since using Farming God's Way and they are eager to share what they've learned with other local farmers as well as some from other surrounding countries.

It was such a pleasure to help out around the farm - weeding, harvesting corn - and we even got to camp out and spend a night there. It was beautiful and so very peaceful.

http://www.comeletsdance.org/farm/ for more details on the farm's story.

Let the stories begin.

Well we made it back home (after 41 hours of travel to get here - whew!) and I can hardly believe the trip is already over. Obviously I didn't get much time to blog while there, but for those still interested (and for my own processing benefits) I am going to write various posts about our time there in the weeks to come. 

I've decided to write the posts as stories, each one featuring someone or something that especially impacted me while in Uganda. It is a privilege to tell someone's story, a privilege that I don't take lightly. My prayer in sharing these stories is to share the beauty of what God is doing and who He is working through in a place far away but not so different from our own. (see my previous post on story telling for more of just what stories mean to me)

Overall I can say that God met me there and my heart left significantly more full than it arrived. I am so thankful to have been able to go back and am continually in awe of how faithful and kind God has been to me. 

Story #1: Martha

I'm choosing to tell her story first because she was the last student at WCIA school that I hugged and shed tears with before I left. I can still see her sweet face so vividly and feel her arms tight around me as we soaked in our last moments together.  

Some background. Wakiso Christian International Academy (WCIA) is a school started by Come, Let's Dance. The school has both boarding and day students and includes grades from pre-K through primary 7. (They also opened a high school this year but more on that later). 

Check out http://www.comeletsdance.org/school for more info on why they started a school and the impact they're having. 

The school is a place of laughter, learning, singing, dancing, and praising the Lord. We were able to help out in classrooms, the library, with gym class, cleaning, etc during the day. We spent many afternoons playing and hanging out with the kids once school was out for the day. 

Martha is a sweet girl that I met early on in my time there. She is in fourth grade, speaks very good english, loves to sit with her friends and talk, has a beautiful singing voice, and a kind, sweet spirit. We colored together, we sang songs, played games, etc. At some point we developed nicknames for each other - she is my little mosquito and I her grasshopper. <3 div="" nbsp="">

I could go on for days. Suffice to say Martha is a sweet friend and I cherish the time we spent together. I would love it if you would join me in praying for her - for health, for her studies, her family, for the beautiful woman she is growing up to be. God be praised. 

Martha is on the left and Adrien on the right. 

Quick update!

Hello friends! 

Sorry I haven't been able to blog, Internet access has been quite limited, but I have some time tonight so just want to give you a quick idea of what we've been up to. 

We got to see my host family our first week here which was AMAZING. They were thrilled to get to meet mom and so excited and honored that we came to stay with them. What a joy for me to be reunited with them after all this time. 

Since then we have been at "base camp" with Come Lets Dance (CLD). The compound is quite nice and a great place to come back and relax at after busy days (the first two weeks here there was a huge group of volunteers from CSU - fun to have CO friends in Uganda :)). Week days are spent at one of the various projects CLD works with: hanging with kids at the primary school (running around, playing cards - can't describe how absolutely adorable and loving they are), working on the farm, tutoring kids in the slums, making posters for teacher aids, trimming stray threads at the sewing outreach - Thread of Life, etc. 

I have also been able to observe teachers at the high school and talk with them about ideas and ways to improve their teaching. So cool for me to be able to plug in that way, and for mom to be able to help at Thread of Life with a leather project they are just getting started on. 

I was also supposed to give a teacher training on Saturday but got the flu and spent the day traveling on bumpy roads to the clinic to get rehydrated. Recovered more today and hoping to be up and about tomorrow. I'm scheduled to teach a few physics classes at the high school this Tuesday and next so I'd appreciate prayers for strength to be able to do that! 

Thanks so much for your support and prayers - can't tell you how wonderful it is to be back in Uganda. :) Miss you all!! Xoxo

Back to Uganda at last!

My goodness it has been a long time. So many stories to tell and journeys to share, with unexpected twists and turns along the way. The most important thing is that my God is faithful and just, and has never left my side. I am so grateful for my faith and how it has grounded me through all life has handed me. I can honestly say I would NOT have made it through the last two years without the love and care of my Savior.

And now He has given me the most amazing gift - to return to Uganda, the place I left pieces of my heart in seven years ago. But this time I'm not going alone. In the craziest of ways He has called my mom to join me! My mom!! The one who, when I asked her if I could study abroad there said not only "no", but "no, I won't even pray about it."

But here we are, sitting side by side in the Newark airport, about to be on our way to Brussels and then Entebbe. Tomorrow night we will be in my home away from home. I will have the immense joy of introducing the place and people I love so dearly to my mom. And what happens after that...who even knows? :) God will show up and do what He does best: surprise, awe, love, challenge, and amaze us.

I. Cannot. Wait.

Thanks for coming along on this journey with us and a double thanks to the many of you who donated to help make this trip a reality. I cannot tell you what it means to me.

I will update this blog as I'm able - not sure yet what our access to Internet will look like. We're grateful for your thoughts and prayers as we journey forward in this crazy little thing called life.

Cheers!