Sadness of the heart.

The halls of my mind are haunted,
by demons of deeds from the past,
Thier terrible forms chasing me,
I'm tormented by the shadows they cast.

I pray each day for a compassionate God,
One of understanding and abiding love.
For only He can free my soul,
when my time comes to rise above.

Freedom from torment and heartache,
Is all I've ever wanted,
and perhaps finally to be at peace,
by no more shadows to be haunted.

I believe my heart to be loving,
under all the anger and pain,
I deeply crave and hunger to be delivered,
let God's love fall on me like rain.

Being twisted inside with guilt,
is no way for me to live,
Praying and and hoping desperately,
That God will indeed forgive.
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I often wonder about my spiritual future. There are things in my past that I am deeply ashamed of, things I wonder if God can forgive. We all have things we're ashamed of, lies told, perhaps something small stolen in our youth, maybe drugs or alcohol. I used drugs in my youth, I had premarital sex, I've lied and cheated on boyfriends. The thing that weighs most heavily on my soul...an abortion on March 1, 1996. I'm still fairly positive it was my one chance for a son. Does it matter to God that I was afraid? Does it matter that I honestly believed my mother might take away my sweet toddler daughter? I'm not sure that any excuse or reason could be good enough. What will matter, I am afraid, is that I would do this horrible thing to someone He loved so deeply. I was baptized when I was 19, so my soul cannot be cleansed of this sin so easily. It haunts me daily.

Then when I lash out angrily at structured religion (the current church of choice is LDS), does that tarnish my soul further? When I say that sometimes I feel like God owes me something, am I condemning myself to hell? It just seems to me sometimes, just sometimes, that having lived through physical and deep emotional abuse from a parent, molestation and rape from a sibling...maybe I've paid my dues.

I'm bi-polar and tormented with some deep seated anxiety that has me constantly paranoid that I've done something wrong at work, that when I go out and people see me that they are disgusted by what they see (how selfish must I be that I assume EVERYONE is looking at me?). I can't look at myself in the mirror without seeing a disturbing darkness. I want to be the kind of person who can be happy and active and a good wife and mother, instead of this THING. I suppose some people would say I'm deeply disturbed and they are probably right. But I struggle on. Obligations you know. I have to raise my daughter to adulthood. I hope to raise her so that she can become something far better than what I am.

I know why I am sad lately. It's May. Next month my firstborn turns 14. I haven't seen her except in a single picture, in almost two years. I miss her. I've missed her for almost 14 years. Have you ever had a decision YOU'VE made haunt you that long? While giving her up was best for her, I can't help but to notice how different I became after. No more sunny disposition. No more easy affection. No more me. I became someone completely different after. It's not fair either. My birthmother is the same. She even says so, Gran says so, my other family members who've known her before and after say so. She was sad for a bit, but is basically the same KIND of person she was before. I guess that's part of why I resent her so much. I guess I think, if she loved me as deeply as I loved my baby...she'd be different too.

I hate this. I just want to be happy. I want to feel like I can succeed. I can't though. I'm facing taking over my husbands full time position and him taking my part time one. This makes me angry at him because HE is supposed to be the provider. But more importantly instead of being excited by the challenge, I can only wonder how long it will be before I screw this up too. Before I fail.

I want to live a long life. I don't want the world to end, or my life to end, before I've seen my babies grown into happy successful women with families of thier own. But...it hurts somewhere deep and hidden, when I think I could live into my late years...like this.
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On a forum that I belong to, a person posted about welfare mothers. They pretty much lumped them all into the same group and wanted help writing a poem about it. This poem was to be entitled "Shameful Garden". I saw everyone's responses and how angry they all were at "Welfare mothers". One person even called the children of these women, "Unwanted bastards". It made me angry to see all women on public assistance judged the same, when there ARE some good women just trying to get a little hand up, not a hand out. So I wrote my own version of "Shameful Garden".

"Shameful Garden"

In an open field,
where beauty is grown,
there is a shameful garden,
where seeds of hate are sown.

Where judgements are cast,
and all are found lacking,
where heartworn blossoms,
are often judged slacking.

Not every flower,
is poisoned with waste,
but beauty cannot be seen,
If just glanced at in haste.

All flowers can grow,
just give them some room.
A little assistance,
and the strong ones will bloom.

For each ugly weed,
there's a fine flower,
Dig out the weeds,
and give the bloom power.

A little love can heal,
all wicked hearts,
stop judging these flowers,
you angry old farts!"