The Dorset Book Detective, through sheer laziness, has always been a proponent of creating ‘socially distanced’ interviews. I email the questions over and receive the answers back. Now, this technique is en vogue, but I want everyone to know that I pioneered it! To show you how well it works, I’ve got another great interview […]
Larry Yoke Interview: “Most of what I write comes directly from the land of my imagination”
The birthday message that changed me:
DO NOT TAKE OFFENSE (1)
It is difficult to grow spiritually if you have offense in your heart. When you walk in blessing, love, and forgiveness, you will experience God’s peace and power. Are you having a tough time letting go of offense? I did.
October 31, 2020. Birthday number 58. I was ready to get well. Something everyone should know–You cannot heal spiritual disease with worldly cures. I have taken this message from Joyce Meyer Ministries as my Year 58 Pledge. DON’T TAKE OFFENSE. You can refuse to TAKE the offense offered.
What kinds of things offend us? When someone doesn’t appreciate my work, or me; when people talk at me and don’t listen to me, I got offended. Another person ignored me, my father’s abuse and fraud. That is the biggy and the one that set me free and started the healing of my soul sickness. Wow! What a force Christians could be on this earth if we could all just decide to love each other and stop criticizing people who don’t think exactly the way we think. When we get to heaven, there will not be designated sections for each denomination. We have this life here on earth to practice getting along.
WE NEED TO SEEK UNITY IN DIVERSITY
We must unify around our differences in our lives. Learn how to disagree agreeably and appreciate the differences in people.
One of Paul’s Apostolic Power Prayers is Philippians 1:9-11–9) And this I pray, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in discernment, 10) That you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense til the day of Christ, 11) being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. ***I pray you might approve things that are excellent; that you may be SINCERE and WITHOUT OFFENSE until Christ returns.*** Psalm 119:165–Great peace have they who love Your law; nothing shall offend them or make them stumble.***
There are certain things you can put on your prayer list, and these things are important enough to pray every day. Pray every morning that for this day, you will not be offended and get mad at anyone. Just to be able to say to the Lord when you say your prayers at night, “Lord, I’m happy to say that I can go to sleep tonight and I’m not mad at anyone.”
Furthermore, if you want to be a seriously committed Christian, you will lay aside your emotions and what you think, and you will be committed to not going to bed angry. Don’t wait for the other person to make it right, just go ahead and be first.
When you wake up in the morning, pray, “God, keep me strong so I do not spend my day offended.” Say to yourself, “Today, I choose to not be offended no matter what happens.”
Coastal Coercive Control Coalition (C4) is a proactive approach to continued abuse within my family. I have been instructed to share my own personal experience with the detrimental effects of coercive control. The most insidious thing about coercive control is that the abuser does not have to be present in your life to inflict this type of abuse.
COERCIVE CONTROL is an established pattern of abuse. Some abusers will even commit crimes to maintain control of their intended victim, and they do not care who else is hurt in the process.
C4 Slogan–Hurt people hurt people. Part of my outreach will be addressing the effects of domestic violence, which I believe is a Generational Curse and only healing soul sickness will break it.
C4. The Coastal Coercive Control Coalition. Awareness. Education. Prevention. Prosecution.
Now I begin the next chapter of my life. May these words find a home in the hearts of others learning to practice The Art of Becoming.
Riding a Wave
Into the
Sea of Forgiveness
I
Paddle my canoe
And
Part the waters too
Ashes of Roses
I hold the
Heart-shaped box
Filled with
Dried rose petals
Whispering a prayer
I strike a match
To incinerate memories
Of
Love killed
By words
And blows
I walk
Free of shadows
Scattering
Ashes of roses
Violators,
Sometimes abuse is random, perpetrated by strangers committing crimes of opportunity. It was January 1984 when I encountered the two of you. I was fighting for my life and the one I call Driver…I clamped onto your thumb when you tried to silence my screams for help. You had to pull your thumb between my teeth, leaving your flesh behind. I spit your flesh and blood onto the pavement. Thirty-six years. PTSD. I wrote the poem below. It’s good. It’s bad. It’s ugly. I call it:
Smiling on the Outside
A normal day for me is
Talking to people
Having a “normal” conversation
While I relive
The taste of flesh and blood
The taste of survival
I smile on the outside
Sometimes people say
My smile made their day
Happy I could make
Their day a bit better
Perhaps they will smile
At someone
Because
Someone smiled at them
On the inside my heart
Beats
An ancient tribal drum
I recite
My Warrior’s Blessing
It is a good day to die
I make peace with death
Before I defend myself
If I must die
Today it is okay
Death is a portal
My Warrior’s Battle Cry
It is a good day to die
I make peace with death
Before
I defend myself
If you die today
I am sorry
As I look into
Your eyes and smile
When I spit your
Flesh and blood
Into the dirt
Howdy Neighbor,
I traveled the world, then moved back to “The Circle” (country version of a city block). Our families were neighbors for generations and here we are! Together. You have given me the safest home I ever had because you are not an abuser. Thank you for believing in your wife when I couldn’t believe in myself. May we have many more arrowhead seasons together. Please forgive me. I didn’t know how dysfunctional I was until I began to heal. I forgive you. We are Kintsugi Hearts–strength and beauty mending the broken places.
Dear Best Friend andTravel Buddy, I’ve missed you so much since you died from a rare and sudden illness on April 20, 2017. Please forgive me. Your friendship was precious to me, yet I failed you. I thought we had many years ahead of us to travel together. We had plans for a Mississippi Foodie Tour; we planned to fly to the Land of Blue Butterflies. You helped me find my words. Dysfunctional family relations had me so distressed and distracted, it’s taken years to buckle down and concentrate. I regret so many things I missed with you. I never made it to a college football game with you. I missed your son’s wedding. I was blessed to have you in my life. No forgiveness needed; you were a true blue friend. I’m planning a solo trip to our favorite spot. I’ll take an early morning walk like we used to do; looking for driftwood, sand dollars, and mermaid fingernails. More pictures of our log if it hasn’t been rolled by the tide back into the gulf. Sitting in our spot, I will listen as waves and wind whisper words.
My sons called you Aunt Sheesh. You were my sidekick through life; an early birthday gift the year I turned four. I can’t forget having to leave you and our poodle NiNi when I ran away from Mobile, AL in July of 1979. You’re both dead now. I have survivor’s guilt. It’s still hard to write the word dead for the two of you; deaths caused by friendly fire on the battlefield of the family wars.
I flew away in the middle of the night, leaving everything that was precious to me behind, except for my independence. I could not live a prisoner of war, home is a foreign place, an enemy camp. I failed you and NiNi. I could not keep you safe. The grief is deep in my heart for the way you lived the last eleven years and two days of your life. I feel you and NiNi waiting for me. You did nothing that requires my forgiveness.
Dear First Mate V,
You did not want to live without Kabtn Khawaga when he destroyed your world and left you without a backward glance. He physically, verbally, mentally and emotionally abused you, but it was his infidelity that broke you and you finally divorced him. He continues to mentally, emotionally and financially abuse you for what he perceives as your rejection of him. Kabtn wanted his Kate and Edith too. What he’s doing to you is called Coercive Control.
It is time for you to have a good life for yourself again. The best gift you could ever give me is yourself and your illustrations of stories I’m writing about your life. I admire you for your devoted and selfless care of my brain injured sister. You two were abandoned and neglected by Kabtn. Left without financial support, homeless, and zero emotional support from Kabtn and his merry band of fraudsters.
Sadness, anger, hurt. I felt these emotions and more when you told me you tried to kill yourself; not to hurt anyone, but to stop hurting. It felt like you wanted to abandon us too. I did not run away from you, our Mama/Momma. I ran away from V. Now I understand so much more. Please forgive me. I forgive you.
Fire/Water
Mother/Daughter
Elements in relation
Daughter’s water douses
Mother’s flame
Mother’s fire
Boils daughter’s water
Khawaga Kid 