I knew when I awoke that the courts were opened. There is a flavor of holiness that I only associate with there.
As I sat at the table to pray, in the spirit I was ushered into a court room and seated at a table on the right side. It was whispered to me that I would know what to say when the moment opened. The court was already in session.
The Lord began to speak to me there at my table.
He said if my heart is properly aligned with love I can present any case.
He said if my heart is to present his case, my bias will not interfere with his presentation.
Somehow I know this is linked to what I have been learning is partaking the fellowship of his sufferings.
Sometimes when suffering comes we are being invited to share a small portion of what the Lord endured while he was here on the earth as Son of man.
I was in a session with a survivor recently.
She knows something is coming that is hard.
Immediately I saw Jesus in the garden, saying to his dad, if there is any other way, take this cup from me. I knew she was being invited to share his moment, the way we invite him to share ours.
Recently I was with a friend who is incredibly frustrated with the church. What I saw in the spirit is that the Lord was inviting him into feeling his hunger when he looked over Jerusalem and said, how I have longed to gather you as a mother hen gathers her chicks. The frustration my friend felt came from not being able to step into the longing with absolute faith in Father. Without the faith that Jesus had, that longing resulted in great frustration.
So in this case I was being told to present the Lord’s case. I was instructed to bring the truth of how each opportunity in each point of suffering had been rejected. Bitterness had been chosen, the hardship of the soul had been counted as more important than the healing of the cross.
Oh, the horror.
I realized I was presenting a case that would leave the individual under scrutiny with no defense.
I turned from it.
I looked at the Lord and said, God, please don’t ever have me do this to anybody I love!
He said, ever so gently, don’t you believe that I love them, Tanya?
He told me that my grounding has to be in his perfection. The place for my emotions to anchor is that he does all things well.
He brought to mind Revelation 19, where the bride, seeing the smoke that ascends forever from Babylon, cries holy and true are your judgments, oh God.
I am undone.
So I presented his case, before the courts. I offered the evidence that love that had been rejected. I was trembling with the weight of it. And I was very very very grateful, that I am not ever the one who has to judge.
And the one who does judge is himself mercy, and he has triumphed over judgment for whosoever will choose love.
My heart is heavy for the lost today.
Save them oh God, and they will be saved.
Remember oh Lord how you saved me…I was far worse!
The cloud opens and my cry joins with the groans of heaven.
Surely this knowledge is too big for me.
May I be found leaning. I am nothing on my own.

By then, all my eyelashes were gone.
Someone had told me that if I lost an eyelash and it landed on my cheek, I could make a wish and it would come true.
I got carried away.
Or I kept wishing.
So I didn’t have any eyelashes left.
Mom had taken me to a counselor because something was visibly wrong.
Two times, she took me.
But, I didn’t talk.
No way was I going to risk more or worse, of what was already going on.
Fourth grade.
That was the year the science teacher came, although he did not figure prominently until the next year.
Fourth grade was the year of kissing in the coat closet.
A girl and a boy were picked and pushed into the dark coat closet together.
It was probably the first kiss for some.
For me it was just another time to shut down.
I was a shell, an empty shell, it was better that way.
No one could hurt me and I could not feel my body when I removed myself from it.
I remember Edna was in that class with me. She was an abuse survivor. She fought. She became better friends with my older sister in the grade above me because I was a pacifist. I wonder if that was because of the enmeshment.
So she became my sister’s eyes and ears in the class. If I made friends, whether I was doing good or bad, and various other tidbits she would give my sister for my sisters favor. Some of it was true, some of it was not. All of it was punishable.
If I won at tennis, later on my sister would hit me with the racket.
Telling mom had stopped when Mom did not intervene and the punishment got worse. That was years before.
Sometimes my sister would hit me while I was sleeping. When I woke up, she would say- you bitch, you burped, get down and kneel to me for an hour.
I can remember several times of falling asleep kneeling.
Pinching. Pulling my hair. Poking me with pins. If I turned a corner and she was there I was in for it.
That was my daytime life.
For the coat closet kissing, I got a broom shoved in my vagina. I was told that was really what he wanted to do to me.
The only times my sister was gentle was when she looked to me for sexual comfort. And then only sometimes.
The stroking usually ended in a flurry of pain as she acted out on me what was done to her.
I felt so empty most of the time, so vacuous. I was like a walking robot. Doing well academically was fun for me as long as she did not find out. But if I did anything that would make me look good in mom’s eyes, there a dangerous jealousy in her that burned against me because I had Mom for four years more than she did, and she blamed me for it.
The night time stuff continued. The daytime stuff continued.
I guess we all just continue to try and put one foot in front of the other until we can’t anymore.
But, God.

Twenty years ago, I had my first audio memory of a past I had entirely suppressed.
At the time I was part of a christian twelve step program called the Most Excellent Way.
I had realized that while I did not have the crystal addiction anymore, I was still plagued by addict behavior/mentality.
When I had my first memory, it was one of the group members that I called. I did not understand what was happening to me. But she had shared personal stuff with vulnerability an to me she felt safe. She explained that since we experience thins with all of our senses that recall can come through the same ways. She asked if I wanted to meet. I did. The second time we met I had a memory of my finger being cut and my blood being used to write my name in a book. She suggested we get a team and do some renunciations. I agreed.
So she, my transparent friend, another gal (who was a ritual abuse survivor), and a clinical psychologist (who went to our calvary chapel) set an appointment time.
I came. They led me through some prayers. I only remembered part of it.
At the end, the psychologist said to me that he would like to talk to the girl who had spoken with him earlier. I looked at him blankly. In my head I heard, he wants to talk to me. I reported what she said and they had a conversation, him to her and her through me to him.
Our time ended. He looked at me and said, my healing might take a little while. There was kindness in his eyes. And I was sent home.
I was not given any reasons for why I could now hear this girl in my head. My condition was not labeled as dissociative identity disorder until months later.
When I heard the term, me being me, I wanted to go search it out. I wanted to read books. I wanted to get healed.
In those days, hearing from God was more like an occasional dialogue than the oneness and witness that relationship has now become.
He was so specific with me. No.
Looking back I see that he knew me, he knew my need to control. He knew that I would learn so I could fix myself. And he had a better way.
He would teach me trust through making me lean on him.
He would restore me to people by allowing me relationships where I could safely lean.
He would use people who knew and had gone ahead of me so that I could benefit from their journey while growing in my dependence on him.
He is so good.
At 30, I did not see. All I saw was that there was stuff inside me that I was not in charge of or connected to. God! That was scary. I had parts with distinct personalities. Not all of them loved God! I remember how unsafe that felt. The idea that there was junk in me that I had no control over made me doubt my whole world. All of my definitions were needing re-examination. What was love? Who was God? What was family? How could hate an love exist simultaneously inside me?
The anger made me afraid. I was afraid I would kill someone. Or that they would know. And come and kill me. They always knew, when I was little, when I was mad. I was punished for it. Whether we were together or apart. They always knew.
I remember going to Mick at church. I was not sure how to make him understand. I remember trembling. I stood in line, to wait to talk to him. My turn came. I said, I have some memories from childhood that I repressed. They are coming up now. I am afraid. I am beginning to feel anger. (It was not that I did not feel it all before. But it was an undercurrent of how I lived life. I overreacted in disproportionate ways to life’s curves.) This anger…I am worried, I might hurt someone. He put his hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes. His prayer rings in me, it was an eternal sentence that was straight from the Lord to me. Turn the water into wine, Lord. That is all he said. That was it. At the time it seemed like it was not enough. Today when I pray this for others, I know that it was more than enough. He makes everything beautiful in its time. Even broken little girls who are filled with fear and anger. He did that for me. Beginning twenty years ago. Amazing grace.