Feeling the Anger; Fighting the Pain

Recently, through social media, I was again reminded of the pain that this situation has caused to homeowners across this nation.  The sting has left many paralyzed with fear, anger and disbelief.  The rage over the victimization has reached a boiling point.  People, who are so desperately in need of someone to listen to them, show their frustration at the system and at the very people who are trying to help them.  Their pain has blinded them to the fact that they are not alone; and as hard as they try to connect, their own personal pain is at such a point, nobody else’s pain matters, because theirs is all encompassing.  I have been there and I struggle every day to ensure that I keep mindful that this is not a personal war, but a nationwide battle.

That’s a hard pill to swallow when it’s your home and your life being torn apart.  I have learned many lessons during this eight year journey; and one of them is that, even though you are emotionally torn apart by your situation, you are in the most emotionless battle of your life.  Not on your side; but definitely on the side of the law.  No one in the judicial setting cares, outside possibly your attorney, if you have one.  The court of law is one of the most sobering and dispassionate places you can ever find yourself.  It doesn’t matter that you cry yourself to sleep every night; it doesn’t matter that you have been emotionally stripped to the bone or that you ended up divorce due to the stress.  What matters is that you present your case with absolute precision.  What matters is that you leave your emotion at home and wrap your mind around the stone-cold, hard facts.

I, personally, am an extremely emotional person.  I can barely make it through certain television programs without, at least, a half box of tissues.  Therefore, this was an extremely hard lesson for me to grasp.  This process was crushing my soul and all my attorney could say was that I needed to quit crying over spilt milk.   AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG!  How are you going to say that to a person who has had their life flipped upside down through no fault of their own?  How can you negate the emotional distress that these crimes caused in our lives?  But, alas, in the courtroom, emotion has no bearing; and in that respect, my attorney was right.  Crying over spilt milk in a courtroom is about as effective as throwing a towel in a bathtub of water and expecting that lone towel to soak up the wetness; it ain’t gonna happen.

In our case, the issue at point right now is that this particular bank is not the bank that committed the initial crime; however, instead of pointing the bank toward the offenders, the court is looking squarely at us to pay for the crimes of the other.  As infuriating as that is, here is my take on the situation.  After eight years, I have a fairly, firm grasp on my emotions; and now I am at a stage where I only feel determined.  I am not angry anymore, because I realize, for one, that I am not alone in this war.  For many years I had only my own thoughts to deal with this craziness.  Thanks to social media, I discovered that I was far from being alone.  The journey may have had its differences, but the overall journey was the same.  We are all fighting crimes against us and our property.  The laws that exist are being unrealistically twisted by lawyers that have unlimited amounts of funding to pursue their misrepresentations with vigor and vim.

It is not an easy task to bring your emotions under control; but you are the only one that can.  You are the only one with the power to reign in that which will not serve you well.  You are the only one that can bring you the peace of mind you are searching for, while you continue this seemingly, unending battle.

If you don’t find a way to keep your emotions in check, you will never find the peace you seek.  Many of you have heard the phrase “mind over matter;” that is exactly what this is.   You need to focus on what you are doing right; why you are doing what you are doing and realize that you can live with the decisions you have made; because you made these decisions to fight because it is the right thing to do.   You decided to fight, not just for yourself, but for the generations that will come after you.  If you do not stand your ground now, against the crimes that have been committed against you, they will become common place; and by the time your children are old enough to own their own home, there won’t be any homes that will be available for them to own.  The banks will possess all property and will have gained it illegally.

It is not easy getting a grasp on anger, but remember that anger serves no purpose, especially to you.  Those that experience your anger will negate your rationality and use it squarely against you.  Your credibility will be shot.  Controlled anger can be used skillfully, whereas, screaming tirades will surely gain you no audience.  Lose the anger, and if you can’t seem to get rid of it; use it to your advantage, not your demise.

Contemplating the End of the Journey

English: Bankrupt Bank (Крах банка) by Vladimir Makovsky – scene of a bank run. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have a lot to contemplate as that, which has dragged on for years, is now becoming front and center in our lives.  All the days, months and years of pain and confusion; standing on the truth only to discover that truth has its place and sometimes it’s not quite where we have envisioned; will all be coming to an end.  I feel like a weathered warrior, sensitive and stinging from the last eight years of relentless battle, achingly standing up to approach one last surge.  Confident but weary; strong, yet somewhat weakened by the experience to the point of being enveloped into a somewhat surreal life at times.  Time has been eaten up so fast through this painfully drawn out process.  Life continued to flow by at a pace that, although normal in the process of life, seems like breakneck speed; yet this whole nightmare, in contrast, seems to go at a snails’ pace.

Almost rapid fire, the pace has started to gain momentum as we still try to get the bank to relinquish an insurance check that they have had no right to; and, in the first week of October, we will take on, not only Ocwen, but US Bank as well, as we attempt to get the bankruptcy court to reopen the adversary proceedings to add damages to our judgment.  Fortunately for us, the case will be in front of a Chapter 7 judge as opposed to the Chapter 13 judge, whom, along with the Chapter 13 trustee, felt that the bank getting their monies far outweighed the fact that a crime had been committed.  So, in some way, this does make me feel a wee bit better.

You have to understand that this was not our first dance with this particular judge or trustee.  We went into bankruptcy in 1997, when the medical bills for my youngest daughter were devastating us financially.  However, in order not to beat a dead horse, I can only say that, we not only lost all the monies paid to the court over a six-year period; we also lost a paid off car and owed more on the house than when we began.  The very thought that we then went back in front of the same judge and trustee, the second time, to have them try their hardest to compensate the criminals for forgery and fraud, has, needless to say, tainted my feelings about this arm of our judicial system.  I don’t know who abused us more, the court or the bank.

That being said, I do have total faith in our lawyer and the firm he is associated with.  I have every confidence that he will do a stellar job and get us over these last few hurdles.  I do find it humorous that the attorney in the insurance case is the same one in the bankruptcy case.  I can only hope that she does as good as she did in the default hearing; which, had she been my lawyer, I would have fired her for incompetence, but that’s me.  Her preparation for the case was definitely minimal.  She does, however, for the bankruptcy case, have another attorney at her side; most likely because of how the last hearing turned out.

My attorney stated that the bank considers our request for the bankruptcy court to reopen the adversary proceedings, to add damages is, in their words, “totally ridiculous.”  I think that a homeowner, after reporting a crime, then having to defend the truth for almost a decade as a tad bit ridiculous.  I think that it’s downright criminal.  Seeing that the bankruptcy court has decided to hear the motion, maybe this judge doesn’t think it is so absurd.  Only time will tell.

I’m not sure what the future brings for my husband and I; however, what I do know is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  We are the ones that have the upper hand at this point, however, after riding the litigation train for the past eight years, I am painfully aware that not all is as it seems; and nothing is cut and dry.  To that end, my husband and I have made a pact, that no matter how this ends up, we are going to be good with it.  We cannot allow this crime , once it is said and done, to have any more time in our lives and we will move on as God intends us to do.  That does not mean that I will abandon any of those who are fighting this cause.  I have gained too much experience not to try and help.  When I say that we are done, it means that we will not dwell on the past eight years of personal pain.  We will move forward and try to show others how to move forward as well.

The hardest part of this journey is within our own minds.  Our sense of security and trust has been ripped from us, yet we are the only ones that can insure that their crimes against us gain no foothold.  We have to recognize that no matter what the outcome of anything that happens in our lives; at the end of the day, we are the ones in charge of ourselves and how we want to view the world.  Because hate is all around us does not mean that we, as people, need to hate.  We don’t have to live by the way the world wants to mold us.  We only have to live in faith; raise our eyes to our Lord and know that he will see us through whatever this world has to throw at us.  By allowing ourselves to believe and stand on our faith, we will weather any journey that this world places in our path.

Never lose sight of the fact that a house is only a house; it is the inhabitants that make it a home.  Never lose sight of the fact that if the house is gone, your family isn’t.  If I had a choice between losing my house and losing a loved one, trust me, that house would be gone in a heartbeat, with no regrets.  As painful as this journey is, when you put things into perspective you will realize that I am right.  This doesn’t, in any way, mean to give up the fight.  It purely means, that before you give your soul away on this journey, remember that there are far greater things in this life than a house.  What you are fighting for is truth, justice and a way of life; not to lose your concept of self.

The Banks Lead You to Believe this is Personal: It’s Not

English: Ingham County Courthouse in Mason, Michigan, USA. December, 2006. Photograph by Tim Hollosy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

As mortgage fraud victims, you may think that I stray from the subject sometimes; however, if we, as human beings are not in control of our emotions and fears, this battle will send us to our graves.  Stress kills, and the only way to avoid that, outside of being put into a coma by either pills or alcohol, is to figure out how to reach that stage of serenity in our lives when all hell is breaking loose.  We, as mortgage fraud victims, have taken it very personal that the banks have done this to us; when in reality, it wasn’t personal at all.  It was wanton, malicious, criminal, tortious and a host of other like words, but it was never personal.  Let me explain my reasoning.

 

I realized this, almost as a revelation, last Wednesday in the hallway of the Ingham County Courthouse, when the banks’ attorney, whom had never met us; her only familiarity of us was what she saw on paper, reacting as if we had taken the food from her baby’s mouth and burned down her house.  They want us to take it personal, because they realize if they can hit us in our ego, that in most cases, it will cripples us; because while we are trying to recover from the blow of them trying to steal our homes, they are slowly chipping away at our psyche.  They realize that if they squash our self confidence that they erode our thought process and cause emotions to run rampant.

 

In order to stay grounded, it is important that we take the personal out of it.  Nothing they can say or do will change what we know about ourselves.  The bank will yell deadbeat and we will spend way too much of our valuable time feeling embarrassed or ashamed, because obviously, according the masses whom have yet to come out of their coma, we did something wrong.  Snap out of it!  They can say anything, but we all know that those are just lies told by liars and we don’t have to own their interpretation of us or our lives.  They don’t know us and most likely have never met us.  We are a name on a piece of paper and they need to figure out how to release our name from another piece of paper; namely our deeds.

 

For those of you whom have followed my journey over the past couple years, it should be obvious to you that I took it very personal for many years.  How could I not, I reasoned.  Our lives had been turned upside down, inside out and been devastated, after already surviving tragic losses in our lives.  Our attorney, at the time, was telling us that we were the only case in the country where the homeowners found their signatures forged by a bank.  Trust me when I say that I took it very personal and that was exactly what these soulless creatures wanted; because your anger means nothing to them; you are just a name and number.  They don’t care that it affects people’s lives, because, like I said, it isn’t personal.

 

Once I was able to see through the haze of all the pain that had followed us for so many years, I realized that by taking it personally, I was creating my own pain.  The bank said we were deadbeats.  Why should that upset us?  Are we?  I know that we are not deadbeats.  So why does the bank putting it in writing and submitting it to the courts makes us own any of that.  Because they write it doesn’t make it so.  When our self-respect is threatened, we become defensive and angry, instead of seeing it for what it actually is; smoke and mirrors.

 

Strength comes from within.  However, if we allow ourselves to be mentally beat up throughout this journey, then our thoughts will always be driven by our emotions and in turn, we will remain totally miserable; stuck in the mirror of somebody else’s made up image of who we are.  This realization and acceptance of who we truly are will allow us to move forward, not affected by the “non-truths” of who we are personally and therefore providing us clarity of thought; a very necessary weapon against creative criminals and their band of merry attorneys.

 

Here are our truths, as victims of institutional frauds and forgeries that would strip of us our rights and properties.  It doesn’t matter that the bank tries to make you out to be a deadbeat; they broke the law.  It doesn’t matter that they make up stories and twist our words to fit whatever story they are trying to portrait; they broke the law.  It doesn’t matter; they straight up broke the law.  Don’t be angry, be straightforward.  You stand on the truth.

 

No matter what happens in your particular circumstance, you are not your house or property.  Your essence is not made from the material things that surround you.  Your essence is built on how you view the world and what is important to you.  Once you wrap your mind around the fact that your thoughts are yours to control; that the banks are not attacking your personally (they actually committed white collar crimes against our nation as a whole in an attempt to allow international entities to buy up our properties); and last, but definitely not least, that material things can be replaced.  Peace of mind comes within and is not easy to achieve.  It takes daily, sometimes hourly conscious thought to get through it.  It takes a determination to not allow outside entities to dictate how we view our lives and ourselves.

 

I get stronger every day and am proud that we stood our ground.  I would never want to go through this again, and I feel for each and every one of us whom have been put through these criminal violations of our lives.  This is why I sometimes stray from being on point.  My goal is to educate you on how to keep your sanity and come out a whole person at the other end.

 

 

 

 

 

Ignorance is No Excuse: Not Even When You’re the Bank

Lansing (MI) skyline as seen from the east. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Wednesday was a sight to behold in Courtroom 8 at the Ingham County Courthouse in Lansing.  For the first time in this unwanted journey, we were able to witness the total ineptness of a law firm representing Ocwen.  First, the banks’ attorney was held up almost two hours due to an accident on the expressway; however, she was anxious to get this matter “out of the way” and continued despite the lengthy traffic jam.  We were relieved because, obviously, we had driven over an hour ourselves to get there and at this point in the game, wanted to bring this to fruition and have our answers.

 

When the banks’ attorney finally arrived she looked harried and annoyed; she had no clue how annoyed she was going to become.  When the hearing finally started, she presented her reasoning as to why the bank should be excused for their negligence.  Her excuse that the former attorneys that had represented Saxon/US Bank in our first ordeals had dropped the ball and Ocwen was forced to go scrambling for new representation fell on deaf ears.  First of all, that case and their involvement came to an end in January of 2012.  It was also noted that Ocwen had refused to answer any communications, both before and after they had received the insurance check.  The insurance check was in their possession within two days of the insurance company issuing it as verified by their own timestamp.

 

Her claim for “meritorious defense” also failed miserably when she claimed that the “questionable mortgage” had been preserved by the bankruptcy court for the benefit of the estate.  Talk about someone not doing their homework.   When the US District Court (twice) and the US Circuit Court decided that the mortgage was, indeed, void ab-initio; that decision took everything back to the date that the original avoidance motion was granted by the Bankruptcy Court.  This preservation that she speaks of was done over a month later as an amended motion by the Trustee, so therefore, she did not do her homework.

 

It was strikingly evident, by the immature actions of this attorney, in the hallway after she had lost, that there is an appeal to this verdict in our near future.  However, in the meantime, she may want to get that check signed and delivered before we hit her bank with more sanctions for conversion of funds.  It took us years to get the mortgage truly avoided thanks to the banks delay tactics and lies.  Almost two years later they pretend that nothing has changed.  Maybe yesterday was a wake-up call.

 

All that being said, there is still on the table, the judgment that we were awarded by the bankruptcy court in 2007, of which will be starting to take off here very shortly.  Since I have gotten with this firm, one of my main objectives has been to force the bank to show us the note.  Not the copy of the note that was in our packet that they made when we were at our deposition in 2006; I want the one that shows all legal assignments.  Seems we have discovered that New Century only assigned the mortgage to US Bank; it never assigned the note.  How magnificently amazing is this little fact?  You are telling me that US Bank never had the “right” to come after us?  Are you telling me that we have unjustly been forced into years of litigation in the Michigan court system and you don’t even hold the note?  All I can do, in the instant, is shake my head in utter amazement.  Would this not constitute another fraud that has been committed against us, the innocent homeowner?  Ah, what a tangled web we weave when we attempt to deceive…

 

I have stood strong upon my faith throughout and Wednesday was one of the more exceptional days of the past ten years.  The only things that topped it were the wedding of my son and the birth of three grandchildren.  This has been a hard nine years and it is nice to be nearing the end of this chapter.  It’s a time that I need to reflect on what I have learned; take the lessons to heart that have meaning and throw away all the rest.  Soon, the final gavel will fall in our case; the hard years will be behind us.  My only advice is that no matter how bad they beat you down; no matter how people treat you or react to your situation; always be aware that it is your situation, not theirs.  Their opinions are just that, opinions, and we are all entitled to those.  You stand your ground and you stand on the truth.  People will berate you for the emotions that take over acting as if you are making a big deal out of “nothing”.  What is nothing to one is the world to another and none of us have the right to choose peoples’ dreams and aspirations.  We all, ultimately, are responsible for how we feel, but that responsibility is to ourselves first and foremost.  What good are we to anyone else if we aren’t good with what is within our own being?  Take charge, formulate action and stay true to your cause.

 

Most of us have been raised to tell the truth and be honest with our situation.  Most of us try to do the right thing.  If you have been true about your situation and you have been violated and had a criminal action taken against you, then you need to stand on your faith and fight.  You do not stand alone.

 

Finding Peace on the Lakeside

This is a day that is all about enjoying the true blessings in life; spent with my wonderful husband and youngest granddaughter, camping at a beautiful, inland lake, of which Michigan is famously known for.  King’s Landing is a recreational campground located on Miller Lake in the Village of Columbiaville; a small country community just inside the thumb of our great state.  When I am looking for solitude, this is where I come.  A ten minute commute from my home, it’s the perfect escape for a minimum amount of dollars.

 

We are not your “old-fashioned” campers by any sense of the word.  Yes, we set up a tent and we have a campfire, but we also make sure to enjoy our modern technologies as well.  I know, I know; well at least I don’t have internet and to me, that’s roughing it.

 

This Wednesday, we will appear in the Ingham County Courthouse for the default hearing against the bank regarding the insurance claim we placed against their forced insurance in April; hence making this the perfect weekend to get in touch with the really important things in life; and that is family.  Those precious moments that will become a fond memory in a child’s mind; as well as the mind of an aging, grateful woman, whom has grown to understand that these types of memories are necessary in life to make us whole.

 

Wednesday will come and go, and no matter how it ends up, I will still have my family; each one an essential part of my life.  I lean strongly on the serenity prayer, each and every day, understanding that there are things in our lives that are not in our control.  In reality, the only thing we do have any control over is ourselves.  We have the ability to calm ourselves and find that inner peace that life somehow tends to rip away from us.   That is, until we realize and accept that we can only control what is within us and that we need find a way to be good with those things that we have had absolutely no control over.  We do what is necessary in life and sometimes we fail; but it does not mean that we are failures.  It means that we have to stand up, dust ourselves off and start anew; but not always to the same path.   We only have ourselves in this world to depend upon when it comes to how we, personally, deal with each and every situation as it arises.  We are the only ones that can take the emotions that are within us and turn them to our benefit.

 

When part two of our mortgage fraud journey began, after the US 6^th Circuit Court ruling, I had many demons that I needed to rid myself of.  Nothing was clear at that time, but the years of anger and bitterness over this battle had taken its toll.  As wonderful as our situation seemed to be, it was not absent on us that the journey was far from over.  I, personally, had to make a decision.  Do I continue, the way I have, each and every moment feeling as if someone has personally assaulted me  and ravaged my life; or do I take charge of my life, quit taking it all personally and get down to the business of finalizing this chapter of our lives.  Luckily for me, I chose the second of those options.  It has not been easy and in the past year-and-a-half, there has been a definite change in my attitude, my goals and my life.

 

Sitting here, lakeside, listening to the early morning sounds of the campground is soothing; even with the bustling of other campers whom are starting to get around and start their day.  Children are laughing in the background and the smell of last night’s campfire still hangs heavy in the air.  A family is slowly walking out into the water, being the first to feel the cool of the morning water gently massages against their ankles.  It’s going to be a great day.  My husband is great at being a grandpa that he is and is rowing our ten-year old granddaughter and her new found friend around the lake in a rowboat.   The mirrored lake ripples gently as he slowly breaks the glass of the lake as the oars pushed smoothly through the water of the small ten-acre lake.  What problems do I truly have when I look around me and understand that it’s not the material things in life that set us free and give us joy?   It’s the blessings of a spouse whom honors their commitment to you; it’s the children that you nurtured and watched blossom into adulthood and it’s the gift, for that parental journey, of grandchildren whom look to you, their grandparent, for unconditional love and support.  It’s the faithful dog that lies by your side and the beauty of Gods world that surrounds you.  No matter what the outside world does to us, we are in control of what our minds do with all of that.  We can continue to be victims or we can become survivors.  Viewing ourselves as victims only victimized our souls further; viewing ourselves as survivors, allows us to put the anger behind us and move forward in our lives.  Dan and I have chosen to be survivors and move forward, despite the outcome of our current situation.

 

There are several ways that our case can go on Wednesday, from being worse off than we are now to having everything we are asking for to be granted.  In the past, this would have been gut-wrenching for me.  Waiting for the time to pass, with one delay after another, agonizing over what the next decision will do to our lives.  It’s not that way this time.  There is an odd calmness that has befallen me and I know that I have truly (not halfheartedly) placed our situation squarely in the hands of God.  I stand by my decision to let the chips fall where they may; and wherever they land, we are going to be good with that.  I spent the better part of the first four months last year searching for an attorney that had the guts to take on part two of our case.  I separated myself from my husband and my home and worked diligently at jumping that hurdle.  I did not go through all that so that I can worry about how it’s all going to end.  God led me each and every step of the way through that journey and I am not going to doubt the wisdom of his selections for my life.  I see that journey for what it was; a way to cleanse my soul of the darkness that this experience had laid upon my life.  Many times during my journey of trying to find good legal representation I came close to giving up, but I knew that God was going to do for me what needed to be done, and behold, he did.

 

I don’t sit and worry about our situation anymore and have truly reached the “it is what it is” stage of this journey.  At least when it is done, we will know where we stand and be able to make some forward thinking moves in regards to where our lives are going to end up.  Good, bad or indifferent, when the final gavel falls in our case, the past will be put aside and we will move toward where God wants us to be.

 

The sun has rose higher in the sky since I first started typing, and the breeze is gentle and cooling.  What a wonderful place to be able to write.  I pray that all of you whom have been fighting this war along with us, that you find your peace of mind in all of this.  I am not saying that you have to be good with any of this; but in your mind you have to know that this is not what life is; and truly it is only a small part of our lives; and although unjust, it does not take away the essence of who we are and does not define our lives.

 

Breaking Silence

 

Although I have not been up front and present over the past several weeks, I have kept up with all that has been written in our world of “mortgage fraud” that saturates my Facebook page on a daily basis.  There are times when you just need to take a break from the mental-ness that all of these stories can create within a being.  In my world, for years, it was “just us” fighting this lone battle; however, once I opened myself up to realize that we were not the “only ones” my eyes have been opened in a way that I never expected.  I see the anger that was in me throughout our ordeal writhing through the words of emotionally and financially devastated people from across this country and I revisit those feelings, with relief that I have moved to a higher plane and am thankful that we have survived what we have.  So many have such a long journey ahead of them; and even though our journey is not over, it is in its winter season.  I have reached a point in all of this where I have accepted that it was a higher power that put me in this position; because that higher power knew that I would come full circle with this circumstance and I would come out the other end a more faithful and whole person.  However, being an empathetic soul, the pain of others tends to take its toll on me at times and I have to step back.

 

This time of year is always a reflective time for me and I will most likely always take a few days to myself during this time of year.  August is the month that I lost my father in 1997; and would be the month, ten years ago, that I would lose a precious son-in-law and grandson to tragedy.  I reflect back on those summers that left a scar on my heart, and I see that through it all I have always remained faithful; believing in that greater power I have always considered my friend and savior.  I didn’t always behave in a manner that was befitting a child of God, but I have always believed.  Youth blinds us to the truths in this world and sometimes our minds blind us to the truths that are right in front of us.  It is only through the rough terrains in life that we discover how to appreciate the paved roads; how else can we possibly gain the strengths that make being unconditionally faithful possible?

 

For those of you who have been following this blog, you are aware that we have been fighting for an insurance check that was issued to fix our roof and inside damage caused by the unstable roof since April.  Our court date on the Show Cause hearing was set for July 10^th, where the bank, in their infinite wisdom, did not show.  The court ordered them to turn over the check to our lawyer within 24 hours of notice; and again, no response.  It would be two weeks later, when we requested a default ruling that the bank would decide to retain a law firm out of Detroit to represent the contemptuous bank and try to “negotiate.”  However, for the privilege of negotiations, the bank demands that we withdraw the motion for default judgment.  We still don’t know where we stand with this.  We could either get nothing or we could get the default judgment amount, however, whatever we do or don’t get will be up to the judge and it will be what it will be.  I find it interesting that they are so concerned over this default judgment.  Is it because they have no good excuse for ignoring all correspondence from us until the default judgment was on the table?

 

As I suspected when I first took on the challenge to file an insurance claim on the house, the banks are doing everything in their power to drag things out.  That is how they played the last time we played ball and I find it as no surprise that they have turned a 24-hour turn-around order into a six week ordeal.  They did finally submit the check to our lawyer, however sans any bank signature, which still constitutes conversion of the funds.  They had the check in their possession since May 3, 2013 as evidenced by their own date-stamp, yet, they didn’t receive any of the ten or so documents that they were sent prior to and after receipt of the check.  It will be interesting to see if the court deems that we should be responsible for the irresponsibility and inadequate bookkeeping and office practices of the bank.

 

The next course of action will be the bank issuing a motion to the judge requesting that the default judgment be set aside for some “meritorious” reason, which the judge can either grant or deny.  I put myself in the shoes of the defendant.  What possible reason can I give for not 1) answering our lawyers’ correspondence(s) or returning his phone calls, and 2) ignoring a court order?  I am almost positive that the response will be some type of miscommunications excuse.  For those of us who have worked in government and/or the corporate world, we are aware that there is protocol in every aspect of paper routing and dispersion within all of these types of “corporate” structures.  Mail does not just disappear.  It goes through a process of opening, date-stamping and then is routed to the correct departments and the correct recipients.  Those recipients’ then keep it progressing until whatever needs to be done with that document has ran its course and it can be filed appropriately.  I know, everyone makes mistakes, but considering that they were sent several different documents at several different times and that the odds of that happening to every stitch of mail sent to them by us would somehow have fallen through the cracks each and every time would be highly unlikely.  Yet, the money, i.e., the check, was received and date stamped for May 3^rd?  These, of course, are all assumptions on my part, but after the journey that we have traveled in the “mortgage fraud by the bank” world, we know that some of the lamest excuses are sometimes bought by the somewhat smartest of judges.

 

I am not sure where this will all end up, however, I do know is that no matter how it ends up, I will always be good with the fact that we stood our ground and we didn’t back down.  I will always be grateful for the fact that we haven’t let the anger that resided in us for so long take root and not allow us to see that beyond all “this”, life is a beautiful thing.  When all you see is rain and grey skies your perspective dampens with every drop of rain; especially when it’s coming through your own roof; however, this roof is more than many have right now and I have to always be mindful of the small blessings that we receive every day.  I feel good as to where I am mentally in my life right now, even though the storm has not totally passed.  I have accepted that I am doing all that I can possibly do for my situation right now and I am allowing myself to enjoy the summer and start tackling Christmas projects that I have planned to take me through the Fall.

 

We all need to give ourselves a break sometimes, even if it’s only for a day or two; to break away from the burden that this type of fight puts on us.  We have to be mindful that what is put upon us is majorly brought to us through our own thoughts and that sometimes it is good to let the mind go elsewhere in life, even if it is just for a little while, so that we can regain our focus and remain steadfast in the reality that this situation is not our life, but only a circumstance in our lives.  It is nearly impossible to get to this understanding when you are in the midst of the battle; bruised and confused by the courts answers to crimes that would send normal human beings to be incarcerated, defamed and stripped of all their dignity.  Those realizations, that the world is not how we envisioned it; justice is not what we thought it was, can cause a serious breakdown in our spirits and our views.  We lose faith in the world around us; but our faith should have never been in the world around us anyways and deep inside we know this.  When the devil’s beating at your front door, it’s hard not to fall into the emotional hell that fighting these judicially backed criminals are driving with their unending resources.  However, emotion does nothing for you in a court of law as I have discovered.  Being an emotionally charged woman, this has not set well with me for many years; but I have come to terms with that.  Just the facts madam, nothing but the facts; well, here are some facts that I look at and wonder how we have allowed all this to happen to our fellow citizens by allowing these crimes and corporate greed to continue:

 

1)      According to USA Today, in June 2013, there were a total of 35,507 homes foreclosed on in Los Angeles.  This is one city in the country and this is considered to be down 9% from the previous month and down 35% from June of 2012.

 

2)      According to the Los Angeles Times, as of June 2013, homelessness in the city has rose over 16% in the past two years demonstrating an increase of over 8,000 more people within one city that has no place to call home.

 

3)      According to the First 5 LA Commission in their June 2012 report entitled “Homeless Children 0-5 in Los Angeles County” stated that “On any given night, at least 3,000 children ages 0-5 in L.A. County are homeless.”   Between 2010 and 2011 the emergency shelter referrals for families with 0-5 children tripled.

 

This is one city, during one month this year.  Now we can assume that a bunch of already homeless people decided to have families out on the streets, or we can accept that in one way or another they lost their homes and that was most likely due to foreclosure.  They could have either been homeowners or renters of homeowners who lost their properties back to the banks since the 2007 meltdown. Now here is my idealistic mind at work.  You have 35, 507 homes that were foreclosed on and you have 58,000 people homeless.  Now considering that those numbers include families with and without children, it seems to me that there is plenty of housing.  I know, not realistic in this, “it’s all about the almighty dollar” society; but a girl can dream.

 

The offending banks and the courts want everything devoid of emotion.  The offending banks also know full well that each and every one of these foreclosure fights is going to be emotionally charged from the homeowners’ perspective (after all most victims do feel emotionally battered) and will use those emotions against us.  I have traveled this road for too long and I have slowly but surely learned that the only way to get ahold, of at least my emotions, is to sometimes just back off and allow myself to see other things in my world and not let this continued fight consume me.  Where ever this journey ends, I know that I can hold my head high in the realization that I did the best that I could and will continue to do what I feel is right; but I will do it on my terms and not theirs.  I will keep my faith in God that he will make sure that no matter how this really turns out, my life will still be valuable and I will always be grateful for all that I have in life and enjoy living in the now.

 

 

When Jurors think “What’s in it for me?”, the System Fails…

I try diligently to stay true to my purpose for this blog and only rarely do I stray from the intended content.  However, today I feel that I want to make an exception.  Personally, I try very hard not to be overly judgmental in my life.  If anyone tells you that it is easy to reserve judgments I will be the first one standing in objection.  We are all raised, in one way or another, to form judgments to the world around us.  Whether it is judgments about our personal paths that we’ve chosen or about the habits that we see in the people that we meet throughout our life path; we are all placed in a seat of judgment, both giving and receiving.  How can we not be and actually run our lives with any clarity or forethought?  However, the thing about judgment is that it can become clouded by the opinion of others, and that is where our troubles begin.  When you are a juror and you are more concerned with how this case will profit you, then you are a huge part of the problem.

I personally did not keep daily tabs on the George Zimmerman trial.  I didn’t have to; it was spread out everywhere throughout the media, cyberspace and Facebook pages spanning the globe.  I would read some of the media’s interpretation along with bloggists who were outraged at one side or the other.  I eventually formed my own conclusion; or judgment if you will. 

What first sticks out with me in this particular case is the fact that a “juror” already has a book deal in the works.  I truly believe that if you sit on a jury, you are doing a public service and in no way should have the right to profit from that duty.  I believe that it taints the jury pool and truly is an injustice to both the victims of crimes and those being tried.  By virtue of the fact that we know that a juror in this particular trial, obviously had a deal in the works prior to the verdict, is outrageous and in my eyes, cause for a retrial.

I can think of many incidents over the past couple decades where guilty people were proclaimed innocent by a jury of their peers, where a juror would profit from “their story”.  Let’s review.  We had Casey Anthony, whose daughter would go missing for over thirty days before Ms. Anthony would let anyone know that the small child was missing.  This child would be found dead, the evidence was glaring, yet she was found innocent.  The interesting side note is that Juror, Carol Lee Kosis, is selling her “from a Juror’s Point of View” story everywhere online. We also had Robert Blake, who was accused of killing his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley in 2001.  Within hours of the jury deciding Mr. Blake’s fate, one of that trial’s jurors, Roberto Emerick, was peddling a CD on “Larry King Live” of six songs he composed as he sat on the jury.  I’m sure he was riveted by the testimony that he wasn’t hearing.  Last but not least, let us remember OJ Simpson who was found innocent of killing his wife and a friend back in 1994.  Michael Knox was allowed by the court to write his book chronicling his journey as a juror in the trial of the century.  Mr. Knox was dismissed for lying about his criminal record (he had been previously been arrested for kidnapping his girlfriend) and published his manuscript while the trial was still ongoing. The publisher was subpoenaed; the book sold more than 350,000 copies. Armanda Cooley, the foreman of the jury that would find OJ Simpson innocent has also collaborated with other jurors that was published in January 1996, three months after the verdict.  Books are not written in a matter of months; most take a year or more so this leads me to the judgment that this book was a work in progress during the actual trial.  How does one keep their concentration on the facts of a trial, while contemplating a book in their heads?

What I also see is two families that will never be the same.  No matter how this case came out there were never going to be any winners.  Mr. Zimmerman is far from being a victor.  He may have his “freedom” but he, like Casey Anthony, will be an outcast in society until the day they die.  Neither will be able to live a “free” life.  They will wake up every day knowing that there is a world out there that hates their existence and would rather see them gone from this world as opposed to breathing our air.  To me this is not a life, and therefore, I don’t believe that Mr. Zimmerman won anything.  Let me ponder this.  Which would I prefer; being under the protection of guards and a prison system with a half-ass chance of survival, being provided with three squares a day; or would I prefer having to watch my back every single minute of my life; never being able to get a good job (if any) and never being able to just relax out of fear that someone is peering through a bush ready to blow my ass away?  I think I would rather take my chances in prison.  I personally can’t put myself in the juror’s shoes and know why they chose to declare Mr. Zimmerman innocent; but what I do know is that karma has a way of balancing the scales.  Your past A.L.W.A.Y.S. comes back to haunt you and set the record straight; and this goes for jurors who weren’t there as a public servant but as an opportunistic, “what’s in it for me” personality searching only for a way to make a name for themselves.  I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of press, however, I see no room for it in the capacity of a juror.  For those that are interested in what happened at the trial level, that’s what court transcripts are for.  There are also plenty of authors that have followed these trials that have given excellent accounts of what transpired.

That being said, crimes like what happened to Trayvon Martin happen every single day in our country in almost every single city.  This week alone in Michigan, (of the ones that were made news) we had two young people working at a Family Dollar store shot to death.  The young woman was kidnapped, killed and thrown at the side of the road within miles of her abduction.  The young man had only started his employ a week earlier.  In the City of Flint, two young men in their early twenties and a nine year old boy were gunned down in their own apartment.  As I sit and type this blog, in the background I can hear the local new reporting seven murders in the City of Flint over the past seven days; the most recent a mother and her daughter that were discovered last night, shot to death, in their own apartment.  Where is the outrage for these senseless deaths?  Should we prepare for national media to descend upon Flint?

I am left to wonder why is it that one story is more horrific or more important than another?  You can travel to any state in this country over the past six weeks and see stories where a human being has killed other human beings.  In my mind, if anyone is inciting racial tension, it is the media who picks and chooses what we the people will see and be able to react to.  Every single murder is tragic and unnecessary.  Every murder should cause outrage.  They all wound the core of the families that are left behind to pick up the pieces, whether they lost a loved one to crime or to the prison system.  The true judgment comes from above, and if our justice system got it wrong, eventually God will make it right, and I am good with that.

My prayers are with the true victims of this crime and as with any crime of this magnitude, the ones that are left behind to cope with the consequences that result from someone’s bad judgment.  Those are the ones that have to show up in the courtroom, either to seek justice for the one that was lost or to try and support a loved one that is on trial for the death.  The pain those families have to endure as they sit across the courtroom, just feet away from each other; neither quite knowing the exact pain of the other.  Some that sit accused are the scum of the earth and need to be taken off our streets for the protection of the public; others made bad judgment calls that resulted in someone’s death.  When they could have taken the high road and walked away they decided to push a little harder; not out of murderous thoughts but out of a need to show someone how tough they are.  In some cases that judgment call backfires and they find themselves in a position that they never imagined themselves in, all because their ego dictated that they wanted to be known as “Billy Badass”.

I am not one that truly gets hate crimes because I do not hate.  To me we are all human beings trying to do the best with what we have been given.  We all are human beings, with beating hearts and blood coursing through our veins.  When you prick us we all bleed and when you hurt us we all cry.  When something is funny we all laugh and when our children excel in life, we all get that lump in our throat that is an internal reaction to the pride welling up inside of us.  I think that it is beautiful that God saw us all as a rainbow in his garden of life; giving us each uniqueness in this world.

We will all move on from the tragedies that have happened and in a year or two they will be distant painful memories.  We all need to be mindful of the judgment calls that we make each and every day in our lives.  We need to always be mindful that people have a right to live and have a right to their opinions, even if they don’t correspond with our own.  That fact is that anyone being murdered is a tragedy and it involves a human being against human being.  To me, it’s not a matter of black and white; it’s a matter of humanity.

Our legal system needs to recognize that by allowing jurists to turn their experience into a money making opportunity they will continue to get juries that are not there to serve justice, and it will always tip the balance.  No one should be composing music or writing chapters for their upcoming fame at a cost to the victims of a crime or the accused criminal seeking to clear their name.  You cannot expect good judgments from people who are not there for the pure intent of getting to the truth.

 

 

What Defines My Life ~ la première partie

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Lately, I have examined other aspects of my life through my blog on mortgage fraud, because part of healing is to examine all parts of ones life, not just bits and pieces.  I have come to the conclusion that we all reach this point in our lives where we start to examine where we have been, where we are and where we may be going with a more spiritual focus.  I feel that it’s something that occurs because we become more aware of our own mortality and for some of us we have the inborn need to have a better understanding of God and our purpose.  In order accomplish that I feel, at least for me personally, that even though mortgage fraud has taken up the last eight years of my life; I had forty-four years of life prior to that. That means that only 16% of my life has been devoted to dealing with this; but what of the other 84%?  The last eight years do not define me; the last fifty-two do.

 

 

 

I came into this world, through no fault of my own, to a severely dysfunctional family.  With a father that spent nearly twenty-seven years, off and on, in prison and a mother that allowed herself to make decisions that would eventually lose her both her daughters; my sister and I didn’t have a sporting chance with these two.  My sister was fortunate enough not to have my father as hers; however, she would lose him during her most formidable years as a young teenager.

 

 

 

Because of how my parents were, we were separated at a very young age; never being able to develop that sisterly bond that usually occurs when siblings are brought up together.  I was always, in some way, aware that I had a sister out there; but the reality of that fact would not present itself until I was a twelve year old pre-teen and her, an extremely witty seventeen-year-old, street wise teenager.

 

 

 

I first met my sister, after years of separation, in the summer of my twelfth year.  The clarity of that summer is still vivid in my mind.  It was the summer where my mother’s, mother bought me a Sizzler (a little cheerleading looking dress, where the matching undies underneath would show).  The grandmother that I was living with was livid. I can still close my eyes and see her rage at seeing me dressed so scantly.  Yeah, that disappeared quickly, and of course, I absolutely loved it and was crushed that I would not be allowed to keep or wear this “cool” garment.

 

 

 

It had only been a couple years earlier where I “met” my mother under the guise of my “uncle’s” (later to be known as dad) girlfriend.  That’s another blog.  The point is that this particular summer is the summer that I got to meet some of my family.  I was introduced to my Aunt Joyce and Aunt JoAnne and all my respective cousins; so meeting my sister was going to be the icing on the cake.  I remember being excited that I was going to meet my actual “sister”.  Being raised by my grandparents, it was an only child scenario; and many times it was lonely existence.  My grandparents were old school and my grandmother had absolutely no patience.  Add to that the fact that I was an early bloomer, growing to 5’8” and 180 pounds (although solid); I had all kinds of pre-teen issues.  The thought of having a sister to talk to and commiserate with seemed like one of the most wonderful gifts in the world to me at that time in my life.  Then I met Robin.

 

 

 

When I first laid eyes on her, I was amazed that she was my sister; we looked absolutely nothing alike.  Here I was, this behemoth of a pre-teen, and in front of me was a petite (5’2”) blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty.  My sister would later tell me that she had all these preconceived ideas as to what I looked like; unfortunately, her vision that she beheld that first time was reminiscent of a football player bounding towards her.  I laughed that statement off then, but the truth was that it in a small way and definitely not done out of malice, injured my already fragile ego; it was, in my mind, the beauty and the beastly sister syndrome.  I know that she meant nothing by it and most likely never gave it a second though; but I allowed it to eat into my thoughts and eat at my already low self-esteem for a long time.

 

 

 

However, it didn’t take long for me to fall head over heels in love with my sister.  My fondest memory of her first time visit was when she and I were sitting in my bedroom on the floor, with a tape recorder running, enjoyed sixty minutes of some of the funniest minutes of my life.  My sister was, and still is, a natural comedian and by the time that those moments were over I had a tape, which I would cherish for years of our first really special time together.  The tape was lost somewhere along my journey in life, but I would give my eye teeth to hear those echoes of the past again.

 

 

 

By the time I turned fifteen, I was losing control of my life.  I was rebelling against the sexual abuse of my grandfather and another family member.  I had gone from being an all-A student to skipping school and running away from home.  At some point, there was a decision (whose I can’t remember) to go live with Robin, her husband and twin girls in San Antonio, Texas.  I remember so much about that time, yet I can’t remember why I walked into a certain room for a thought that happened five minutes ago; but I digress.  I remember the tears in my grandfather’s eyes when he said good bye.  I remember the coat that I was wearing.  I remember the cab ride through a blizzard to get to metro airport, sliding into a local Western _Union office to pick up funds before my early morning flight.  I got on that plane thinking that my life with my sister was going to be like that Saturday afternoon in my bedroom.  This would become my reality check when it came to how my sister and I were going to relate, and it wasn’t going to be hours filled with unending witticism.

 

 

 

My sister was the mother of two beautiful twin girls that were not quite two years old.  She and her husband, when I first arrived, lived in an upstairs apartment at her husband’s parents’ house located on the outskirts of San Antonio.  I can still close my eyes and see the beautiful view from their property that was perched up on a hill that overlooked the city in the distance.  It was all new to me and I thought that I would be spreading my wings; that is until my sister turned into my mother.  I can say bless her heart now, but at fifteen, finally being away from my authoritarian grandparents and I had landed smack dab into a big sister.  After the first month we just didn’t get along.  I felt as if she were overbearing and was not appreciative of her being the motherly figure in my life.  After all wasn’t that what I was running away from?  Needless to say that ended badly.

 

 

 

It would take decades before I could get over what I considered the mothering that came along with being little sister.  I still try to deal with something that I put in my mind years ago, when I saw her for the first time.  We were as different as day and night.  Not only in looks, but the way we viewed our lives and what had occurred in our lives.  Each of us has been wounded by a childhood that we were not able to share, and even now, fifty years later; it’s still hard to reestablish the bonds that should have occurred so many years ago.  Now, when I look back, I understand that she was trying to be my sister the best way she knew how.  She was trying to protect me back then and I saw it as an invasion of my attempt at freedom.  I developed a mindset that I work hard to overcome when it comes to her.

 

 

 

Many times I don’t understand where my sister is coming from, and it is obvious to me that she doesn’t get me either.  I don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about me.  I feel that I am a pretty straightforward kind of gal for the most part.  I don’t have anything lurking in a closet somewhere, or any real bad habits that I’m aware of.  I sit here and chuckle as I write this because for some reason I picture her saying the same thing.  I have always respected and admired my sister for her tenacity and for her thirst for knowledge.  I wish I had seen that develop.  There are many things that I wish when it comes to my sister and the development of our relationship.   We were robbed of the ability to have the bonds that tie so many sisters so closely together and because of that we grew up in two totally different worlds, fighting two entirely different battles turning into two totally different people; but there is a common bond that still shines through, at least to me.

 

 

 

We are good people.  We both are pretty free with our opinions.  I don’t believe for one moment that either one of us would ever purposely try to hurt someone.  We love our families with every fiber of our being and we have long successful marriages.  Our children and our grandchildren love us and we cherish them as well.  We both, for all that we have went through, have turned out to be respectable, decent people whose hearts are always in the right place.  To me that’s the world and it says something special about both of us.  Throughout it all, we still managed to get back together.  It will never be as easy as it would have been if we had been able to get to know each other in the normal way that sisters do, but I have faith that someday the light will go on for both of us; because, personally, In my world, I have a big percentage of time left on this earth and I would love to spend some of that with her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I Love Sundays’…

Christianity (Photo credit: pietroizzo)

I have always loved Sundays for as long as I can remember.  It used to be the day that, when I was young, I would go to the local community Baptist church with my grandparents.  I remember the joys of going to Vacation Bible School, learning about Jesus and creating beautiful crosses out of Popsicle sticks and yarn.  I reminisce about when I was four, singing songs (my version) while the adults around me would chorus the beautiful hymns.  I recall one of my loudly sang verses was, “I love my dolly”, while the adults parishioners were kicking out “Rock of Ages”.  I still have to smile when I think about a time when I wasn’t affected by the world around me.

Through the years of my youth I was a guest in many different churches, with friends and family and remember enjoying the experience of seeing the different ways that people worshiped God.  I was a bit taken aback the first time that I experienced a southern Pentecostal church service where the parishioners were speaking in tongue; to this day I have a problem understanding what I saw way back then.  I recall attending a Catholic wedding, around the age of ten, and discovering that this faith bored me to tears, only because the services seemed to last forever; and I felt so lost when all the true Catholics were able to recite the Beatitudes and Hail Mary’s with such conviction.  Catholicism, although a beautifully orchestrated devotion to God, is a faith that appeared a little too rigid for me.

I became disillusioned with the church when I was sixteen, homeless and pregnant.  I was staying at a friend’s home at the time and her mother was trying to pressure me into giving the baby up for adoption to them.  This wasn’t going to happen, because I saw the way that these people treated their own children.  When their request fell on deaf ears they set their pastor to work on me.  They were affiliated with a little corner church that had, maybe, forty members.  The pastor was a Detroit police officer during the day and minister by night.  Assuming that I was a run-away (remember I said I was homeless, not a run-away), he threatened to have me locked up and stated that with me being incarcerated, they would ensure that the baby would be given to a “good home”.  This statement would mold my views of the church for many years to come.  Of course, nothing he threatened came to fruition, because I told him to send the police to my parents’ home, where I sat on the front porch until two o’clock in the morning waiting for the police to come.  The police never showed up and I quit attending church.  It would take another ten years before I would enter another church for services.

When I was twenty-six, I was coming out of a self-imposed bad time in my life and I turned to the church.  Not to the people in the church, but the church itself.  I wandered into our local Presbyterian church, kneeling in front of the cross that adorned the front of the church, praying for God to take me far away from the path that I had chosen since I had turned my back on the church.  At that time I was under the impression that my choice of abandoning the church had set all my mishaps in motion.  The church’s pastor, whom had witnessed my desperate prayer and pleas to God, approached me and offered me a shoulder to cry on.  I would bare my soul for the next two hours to this wonderful man of God.  This would be the man that would renew my faith in the church; the man who would make me feel good about the way that I communicated with my father and enabled me to see the difference between faith and religion.  The Presbyterians’ believe that your conscious is your guide.  They don’t believe in walking around spouting that this is a sin, or that is a sin.  They believe that if it is wrong your conscious will be the first to tell you that it is wrong.  I personally believe this heart and soul.  God’s voice within you is your conscious.  I had found a church that I could believe in; however, it did not and will not alleviate all my problems with the concept of church.

I still do not normally attend church on Sundays; however, not because of what happened way back then.  I do not attend church regularly because I am not comfortable knowing that so many that attend church do so for appearances sake.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are many that are true, faithful Christians that practice their faith throughout their lives and not just on Sunday, at church, surrounded by friends.  That is the part of religion that I have the most problem with.  How can you live your life one way during the week and then portrait something else on Sunday?  This is something that I have never been able to wrap my mind around.

In my mind, I see the community as the church.  Even though all these souls go to different church’s on Sundays, it’s about all seven days of the week.  I believe that if you are good to your neighbors, promote positivity and good citizenship, and truly care about those around you; I believe that is what is meant by being faithful and part of your community; the true church.  No religious lines, no our God, your God, his God or her God.  Just exhibiting plain goodness and honesty to all you encounter; pulling together to help those in need, that’s my vision of “church”.  When you look at the history of the church, it is riddled with wars and crusades; there were times we actually persecuted those that did not believe the way that the “church” demanded that you did.  I’m pretty sure that’s not what God had in mind. 

I have always looked to God as my friend and savior.  I don’t feel that I need a special day of the week to demonstrate that.  I speak with my father every day of my life, several times a day.  Whether my life is kicking my backside or blessing me, he is there for me and me for him.  I know that there is a purpose for community and I will always be available to help those that I can, but I don’t feel that I need to be a member of the church to do so.  I believe that God hears me when I sing “The Old Rugged Cross” loudly going down the road in my car; and I believe that God hears me when I am praying silently at my bedside.  I believe that he has led me down a path, which although not well defined at times, has developed clarity as my life continues.

Even with mortgage fraud wreaking havoc for the past eight years in our lives, it has not dampened my love and devotion for my Lord.  Some would have looked at this as a “Why God?” situation.  That is not a question I have, because I understand that man’s free will did this to us and not God.  Someone, somewhere thought, through their own free will, that it was alright to lie, cheat and steal; and that someone was not God.

Throughout this past decade of our lives we have experienced death, loss of a job and the fight of our lives; and although I have experienced about every emotion a human being could possibly go through, I have never lost sight of my friend.  I didn’t understand why we were going through this; I only know that my Father never had anything to do with it.  Where ever he was leading me I was going to go, despite all the earthly distractions and the emotions that go with them.

On the flip-side, throughout this past decade we have also experienced the birth of three grandchildren, the gift of having skills that, even though we don’t have a forty hour a week job, have been able to survive and keep a roof over our heads despite the criminality of others.  That is because God is in our lives and I know that he doesn’t hold it against me for not visiting some brick building every Sunday in an attempt to prove my devotion to the world.  Please don’t misunderstand.  I do believe that good people go to church and work hard on their faith; it’s the ones that go to church to impress and put on a false face that keeps me away.

I may not attend services on Sunday, but I try to live every day of my life as if it were Sunday.  I practice my faith, although outside sanctuary walls, and I work continuously on being grateful for the gift of good health, sound mind and a loving family.  I still honor Sunday’s in my heart as that special day of the week; the day that bridges last week to next week.  I thank God for helping us survive another week and thank him in advance for his constant presence in the week that will come.  I love that I can spend Sunday’s with the man that God chose for me to spend my life with and I relish in the knowledge that God loves me whether I am sitting in a pew or on a couch next to my husband.

 

Living in Color

colors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I have always been amazed by rainbows and how the sun, prisms through the rain, setting all the colors in the same sequence.  However, when the light passes through the water droplets twice, it causes an inverse rainbow to also occur with its color pattern in reverse.   Like a mirror reflecting back on itself.  It sees itself as the beauty that it is.  Sometime, when I look in the mirror, I see the face of a woman who, not unlike the rainbow, has many facets that make up her life.  I see the color in my life and it reflects back at me.

 

It wasn’t always that way, and I am sure, there will be days when I don’t see the colors and will need to seek comfort in my prayers to get my focus back on track; such is the way of life.  I know that deep down in my soul, I am on the right track, despite what the naysayers may say.  I have God as my driver and I am his passenger; but what an odd and different path it becomes when you decide to give up your free will for a promise of a better life.

 

You begin to realize that those things which you held dear when you were younger are not really as valuable as you once thought they were.  You start to understand that life is not about what you can get out of it; it’s more about what you can put into it.  So that’s what they meant by “you reap what you sow”.  I now realize that even though we all want materialistic things in life, they are not our life.  Our life without these trinkets, although maybe not as pleasant as we would like, does not strip us of our ability to survive in the world.  It does not cause us to stop breathing; praying and striving to do better.  That is only within us to make the changes necessary to go on living.

 

For those that don’t realize this, their lives continue to tumble in a downward spiral, because they have let the pain of the past wreak havoc upon their very souls and have not been able to come to terms with the fact that it’s their own mind that is the downfall of their existence.  They allow those inner voices to take away from their sense of self.

 

Those voices have tried to talk to me all of my life.  They spoke to me when I was a victim of child molestation at the age of ten.  They told me that it was my fault if something happened to my grandfather or grandmother, should I let the truth be known.  They spoke to me when my uncle would take me out to the campgrounds, prior to opening season, and would molest me when no one was around; picking me up on Friday nights, when my aunt was working for a weekly tryst.  They spoke to me when I started taking a needle and putting drugs in my veins, telling me that I wasn’t worth anything better.  Those voices would follow me way into adulthood, affecting my relationships and how I would view life for many years to come.

 

It would take the rape and molestation of my own child before I was able to begin shaking off the voices in my head.  It would take a family nightmare to bring me out of my coma; a place where I believe all victims of molestation and rape go.  Some, like me, were able to weather the storm and find the light; others, like my daughter, have not been so lucky.

 

We are brought up with certain concepts about what life is and what it should be, all molded by those that we interact with.  Those who look at life idealistically, as I do, do it out of a sense that we know the worlds a better place and therefore, if we believe it to be true, maybe one day it will be.  I, for many years used it to hide from and deny that what had happened to me as having any effect upon me.

 

When I realized that this had happened to my daughter, all that I had “came to terms with” came crashing down around me.  What was I to do?  I had never reported the crimes of my grandfather or uncle, because as a pre-teen I was led to believe that they were doing it out of love (you know, teaching me the right way so that I was prepared in life) and no one would believe me anyways.  I had been influenced by master manipulators to believe that this was actually normal, even though, through the years, I did know that it was not.  I didn’t want to be the reason my grandmother had a heart attack.  I didn’t want to ruin, not one, but two marriages.  It’s no wonder I ran away at fifteen.  I had been known as the goody-two-shoes of the neighborhood until I was fourteen.

 

Although these events changed my life, they didn’t destroy what was at my core.  I have always believed in God and spoke with him daily.  I have done things in my life that I’m not proud of, but when I look at who I am today, I realize that the journey has led me to a husband who loves and adores me; it has led me to have a family that I cherish.  It’s not perfect, but it is so much more than I thought I ever deserved way back then when the colors of my life were shades of black and white.

 

I have discovered that whether, as a victim of any crime, you get justice or not, the effects last a lifetime.  I realize that the only way not to be a target in this world is to stop allowing yourself to be the victim.  I’ve learned to stand up in my life and lean hard upon my Lord.

 

I see my life as just one of many, and when I weigh it upon the stories of others; I realize that I have traveled this course in my life for a reason.  Many do not.  I realize that through all that has happened, all that has been lost or found, it’s all about how I view my life.  I choose to look at my life, sometimes, through rose colored glasses; but I am always peering over the rim so that I am aware of what is truly in front of me; and so I don’t miss any of those rainbows.