I don't know how old I was when my father first broke my trust.  My earliest memory of it is at 5 years old.  I don't remember ever being happy--not until I finally found the courage to flee my father's house and make a new life in another part of the world.

My childhood was filled with violence, with fear, and with my father's rage.I learned early on that no one I knew could be trusted and I wasn't worth the time and effort it would take for anyone to prove me wrong.  That was "back then."  In the sepulcher of abuse, the shadows of my father's depravity.  He is dead now.  I wish I could say that I am sorry, but his rage and threats--death threats and violence--hung over me like a cloud as long as he was alive.  I hope he made his peace with God, but I will never know--not on this side of eternity.

What I do know, is that I have made mine, my peace with God. Recovery is a precious gift given to the seeker of truth, and I have sought the truth.  I have ventured into the shadow land of an abusive past and dug among the ruins, mining for treasures that I knew, I just knew, were buried there.

And I have found them!  Tidbits of truth, insights into the child who became the woman that I am, and understanding of my past that brightens my future.  I have, like Job, sat in sackcloth and ashes and scraped my wounds.  And in my flesh, I have seen God.  Not with eyes of flesh, but with a spirit restored to his likeness, not perfectly, not completely, but enough. Enough that I can go on stepping--up the mountain--into his heart.

I invite you to journey with me.  Day by day I read, I write, I meditate on the Healer and He does His work.  We can triumph over trauma. We just have to keep stepping up the mountain, in his time, his joy, and his love.