The Story Amongst the Rubble written by Bambi Lynn

Fifteen years I have been hanging onto these pictures. I have stashed them away in a box and forgot about them. I didn't want to look at pictures that brought such pain. I had some healing to do. I needed to let go and move on. In the years of marriage to this man I hung onto the hurt that he caused me. I couldn't see anything good because everything was clouded with all the bad.

I met my ex-husband in July of 1998 at a church gathering for the fourth of July. I just remember the instant attraction because he was funny, his laughter drew me to him. I remember his brother telling him to get my number. He did and called me a few days later to go on a date. Our first date was Thursday night in the park in downtown Buffalo. Layfette square. He had brought his daughter with him, so I spent most of the time entertaining her. When we left the event, we were  walking down the street to his van, he made a comment, "you have a lot of walls, and I am the man who will knock them down" weird thing to say to a girl on a first date. But I laughed and went on my way.

As I look back to that statement, I was a woman with a lot of walls. I had so much pain and brokenness that I couldn't even see who I was. I didn't even know where to start in finding myself. I had come out of a marriage, where I thought we would be together forever. Only to experience betrayal with three affairs and thirteen moves, being a burn victim and raising four children. and having a broken mind from all the things I experienced before even being married for the first time. So those walls were easy to build. Overtime they got bigger and bigger that I couldn't even see over them.

We continued a relationship together, laughed a lot and spent a lot of time together. I remember special phone conversations and evenings of him coming over to my house and reading out loud to him books and stories that were dear to my heart. It felt like things fell into place, then when our daughters all met it really felt real and like a family. I didn't know red flags at the time. I just jumped into a role of being a mother and a wife because that is all I ever known. We weren't married but, my mind acted like it. Looking back, I can see so many things I should of ran from but, like one of my sons said recently to me, "you only knew crumbs mom and you were okay with them."

I tell women today, never settle in being someone's concubine when you were meant to be a queen. I learned that the hard way when I was a wife without the ring. I shared all my treasures before the time was right, I opened up my oyster shell before the pearl could grow into something big and precious. I had all the skin in the game way before he even had a foot in the door. I cooked for him, did his laundry, drove and paid for all the gas whenever we took my car, paid for the activities, and allowed him to dictate what and when we would do something when it came to my daughters and his. Then I finally gave into the passion and began sleeping with him without a commitment or ring on my finger. Red flags were ignored then and as plain as day today.

I realized to late, like fifteen years too late that I fall in love with love. I fall in what I am doing for the other person that I never realize they aren't doing that for me.I have now realized that I get caught up in the dopamine that is being let off in my body as I am falling in love with my ideas and my creative ways to show love and friendship. Not a lesson I learned during this relationship as I find myself pregnant six months after we met and started a relationship. That didn't go from dating to marriage, but baby and acting like a married couple right from the beginning.

Finding out I was pregnant was a shock to me, one that made me contemplate an ending of the pregnancy before anyone could find out. I am not sure how I knew but, this wasn't going to be a good thing. The moment I chose to be brave and to hit this head on, I knew I would be alone. The first few sentences that came out of his mouth told me; this would be a long journey that the consequences would last a lifetime, First he wanted nothing to do with me, like I was just branded with a black mark, wanted to just parent my baby, where he would have it some of the time and me the other time, We went to church and sat in separate sides of the church and his mother went around telling everyone I had trapped his son. It was a mess and got messier when I found out I was having twins. I made no other choice in my mind but, to find a way for this to work because the RedFlags told me I wasn't going to have him have my babies. I didn't know any other way but, to give him his demands of getting my tube tied, getting along with his mother, and having finances go through him first. I heard the stories of his first wife and the abuse she endured. but I put that RedFlag in the back of my head and pursued marriage to protect me children, only to realize years later the cost of that protection and what I would endure because of that choice. 

For the next eight years of marriage, I would begin to know and feel the consequences of my decision, but no matter what I was going to protect my children. I had no idea that I would be called terrible names, hit and punched where black and blue marks would form on my body because the punches were that of coming from a man. I would wear a sling because my shoulder was bruised, and I would be asked where I got those marks on my neck. I had no idea I would be left at places as he would drive off because I didn't do something fast enough or I talked when I wasn't supposed to. I began to form a fear of being in the passenger seat because I didn't know if I was going to be kicked out on the side of the roads because I didn't say thank you for something. I had no idea my choice would leave me numb as I was spit at and called terrible names. I had no idea that precious things would be taken from me and destroyed by fire and thrown into dumpster just to prove a point. My choice to try and make a bad decision good cost me being able to be myself. I was screamed at all the time and told how stupid I was and that I was trailer park trash. That I was lucky he married me because nobody else would of. Those years with him took something from me.I believed him because I deserved what I got because I made a choice, and the price was high to be forgiven for the decision I made. I didn't know if I would ever find my voice again, let alone my soul. I had no idea the depth of pain I had endured and the suffering I went through. I knew when it was over, it wasn't truly over until I found myself, and that I did.

As I sat on my bed for the last time with these pictures scattered all over my bed. I could look at them in a different way. I didn't see the things that were happening before these pictures were taken, I didn't dwell on the fight we just had when the pictures were being taken. I didn't look at them remembering how I was covering a bruise from a fight we had the night before. I didn't feel the spit running down my face or the tears when he just drove off without me in the car. I didn't see the shattered glass pan that was full of lasagna or see the pot of spaghetti sauce in the sink that I had just spent three days making. I didn't see any of the pain. but what I did see was two broken people who just couldn't get out of our own way. I saw Two people who did want things to work out but, past and present things and beliefs kept getting in the way. I don't think someone wakes up one morning and wants to hit their wives and destroy their soul and their inner being. people like that are destroyed also. When I grabbed each picture, I mourned what could have been. I looked at the pictures with a healed heart, I could laugh at some of them and see beauty. I could remember the jokes that he told and the times he sang to me. How he changed the name of "brown eye girl" and put my name in it. I could see the times we laid in bed talking and trying to figure this thing called life out. I reminisced about the fun trips we did take and put the bad ones aside. I made a choice that day how these pictures weren't going to rob me of my joy, but they were going to bring me to ashes to beauty. My life didn't end when this time ended. I didn't roll over and give up on life. I made a choice to heal from such pain and I also continue to know I don't deserve crumbs anymore. I am not so broken anymore. My life has been on a journey and wholeness has been part of it.That day I took those pictures and put them in a bag and threw them away. I didn't need to hold on anymore. it was another part of my life that I don't know anymore. I allowed myself to grieve, then let go. God takes the things of our lives and he transforms them into something beautiful. I didn't stay in the rubble of the past, I moved on and allowed God to take my life and the destruction of the past and turn something beautiful out of it.

This wasn't easy and so many times it was painful beyond trying to get out of bed and not staying in the dark places. It was hard to be vulnerable and allow others to see my pain. but in doing that I brought others to the healing ground. We gripped each other's hands and said, "let's get going on this healing stuff" and we rose together out of the rubble of our own stories, we continue to thrive in our stories, they don't hold us captive anymore. They hold no shame anymore. They gave us purpose to finally look in the mirror and see our hero. To see a woman that lived to tell her story.

God has turned my ashes into beauty!! we are creating something beautiful together. He has always been with me in the fire and now I come out as gold. I promise you can too