Day 26 -- Describe a dark/turbulent moment in your life

I have been dreading this blog for the entire month. I know exactly what time period I am going to write about, I just am not sure "how" to write it. How much detail to go in to? Whether I should go into detail at all. Its been a battle. I still don't know the answer to it, but I am going to start writing right now and see where it leads me.

I will start with a tiny back story. I was a "Christian" by name only for many years. Sure, I would go to church, and even bible study. But I never really gave my life over to God for real until after 2009/2010. And this was during/right after I hit the lowest low of my life. I was previously married to my high school boyfriend. And our entire marriage was tainted by infidelity, lies, insecurities, control and lots of other evil. This gave Satan the perfect foothold into my life to finish the evil he started. Now don't get me wrong, I am not "blame shifting" here, I accept full responsiblity of my actions. I just know that in my weakness and distraction, I gave Satan the perfect opportunity to plant seeds in my life.

 In 2008 he deployed to Iraq and our marriage was in a rough spot as it was. The day he left, neither of us knew how that deployment would affect us. Neither of us were mentally ready face such a challenge. For a couple of months though, things turned around, and I was trying to turn back to God and do good. He was trying to help as well.

But then Satan grabbed a hold of me, and refused to let go....and I didn't fight it much. From the months of November 2008 until May 2009 I was Satan's puppet. I was the perfect definition of a "hypocritical christian". If it was wrong, I did it. I lied. I cheated. I stole. I ruined lives/families.

I lived two lives.  One life that my Christian friends and my ex-husband knew about. The one where I went to work, came home, vegged out with TV Series. And then there was other life. The one that only those apart of knew about.

During this time, I had blinders on. If I would have looked at my actions I would have known what I was doing was ungodly, it was so ungodly, that the ungodly even knew it was wrong. But I refused to look. I just kept going. I did what I wanted and was totally OK living this lie.

That is, until I was caught. (Isn't that always how it is...) God set it up where I would get caught no matter how well I thought I "covered my tracks". Once I was caught, those blinders came flying off, and I was mortified. I could not believe the things I was doing with no guilt, no shame, and no care. I just could not believe it. I still can not believe it.

 I looked in the mirror and was disgusted. I became the person I swore I would never be. I did things that I swore I would never do. I was just mortified. I made decisions during this time that were unchangable. And when I was faced with that realization, I realized that I was drowning. I lost my way and I needed help.

Praise the Lord though that when you hit the ground, you have no where to turn but up. And Jesus is always there to grab your hand and help you back to your feet....and that blog is for tomorrow. I will tell you all about how I truly found the Lord and how much it has helped me.

A friend loves at all times

What is a friend? Who are your friends? What makes someone a friend? This seems like such simple questions, but then I really started to think about it. My definition to my husband of what a friend is, is someone I know aspects of their day to day life. But then I realized that many of the people I consider friends, I have not spoken to in weeks (or longer). And that really got me thinking...what exactly is a friend?

Webster Dictionary defines it as "one attached to another by affection or esteem" or "a favored companion". Well I guess with that definition I have many friends.

Facebook defines friends as someone who can read your facebook posts and can see your pictures. And who knows the last time I spoke to some of my facebook "friends".

My dictionary would be more specific. A friend to me is someone who I can turn to and know they will have my back. A friend is someone I call for support, when I am bored, for prayer. A friend is someone I would make a special trip to see if I am driving through your town (I have many "out of town" friends). With my definition, I have much fewer friends.

But with my first definition I told my husband, "someone who knows (or I know) aspects of their day to day life", I have maybe two friends.

I am fine with my friend situation though. The people I call friends, I love and depend on. So whats the point of this post? The bible's definition of a friend is found in Proverbs 17 verse 17, "A friend loves at all times". So with that definiton I think I would encourage you to look at your "friends" and who do you have that "loves at all times" and who do you "love at all times".

What does it mean to "love at all times"?

I believe that means to forgive at all costs, never abandon, there when you need to talk. And I can only think of a handful of people that fall into this catagory on a daily basis. Look at yourself this week, and examine how good of a friend you are and what definition of a friend are you using?

18 Years too long

Today is the anniversary of my dad's death. He died 18 years ago, leaving behind an 8 and 6 year old daughter, and a one year old son. Thus began, in my opinion, the first life changing trama I have experienced. 

I have very little memories of my dad and not all the ones I have are good. But I am told continuously that without a doubt, my dad loved me very much. My dad was a good guy. Everyone that has ever spoke to me about my dad, has never said anything bad about him. And I have been told, that the one bad memory I have of my dad was brought on by drugs and was not his real personality.

Just for fun, I want to share the very few memories I have of my dad (excluding the one negative, because I don't find that important to remember).

~We were on a small boat fishing. It was just the two of us.
~The house we lived in Oklahoma had a hill down the road, and in one of my memories, my dad was riding his bike home from work. I saw him coming from the one side of the hill, he disappeared and then on the other side of the hill.
~ My dad airbrushing a shirt in the back breezeway type room.
~It was Christmas, and I was sick. We had bunkbeds, and dad was bringing me Sprite.

Well thats it. That is my dad, in my first hand experience. I know a bunch of other stories about him because of friends and family members (for which I am thankful for), but thats all from my head.

It hurts me so deep that I don't have either parent anymore. I look to my little guy and he smiles at me, and it just makes my whole day. It makes me wonder, did my mom and dad feel that same joy? Did they feel that same deep love? I am sure they did, but I would love to just talk to them about it.

I am 26 years old, I have been without my dad for 18 years. Thats 10 years longer than I had him in my life. I don't even know who I would be today if he was still around. His death changed my life.

It took me a very long time to no longer be angry at my dad for his choice (he committed suicide). I still have abandoment issues because of his decision. I felt for a long time, that it was my fault. That I wasn't good enough. That he didn't love me enough. That his children just wasn't enough for him.

As an adult, I am able to see now that it was the drugs that just overtook his life and it had nothing to do with his love for me or my siblings, but it took a very long time and I still have some very deep scars from that.

The point is...I miss my dad. I miss my mom. And today, is a sad day for me.
18 years fatherless
4 months 6 days motherless.

What I deserve

My life has not been perfect. I have done quite a few things that are not things that "good Christians" should do. And I held alot of shame over those things for a long time. It wasn't until a friend approached me (with equal types of "bad" things in her past" and asked me, if I have a problem forgiving those who have hurt me, or forgiving myself for the bad I have done. This really got me thinking. The quick answer was no, I no longer feel guilty. But then I had to ask myself "Why?"


I do not "deserve" the blessings that God has given me, I do not "deserve" this amazing family i have, I do not "deserve" this second...third...forth...etc chance that I have been given. And then it clicked. I do not "deserve" any of this. But isn't that alone, the whole point. We as humans do not deserve the eternale life God has promised. We will never live up to those standards and we will never be "good enough".

I told my friend (which was God speaking through me, considering it was in the moment, and wasn't until hours later I realized how true of a statement I was making) that once I truly gave my life over to Jesus, and leaned on him for my salvation. Once I made life style changes to become a child of God and not a child of Satan, that God had forgiven me. I had become a new creation in Christ. I was no longer who I had been, but I was now God's chosen child. The old me was gone.


So as a follower of Jesus, once I asked for his forgiveness, he wiped my sin away, made me white as snow. He no longer held those sins over me. So if the creator of the universe had forgiven me, and I had made life style changes, and I was now walking as a child of God, then why shouldn't I deserve the blessings God has given me.


I will never be deserving of God's goodness. I will never be sinless. I will never be all that I should be. But I try everyday to be a little bit better and I believe that God sees that I am trying and honors that.


There are two songs that helped me during my walk back to Christ, two songs that made me realize, I am not who I was, I am not the mistakes I made. I am Kari Rose Hache. And Jesus Christ loves me and has forgiven me. I hope that if you are struggling through past sins, and whether or not you deserve anything new they will help you too.

Change in the Making

Addision Road

You are More

Tenth Avenue North

Just remember two truths from these songs. God is not done with you yet and you are more than the sins you have made. I pray that this blog reaches someone deeply, because it has been just tugging at my heart for days to write. If you have any questions, or need to talk more in depth about Gods love for you, about his forgiveness, or about how you can also be free from bondage, please comment or email me at faithcanmove7@gmail.com. I would LOVE to talk to you.

Lost Child

I have decided to open my heart and write a very candid letter to my recently passed away mother. It has been hard on me as I was under the impression she had her life under control, and then this slapped us in the face. I wasn't going to write this out of respect to others, but as her daughter I believe I have the right to feel the way I feel and to express it as I would like. So I apologize if this offends you.

Dear Mom,

I am having such anger issues with your death. It has been very hard for me to separate dad's suicide and your overdose. Truly whats the difference? You were not a dumb person, you knew the consequences to your actions and you didn't care. You knew that any minute I could be giving birth to my little guy, your grandson, and you didn't care. You promised me, to the point of me actually believing you, that you were going to come visit us. But the truth ended up being, that a quick high was more important than your children or grandchildren. Honestly, how many times did you choose drugs or alcohol over us? How many visits to Michigan were canceled because you didnt have enough money? And where did your money go? How many times did we go without because we didn't have enough money? This is not a new problem, this has been a constant issue for over ten years.

It took me over 10 years to get angry at dad for what he did. You saw how his death affected all of us children, but that wasn't enough. Gosh mom, why was drugs so much better than your children? I look at my son, and I would do anything for him. I would give up the world just to see him smile. I just don't understand how every mom doesn't feel the same way. But you didn't feel the same way, did you? I can make a list of things that were more important than us children. For goodness sake, you didnt speak to me for over a year! And why? Because your drug infested life was more important than your first born child. You brought danger to your children more than once. You gave us drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. How do you rationalize that?

Now can you explain to me mom, how your drug overdose is any different than dad shooting himself? In all honesty, you chose this. You may not have known that when you started that night that it would kill you, but you knew the dangers you were putting yourself in. You knew that if anything happened to you that the three of us would be orphaned. And you did it anyways, over and over again. You just didn't care about anything but the "now". How would it make you feel "now". Well mom, how do you feel now? You know have three relatively young children with no parents. You have three grandchildren that will never have grandparents. You willingly orphaned us.

Mom, I was asked the other day "how big were you when you were born?" Well I don't know that answer, nor the answer to hundreds of other questions from my childhood, and who can I ask? Noone! I hope your last night was worth it mom.


But here's the deal. I forgive you. Not because you deserve it, but because I was forgiven when I didn't deserve it. I am not going to let this control my life, you made your bed, and now are laying in it. The only thing I can do now is raise my son the way God asks me to and not the way I was shown. I still love you. I still am sad that you are gone. I am still sad that your grandson will never meet you. But life goes on. And I will "go on" happily with my family.

Love,
Kari

PS to my readers, this was all the anger I could muster just to get it out. On a normal day to day basis I am not this angry, but I feel that if I were to just to let it all out it would make me feel better. I will let you know. But please keep me and my family (sister and brother especially) in your prayers as I know we are all dealing with this.