Through out my life I have been objectified.

I was abused by several men growing up and because they viewed me as an object. I was no longer Lynse, my identity was taken away and i had become just another thing….a baseball card that is bought and sold…when you are done with it you maybe put it in the closet or throw it away.

There is not a lot of value in an object.

After years of being treated like an object i began to believe that i was an object. I was there for someone else’s pleasure. my dreams, aspirations and voice did not matter, because, you see, i was only an object.

I am no expert, but i feel like a lot of people i have talked to who were abused woke up one day and felt like “i have to find myself” or “reclaim who i am”.

As i was half watching Criminal Minds and half having an inner dialogue about the damage of being objectified i realized that it was probably the most damaging aspect, for me, of the abuse.

Once you are objectified over and over and over you begin to think you are an object and you follow suit of your abusers and remove your own value.

And the on going cycle begins…if you dont have any value in yourself then others wont value you.

today as i am 10 years past the most recent sexual abuse trauma i am still left picking up the pieces. I still am trying to learn to value myself. I am still trying to see that i have a voice and those that love me should value what i have to say. I am still learning that i am a valued person by those around me, and i deserve to be valued. I deserve to be a person and not an object.

This is why when we went to New Orleans and walked Bourbon Street messed with me. This is why a part of my heart aches for human trafficking victims. Not that i know the extent of the pain, loneliness and all other emotions that have to be tied up in there. But i know just a sliver. I know what it feels like to be devalued. To be told over and over by different people that you are worth no more than sex or the pleasure that you can provide to them.

each person deserves to be valued. valued by themselves and others.

this is something i am still learning…and will probably be learning for my entire life. Learning to first value myself and then those around me.

Do you have a hard time valuing yourself? What about others?

Each time i see it, it reminds me that we are to be LOVE to the world. How else will people around us know that we have the LOVE of God? If we repel people by offending them instead of loving them where they are what will make them want to come to God, who is LOVE.

I think about my story and how i got into church…i was a rebel, i was angry. I smoked, drank and cussed like a sailor. I had no reference for what was wrong or right in church or as a “christian.” No one had told me. It was a make it up as you go situation. But there were people, to whom i am so grateful for, who came alongside me and LOVED me where i was…and for who i was then. They knew that if they could encourage me to get closer to the God of LOVE that the different things in my life would begin to line up with scripture.

Had they have sat me down and attacked me i would have been so turned off…and to be honest i would still be turned off. I sent this tweet on Friday and i stand by it

“Don’t get me wrong I love Gods truth but if you say it in a judging manner and not in love I don’t want to hear it.”

There is a difference in speaking the truth in love and speaking it with judgement. LOVE compels you to improve while judgment causes you to back off and turn away.

So, i have a two part question….and would love your thoughts….

1.  Is it christians that are turning people away from God with their actions, words and judgement?

2.  As a christian, what could you/we do better?

if you dont watch LOST please excuse the LOST talk…it is a good quote that resonates with me…not just a LOST quote. ;)

in season 3 episode 11 Sayid is flashingback to when he was being tortured to confess that he tortured a lady during his time in the republican guard (Iraqi Army). She comes in to talk to him, to have him confess…and this is what she says,

“After my husband and I first arrived to Paris, I was afraid to ever leave our apartment. So I would stare out the window of our apartment and I would see this cat looking for scraps. One day some children came to the alley and trapped him in a box. I watched them light firecrackers and drop them into the box. I could hear him howling from three stories above. And finally, I had a reason to leave my apartment. I rescued this cat, and I brought it home. It sits with me when I read, sleeps with me, and he purrs. But, every once in a while, he will bite me or scratch me. He does this because he forgets that he is safe. So I forgive him when he bites me, because I know what it is like to never feel safe. And that is because of you. So today, I ask only one thing of you. I ask that you show me the respect of acknowledging what you did to me. That it was you who questioned me, that tortured me, and that you remember me.”

when i heard that i started to cry.  i realized that it put into words what i feel at times.  what it feels like to never feel safe.  because of the abuse i endured i dont always feel safe. i have different fears that haunt me because of things that were done to me. and a lot of times i feel like that tortured cat…not feeling safe is a scary thing for me. because i wasnt safe then so i try so hard to feel safe now to avoid some of those feelings from coming back.

But i am so thankful that i have a husband who understands those fears and my need to feel safe. but who also understands that when i dont feel safe i get a little weird…i act like that cat. i do crazy things to have control to feel safe.

anyways…is there a quote in a song or a movie that “gets it?”  that you heard or read and you thought…yep, thats me…in words?

wait…did you just read that? my husband is a pastor! I am married to a pastor…and that makes me….

you guessed it…

A PASTORS WIFE.

I knew this was coming. I liked the idea of it. but then BAM…it hit me.

i have this picture and concept in my head of what a pastor’s wife should be like…and i am unsure i fit it. I know that if i am genuine and me it will all be good…but honestly it is the dang title that scares me.

I dont care too much for boxes and trying to fit in them and actually i heard this quote somewhere,

people who dont like boxes are those that dont fit in them…

and it is so true. I dont feel like i fit into the “pastor’s wife” box…or really want to. well, the stereotypical pastor’s wife box. There are freaking sweet pastor’s wives that are around… case in point Tam Hodge, Lori Wilhite, Brandi Wilson….and i can be like those pastor’s wives….just not the duggars like…not that she is a pastor’s wife. anyways, i digress.

all of that to say that the title and not the responsibility that freaks me out.  and i know it is just a title or a label or a box…but still it scares me.  ha!

Have you ever had a title, label or box that scared you?  do share.

Our next 2 weeks will be filled with packing, packing and more packing. Work and then precious moments with friends we will miss.

I have to be honest in saying that while i was packing the other day i came across a note from a friend that made me cry. She is younger than i am, in high school in fact. But i realized that by moving away i would miss seeing her grow up through her High School days and graduate.

This last week and a half is going to be hard to get through. Knowing that it will be lasts all over the place. There will probably be tears, you know, since i cry now, and happy moments.

My goal is to not let my sadness get in the way and hurt the precious moments that are celebrating the years of friendships.

But the truth is….

Moving is hard.
Saying goodbye Sucks.

But i know Chad and i are taking a step of faith and growing together…and that excites me.

So excuse the absence the next few weeks. I will update as much as i can…without internet and on the road. ;)

But when i return and my life is a little more normal you will get to hear of the new adventures of Chad and Lynse. I cant wait!!

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Dark night, dark blood carrying with it a river of rage that had brought her to this point. And the horror of it suddenly shone with the clarity of her face in the mirror as she reached down for the razor blade. She always kept a constant supply of loose blades for when the rage took over. The cutting helps relieve the tension, she says to herself in a reassuring voice. I’m not addicted, I don’t have to do it, I just do.

She lives on the street in San Franscisco, it gets cold at night. She doesn’t know where her home is, she doesn’t have a home. Every passing day she is more mad at herself for where he life is, or isn’t in her case. She holds so much rage and pain in her sixteen year old being. People say singing or writing is their therapy but it is really their “release” from a “free” world where everything is dictated. She sees drugs, alcohol and citing as her way out of a life she dreams of leaving everyday.

The blade is bone chilling as she drags it across her stomach as she does each time. She stops and sits in silence for a minute or so, and waits. She is waiting for the pride inside of her to die and the courage to rage so she can have the guts to push hard enough to break the skin. You would think after two years of cutting it would e no problem, not for her, it’s more like a ritual. In this ritual she is waiting for the pride to die so she can humble herself before her “god” an refuge of cutting. She places cutting before anything, before life, love and herself. The pain that is carried with cutting, pain on the outside is no match for the pain that she feels inside, the void of something she has never felt for herself.

She never cuts deep enough to do more than hurt the skin, she is too afraid. She doesn’t know that cutting the outside is killing her on the inside. So many people care that she doesn’t know about. Since she left home when she was thirteen she has thought parents have no care in the world. They only think about themselves.

As she presses the blade a surge of pain jets through her body giving her a “supernatural” feeling, if she even believes in anything spiritual. It feels so good. How could other people not get how good it feels? The blood trickles down her stomach and pools into her bellybutton. It’s like she has left her body. Like she is sitting on the stairs, watching herself. She knows that it hurts but not knowing what else to do. Cutting is her way out of a boring life into a life less ordinary. A life not too many sixteen year olds lead. Cutting to the world is wrong, it’s morbid and people that do it deserve to be locked up and need only counseling.

But to her cutting is all she has to survive the nothingness her life is.

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As I read this I was taken back to when I was 16. And when all of those feelings and emotions were true to me. I was a little girl trying so hard to get caught. To be found out so I wouldn’t have to live in silence.

It makes me wonder how many other people are out there just wanting their addictions to be found out so the silence can be broken.

I dont know that i have felt this full on the inside in a very long time. it is like a beautiful collision of the music in my ears, the smells and people around me but i am totally satisfied in life at this point in time.

I have a best friend that i get to live with and spend the rest of my life with. i have an incredible manager and fellow partners alongside me at Starbucks. I have a dog that loves me no matter if i had a good or bad day…he is happy to see me. my best friend and i are about to embark on the biggest journey of our lives together…and we are together.

It took a huge step to resign from my other job….one that was hard…but one that i dont think i will ever regret.

You may think i am “just serving coffee” or “working in food service” but for me it makes me happy. my legs on the other hand arent as “happy.”

i am satisfied and content. right now.

Are you? if not what would it take?

The other day i was driving and started to cry because i knew that i wouldnt drive over “that spot” once we moved.  It was the spot that the night before our wedding and the day of crazy tornadoes and weather we decided to move the location of our wedding to the same place as our reception…earlier in the day we realized that we had our last Stevens family Christmas…where we will be at Chad’s parents house in Mobile…the last one with the whole family.

as the days grow closer to the time we pack up and leave Birmingham and follow our dreams (48 days) i have begun to see life in lasts.

but i cant help but think it may be a little too early….what do you think?

As my week continued the phrase “my story was not nearly as bad and hard as yours” seemed to be a theme. I started reading a new book called “The Kids are All Right” by Amanda, Diana, Dan and Liz Welch.

It is their memoir, all giving an account of growing up under the same roof but having very different memories and stories from the same times. But the title says it all, the kids are all right. No matter what they felt or remembered…even if it was different than their siblings they are all right. It was as if God was trying to get my attention. To speak something to my heart.

During Life Group a couple weeks ago we were talking about some situations happening in my life and the lives of those of us in the group and it came up again. “my situation is not as bad as __________. So i guess it could be worse….”

and in that moment i think the lightbulb came on for me. I heard what God was trying to say to me all week.

I always hear people comparing their stories….almost one upping eachother to see who has or had it worse. But in either case dont we all have it the worst?

In our circumstances. In our stories. In our pasts. in our present situations. It is our story. and we are right.

and for us in that time or this time it is the worst….for us.

statements like “my story is not nearly as bad or hard as yours.” is robbing yourself of the hardships and trials that you had to endure to get you to today. Yes, mine may be different than yours…but harder?

to you it is hard….and it should stay that way…

remember as you share your story and listen to others that we are all right.  we all have different levels that we can endure…we all have different lives and stories.

But we are all right.

“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.” – Audrey Hepburn

Remember…in this holiday season, with your family, your friends and especially if you are in retail…that people grace.

Dont write anyone off.