I dont remember who wrote these words but they encouraged me to practice loving myself: “Moving on is not saying not loving somebody, or forgetting them but having the strength to say, “I still love you, but you’re not worth this pain.””
Naomi Judd wrote a song that made me go deep in my heart. “Flow on, River of Time, and wash away the pain, and heal my mind…” That was in the 80s. I love the song. “Yeah. Flow on river of time… leaving all far behind.” Most songs that pierce your heart are because they’re true to humanity. They are written from deep emotional pain, joy and or sorrow of the heart, reflecting on natural world to humanity.
After I submitted last Friday’s article, I closed my eyes to rest my mind, knowing. I knew that my dark side came out and wrote the article. It was also scattered, not flowing. Scattered brain that reminding myself I was being real was tough and painful. It was a good practice in cultivating self-awareness.
All of my adult life I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety. They’re like hell that come in spurts. All the losses we’ve experienced growing up, contributed to our struggles mentally and emotionally. Being accepted hardly came by… there was always something wrong, missing or not enough. I know I’m not alone in this. These things are pushed down through the years and become our dark. We all have our dark side. When we admit them, we become more aware of them and we grow more.
“It is not ladylike”, I was told. What is that? A lady is a woman of superior social position, especially one of noble birth. My father was not from one of the Four Pillars of Palau as prescribed by Milad’s cultural mandate. People like us earn what we have and worked to become, which is very democratic. A character of a strong woman.
Most women in the Bible were strong women. There’s Ruth and Esther, Miriam, Deborah and Rahab. We can learn from them. Today I think of Zipporah, Moses’s wife. She knew her husband’s mission was to go back to Egypt to deliver God’s children. On the way God wanted to kill Moses. I think because he failed to honor the covenant that every Jewish boy must be circumcised on the eighth day from birth. Zipporah was a Cushite (Ethiopian with black skin. It doesn’t mean they were slaves. They were just different). They were not descendants of Abraham. Zipporah was a Cushite woman who saved her husband’s life and her sons without her husband’s permission to circumcise the boy. She did what was designated for a man to do. God used her – the strong woman alongside a great leader. Should she be stoned for being smart? There would be no Red Sea, no manna from heaven, and no water from the rock. The world would be in total chaos without moral law.
Zipporah was the amazing woman behind the man of Exodus. She was content to be different because she loved her husband. She makes me think of her brilliance to do what was needed to save her husband and sons. And as they, the rest is history.