Hidden Scars: Tattoos on the Soul - Softcover

Rey, Tessa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1481700073 ISBN 13: 9781481700078

Verlag: AuthorHouse, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

Growing up in a small town and barely surviving abuse and teenage drinking, Tessa takes off for the US Air Force to change her life, but poor choices continue to haunt her with betrayals as she searches for that ever-elusive desire to be loved. She starts a family; however, just when life seems to straighten out, drug abuse enters her home, and then physical illnesses start plaguing her. So begins a life of struggling to survive so she can raise her children. Given less than a year to live after a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, she turns to the Lord. She is not prepared for the feelings of love and belonging she has missed all her life. After another divorce, she takes her children and moves back close to her hometown so that she can live in peace and raise her children. Tessa struggles with her relationship with her parents, and then after her younger sister commits suicide, her mother s words change her life forever. Tessa starts dealing with the scars she has kept hidden all these years. Hidden Scars is that journey of learning to live with those scars like tattoos on the soul so that she can be set free.

Über diesen Titel

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Hidden SCARS

Tattoos on the SoulBy Tessa Rey

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2013 Tessa Rey
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-0007-8

Contents

Chapter 1 Open Wounds......................................1Chapter 2 Emotional Scars..................................13Chapter 3 A New Beginning..................................19Chapter 4 Nightmares.......................................25Chapter 5 Betrayals........................................31Chapter 6 The Wrath of God.................................37Chapter 7 Cancer...........................................45Chapter 8 Saving Grace.....................................61Chapter 9 Learning the Christian Walk......................69Chapter 10 Finding Forgiveness.............................79Chapter 11 Metastasized....................................87Chapter 12 Enough Already..................................91Chapter 13 Divorce.........................................97Chapter 14 Emotional Battle................................103Chapter 15 Hashimoto's Thyroid Disease.....................107Chapter 16 When the Lord Speaks............................111Chapter 17 Forgiveness.....................................115Chapter 18 Deflated........................................119Chapter 19 Good-byes.......................................123Chapter 20 A Full House....................................129Chapter 21 Osteonecrosis...................................133Chapter 22 Blessings.......................................137Chapter 23 No Plan B with the Lord.........................141Chapter 24 Set Free........................................145Chapter 25 Brokenhearted...................................151Chapter 26 The Darkest Hours...............................157Chapter 27 Transformation..................................161

Chapter One

OPEN WOUNDS

* * *

It has been said, "Time heals all wounds." I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens but is never gone.

—Rose Kennedy

As I stare into the mirror and examine the scars running across my chest and back, I am thankful I can hide them with clothes, but like physical scars that knot up over time and cause extreme pain, I am aware of the emotional scars that will also knot up and cause pain when they are pushed down and ignored over time.

I wanted to share my journey with you as I walked through the cleansing process of dealing with the emotional scars and acknowledging the physical ones. My transformation is here for you to witness, and I pray it might inspire some of you to always have hope and never give up.

As I wrote the following story and had to deal with the scars, I slowly began to heal in some areas and realized I just needed to let things go in other parts of my life. Love should never be conditional, and I have become aware that I spent my life looking for and trying to earn people's love. Then I discovered God's love (or agape love), and my life has never been the same.

As the title states, this book is about dealing with hidden scars, so I focused on the hurtful things; however, my life has been blessed with many wonderful moments as well. I learned that when something terrible happens, something amazing will also happen. I just have to find the joy in whatever is happening and enjoy my glass not only being half full but also overflowing. I also understand that because of my own pain, I have caused many scars to others as well, and I pray they will forgive me.

At the end of each chapter, I have included a sidenote with information on where one can find help with what I have experienced.

The names have been changed to protect identities.

I am a warrior. I don't know at what point in my life I learned how to overcome my adversities. I was small for my age, and people always told me I couldn't do things. It became a challenge. The tougher things were, the more I would push to overcome the obstacles. It took many years of slipping in the pit of life before I finally took hold of the Lord's outstretched hand and let Him pull me up out of the muck of life. Now I cannot believe I lived so long in that disgusting mess before I grabbed hold. People call me a survivor and an inspiration, but to me, a survivor is someone who has overcome their obstacles and lived to tell about it. I see myself as a warrior because my battles rage on. This is my story.

Childhood innocence must come to an end, and for some, it is much earlier than it is for others. My innocence was taken from me at eleven years of age. I was asleep in bed with my baby brother, Mark, tucked under my arm down the hall from our parents' bedroom, where we were awakened by their return late one night. I could tell Dad had been drinking again when his voice turned abusive toward Mom and he started beating on her. It was all I could do to keep Mark from running to them and so placed my hand over his mouth to stifle his cries. We both would flinch with each slap and whimper. I was terrified we would anger Dad and he would also hurt us. Until then, he had never laid a hand on either of us, but I had never seen this side of him. He had spanked our older brother and sister, Matthew and Sunny, often with the razor strap, which hung ever-present just outside the bathroom door in the hallway between our bedroom and my parents'. He had never laid a hand on Mom until that night, and when it was over, I heard him tell her to go file for divorce because he could not promise that he wouldn't beat her again. I held Mark long into the night as tears slipped silently down my cheeks until he fell asleep and I drifted off. The next morning, I was late getting up, and as I came around the corner into the living room, there was Mom in her rocking chair with a bruised and swollen face and missing a tooth, holding Mark. Dad had gotten up early and left. Guilt swept over me that I hadn't attempted to stop my dad. I had just lain in bed, hiding like a coward paralyzed with fear.

The next time I witnessed his rage was on New Year's Eve when I was home babysitting my younger sister and brother, Aponi and Mark, and Dad arrived. He waited for Mom and my older sister, Faith, to get home, and as they came through the door, he jumped up and pinned Mom in a corner, who then told Faith to call the cops. Dad threatened to hurt Mom but didn't go beyond getting in her face and holding her in a viselike grip with his forearm around her neck. When the police officer arrived, I was asked who I wished to stay with, and out of fear, I told him my father. I figured my mom had the older three kids but my dad just had us, and if I went with my mom, then he would be all alone. The police officer sent mom and Faith off to a friend's house for the night, leaving us with our dad. He had all three of us crawl in bed with him. An eleven-year-old should never be put in a position to choose between parents, and worse, whatever I chose, Aponi and Mark had to follow. My father moved out, and the family managed the best we could with us three younger ones going and staying with him at our grandmother's on the weekends. I was in sixth grade at this time. Mom had been married before my father and had had my brother and two sisters, Matthew, Sunny, and Faith. Then she married my father, and my younger sister, Aponi, my brother, Mark, and I were added to the family.

In May, our dad took all three of us to a rodeo with his girlfriend, so any hopes of parents reconciling was coming to an end. Later that month, he ran across someone he had known earlier...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: AuthorHouse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1481700073
• ISBN 13: 9781481700078
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland