Pains of Motherhood and God.

 With inner screams and tear-filled eyes, she chipped away at her heart. Pieces of it falling a little at a time. Chopping and cutting until there was nothing left. Looking down at the ground she saw a cold and grey rock just laying there alone and cool to the touch. Jagged but smooth, she picked it up and placed it where her heart used to be. It was a fit. Not a nice fit, not a good fit but a fit. Would time ever heal what had been spoken? What can heal the trauma of the past that other people had caused? There was nothing left to live for. Limp and frail her heart melted away slowly as a snail creeps. She had no one, no one to talk to. no one to be there for her when she was down. She was alone. Death was not an option, because she believed in God. Motherhood was both a blessing and a curse. The pain a child can cause is more than any one person could bear. Feeling lifeless and not able to stand she walked shakily into her bedroom and laid down and slept. She wished it could have been for eternity. 

Dreaming, soft music playing in the distance, a dancer danced. It was her. She watched herself as she twirled and leaped, bowed and swayed, like a branch from a tree. She cried beneath the willow tree watching herself.  The grass was green but the dance floor was grey and so was she, grey as if watching on a black and white tv. The grey turned to soft pink as the dancer bent low and raised her hands above her head and twirled once more.  Alone and grey beautiful was the sorrow of the dance. She needed a break. She needed to dance. Running, the wind catching her lifting her up as she sailed away like a bird in the sky. Up and up and up she went and then back down again swooping, and landing softly back on the ground, nothing was forever, not even this dream, and she woke up to the same bed, the same life, the same painful circumstances. Her child hated God. 

Somber and weak she picked up her Bible and began to pray for guidance. As she read God began to show her things she needed to know. God will be a father to the fatherless. God will place the solitary in families. God will save the people of your children. God is a healer to the sick. God is a way maker. A mountain shaker, a mountain mover.  God is a God of the impossible. He will make a way. Your child will be saved. Past traumas will be healed that were caused by others.  God will give you the desires of your heart because you delight yourself in Him. 

Array

 Dark grey halls ; scattered skeletons

shadows that gleam across the room

distant cries of endless nights

dancing upon the moon

souls in agony

resting uncomfortably

lying to suit the mood

ring in ears

forgotten cheers

downing us in gloom

Sheepless forts

descending west

time drifts away

To some sweet lagoon

Peering glasses

seeing nothing

despising loads

raising rifts in derision

cackling coughs

bounties lossed 

ceasing my own existence. 

by: Bernice Bowling 

My dream about the crime I didn't commit.

 I had a horribly disturbing dream. I dreamed I was dating this scruffy looking person, and we had been arguing and all of a sudden this person started being really nice for no reason and we were going into a store and I wanted to stay home and couldn't figure out why I had to go in all of a sudden, and I was packing his coat in my arms, and we had my parents with me but they didn't look like my parents but in the dream they were. Anyway when we walked through the doors of that place an alarm went off and the security guards looked in the pockets of the coat I was wearing, and it was his drivers license that set the alarm off but they still blamed me for it. it was his coat and his drivers license that set the alarm off but they still blamed me for it. I was being accused of a crime I didn't commit, and in the dream this had happened once before and God vindicated me, and I remember calmly looking at him and saying you planned this, and I said you will get paid back for this God won't let you away with it because I am going to pray for vindication and I dreamed I left the store but I knew once I got back home and came back that I would be arrested. All because of some scum bag I choose to trust. This dream felt like one of those warning dreams. 

Scattered Memories and The Invisible Girl

 Part 3

No one ever really noticed me in school unless I made myself noticed, and I did that quite a bit much to my own embarrassment later in life. Having a time machine would be great for these sorts of things, but we're not here to talk about those moments just yet. Where here to discuss why I feel I was so invisible.

The first sign I had any special talents came when I was in Kindergarten. We were coloring the coloring pages that had been handed to us. On my page was a little girl with a beautiful little dress on with hair to her shoulders. This little girl to me desperately needed red hair. I can remember thinking why do people call red hair red when it's clearly orange? I looked down at the crayons on my side of the desk comparing the two crayons in question. Yep, red hair was really orange. At least the red hair I had seen anyway. I had noticed previously in the school year that when other kids would color their character's hair red they would all use the red crayon which to me ruined the coloring page altogether. So I picked up my orange crayon and I boldly stood alone seated in my chair coloring my own little girl's hair orange. She looked just like people with red hair usually did that I had seen.

Now that I look back on those years I realize that should have been the first sign that I would be a future artist, but yet how was I supposed to know? I was only a kid, and for years and years after that, I would grieve over my friend John Davids's ability to draw. I would sit at the desk beside him and watch him draw his figures and yearn, and wish that I could draw such things only to find out in high school when I took an art class that I actually could draw.

Another thing that I remember from my childhood that pointed towards me being an artist later in life was my great desire to draw my own comic book strips like the Peanuts Gang. I would spend hours drawing simple shapes, nothing fancy but simple shapes with cute fun names that I would come up with that I wanted to turn into my very own cartoon version of the peanuts gang. I never was able to do that but I remember it well and I still have that desire to this day.

I was always a creative child making my own doll clothes and my own paper dolls, and often drifting off into my own fantasy world with made-up stories floating around in my head. It was better than tv. I could never keep my mind focused on anything redeemed boring to me for more than 5 minutes. Which I guess is why I brought home bad grades in math and biology, and why I got ignored when the academic teams were picked. No one wanted an average child on an academic team. It wasn't until college that I learned I could write short stories and poetry. I even won a few contests and came in second place in the state in the KHEA writers contest. I know if I had kept on entering besides those 2 times I would have eventually won first place, but I didn't. Maybe someday huh?

One thing I have learned in life is that if you really want to do something you will. Below is a picture I drew of myself. It's never too late in life even if you do feel like the invisible girl or guy to discover something about yourself that you never knew you could do.

All through life and growing up I felt like the one struggling to make friends. The one struggling to fit in. The outcast, the forgotten. The invisible one. The shadow is always there but no one notices. Life is hard and the only one who can change the way you see things or react to things is you. I still struggle with all these things but I've learned not to let other people get me down. I've learned to love myself and fall back out of love with myself after a bad relationship, and then pick back up the pieces again after that and start over. No matter what happens in life I will never let them see me sweat, and I will always find some way to survive with God's help of course. I could never do all I've done without God, and some things I've done without God and it was a disaster but we will talk about that at a later date.

The Odd Doll

 One of my favorite teachers I ever had was Wilma Roberts, my kindergarten teacher. She was always so kind and seemed to love us kids. She never made any difference between us, and always tried to be fair. I had brought one of my Barbies to school, against my mother's wishes. I had sneaked her in my backpack. She didn't look like my other Barbie's though. She looked like another doll maybe a Tuesday Taylor doll but I am still to this day not sure what she was because I had her farther back than I can remember, which was true for most of my dolls. Anyway, I brought her to school one day to play with at recess. Anyway, this doll was special. I had never seen one like her before and none of the kids had any that were like her either. I had always had this doll. I don't remember when I first got her because as far back as I can remember I had always had her, which is the case for most of my dolls. (Why is this so painful for me to write about? Anyway, it is. I need to explore that later.) This blonde-haired little girl wanted to see her and so I allowed her to. She kept her all day, much longer than what was favorable to me so I got tired of it and asked for her back and she then said no she's mine, not yours. I was in shock. The little girl was lying. That's when I told the teacher and the teacher then asked the class who's doll it was and I just knew the class would say hers because I wasn't very popular. I was the invisible outcast no one cared to like or get to know. At least that's how I felt, but to my surprise, almost the entire class said it was mine. They actually told the truth. I was shocked. I didn't know how they knew it was mine because Tee, that's what we will call the little girl in this story, had asked to borrow her much earlier in the day so not many people would have known that, but apparently they did, and I got my doll back, and I was happy because she wasn't just a doll to me she was a gift of love from my mother who was raising me. All my dolls were special to me, well most, lol. I didn't like the scary green Wizzard of Oz witch doll that my mom bought me, lol. That thing scared the pee out of me. Below is a picture of the doll I was talking about in this story. Oh, by the way, I am just writing my memories for my child in case he wants to read about his mother one day. I hold no hard feelings towards anyone.

The First Day of Kindergarten

  The First Day of Kindergarten

Looking back I remember in the very, early years of childhood being filled with love and feeling such confidence. The family was always close. I felt so important like I was the center of the universe, and love wrapped around me like a warm blanket on a cozy winter day. It was a perfect world, and my mother was the author of it. She was my world. Wherever she was at I felt safe. My mother was perfect, I was perfect and my world was perfect.

That all changed on my first day of Kindergarten. I had never been to school before. I had no idea I would have to even go to such a foreign place. I felt as if I was being sent off to war in a scrap yard where wild animals and vicious tigers roamed. I was so scared. The very foundation I was standing on had been shaken and shaken hard. There were loud voices coming in every direction and chaos abounded. I was suddenly aware of my weight, my hair, my clothes, and my very insignificance, and of course my lack of ability to make friends. My world was now inside my head and it was just the beginning.

Strangers seemed to peer at me, inspecting me as if I were a bug. I clung to a family that had brought me here and I prayed they would never leave. buzzing chatter noisily continued for what seemed to be a lifetime. Then one by one parents and grown-ups slowly begin to leave. I was alone now, and with these Martians with children's faces, that and the teachers of course. I stood there looking onward assessing my doom. Then somewhere in the room, a cry was heard, a loud shattering cry. It was another child screaming with big huge elephant-sized tears running down their face. That's when I felt their pain. It was like my own, and before I knew it I was crying too.

The day went by and soon it was time to go home. Daddy had come to pick me up. I don't remember much about what happened after that day but I do remember mommy asking me how my day went and what all happened and I told her I cried and she asked me why did I cry and I said because the other kids were crying and so I cried too. Then we both looked at one another and we started laughing. I realized that I had not needed to cry and that I had only cried because I had felt the other kids' emotions. Sure I was scared and didn't want to be there but I was not a child who cried. I was my daddies child, and I was tough. That's when I got the devastating news that I was not done with school. I had to go back to that awful place for many days to come. I remember being so angry because of that, but the next day when I went back. I remembered my mother and me laughing over yesterday's events and I never cried that day or any other day over having to go to school. I just went after all mommy had told me if I didn't they would put them in jail and I never wanted that. So I sucked it up and went.

5 Random words is all you need to distract your mind from things that distress you.

 For those of you who have a lot of pain, I came up with something that can help you cope and get your mind off of it for a little while. What you do is you think of 5 random words. Try to make them as random as you can. My five words were Tree, pain, coffee, book, and dragon, and then you use those 5 words and make up a very short story with them. The villain in the story can be your pain and so forth. Anyway, I thought this might help someone who's having issues. It helped me.

Tree

Pain

coffee

book

dragon

It doesn't have to be some great masterpiece. This is just you trying to turn your attention off your pain and channel it into something else.

Now before you do this you will want to pray and talk to God about what's bothering you no matter if it is pain or some other issue. Talk to God first then give the problem to Him and Praise Him for the answer and then in the meantime distract yourself with this fun exercise. 

So now I will share with you the fun little insane story I wrote using the 5 words that I choose at random. I just choose my words by looking around me.  I love trees, and I was in pain and I was drinking Iced Coffee and I had books around me and I thought of pain again and came up with the word Dragon. That's how I choose mine. Now you can choose yours ever how you see fit as long as it's random. 

So here is my little fun story. I hope you enjoy it and maybe even get a few laughs at some of the ridiculous things it has in it. 

The woods were dark, gloomy almost forbidding enough so to intimidate one to turn back, but this mission was too important Amy thought. I must go on. The trees were swaying back and forth to the wind howling and whispering to one another with each rustle of the leaves. It was as if they were whispering secrets that only they knew. Blinding pain exploded with each step she took. She had barely escaped with her life. The pain had never stopped. Still, she kept on moving toward the deep end of the forest. She had to find the book. She had to save herself and her family from the sudden death at the hands of the monster who called himself The Coffee Maker. 

The Coffee Maker was notorious for making really bad coffee. He was once a master at it but it all went away like overnight. Still, The Coffee Maker was the one people went to for loans and such, and each trip he made them drink a cup of his nightmarish coffee. He had a way of making you feel obligated to drink it and drink as much as he wanted you to. The Coffee Maker was also known for his cruelty and violence. Making people stand on their tiptoes chained to a wall drinking his horrible tasting coffee and if they spit it out he would torture them by sticking long doll-making needles inside their ears and piercing their eardrums pouring boiling hot coffee on the inside yelling about now how does it taste. The screams if only they could be heard inside those soundproof walls would have been legendary. He would do this to anyone who owed him money or insulted his coffee. 

The book was the only way to defeat The Coffee Maker and put an end to his cruelty. The law could do nothing. Their hands were tied. People were afraid to come forth and tell what they knew. The Coffee Maker had that kind of power of them. They were afraid. That book. I got to find that book Amy told herself. as her ears screamed in pain where she had been tortured. The book was the source of all the coffee makers' power. You get the book and you get the coffee maker. At least that's what his ex-wife The Dragon said. She used to be married to him and left because his cruelty became too much for her to bear and the violence had only begun then.  

After she left that's when she got her nickname the dragon. People thought she escaped fire the way only a dragon could. She also made handmade dragons for a living so there was that. She was an expert doll artist and was well known for her artistry and sewing. She had sewn and made countless dolls and dragons and sold them all over the world. She would travel from place to place taking classes and perfecting her art. That's when his husband Frank who later became The Coffee Maker came into contact with the book. 

Locals warned him not to touch that book. It was cursed. Whoever was in possession of it would benefit greatly from its ability to help teach him how to make a good cup of coffee, but it was a power that was just too much for some, too much for most. Soon he became obsessed with making coffee and with each cup he made it was better than the last. He soon became world-famous for his coffee, but the coffee got to a place it was no longer enough for him. It didn't satisfy his thirst. He became greedy for money and power and the more money and power the coffee brought in for him the more greedy he became. Soon his love for coffee was no more and all that was left was a cruel violent monster. His coffee no longer tasted like clouds of Heaven, Now it tastes like rotten and rank. No one wanted to drink it. He began to lose it. Scrambling to get back what he once had and failing.  He became cruel and abusive to all those around him and committing crimes and acts of violence out on anyone who didn't like his coffee and said so to his face. He was a monster. 

That's when his wife left and took the book with her hiding it in the trunk of a large tree in the woods. She knew if anyone found her or the book it would be all over. So she went into hiding. Only a few people knew how to contact her, and Amy was one of them. Alice was The coffee maker's wife's name and She told Amy where the book was hidden years ago in hopes one day she would be brave enough to travel to destroy it before the coffee maker found them again and finished what he started years ago. 

Amy's family had been down on their luck and was about to lose their house when they heard of a man who would give them money for just drinking his coffee. They thought wow this is too good to be true, but hey we're desperate so we will try anything. I mean what could it hurt right? Coffee-stained teeth are all. Little did they know. The coffee would be so unbearably bad that they would spit it out right in front of the coffee maker. That's when the coffee maker pulled out a gun and made them go to the back room. The soundproof room. Amy had gotten the coffee maker to trust her to go to the bathroom where she escaped out a tiny window that no normal human could possibly fit into but Amy had been starving since her captivity and had no problems going through the window.  Her family was still there though and they were suffering. 

It was morning now that Amy had reached the top of the mountain where the large oak tree stood. It was the oldest tree in the forest and right there in the middle was a hollow place where the book was to be laying. As Amy approached the tree she began to feel afraid. What's this book going to do? What does it have in it? As she reached inside to get the book bugs to begin to scurry across the top and over the pages. Yuk, she dropped it. She hated bugs, and right before her eyes, she saw what the book contained. It had ever evil dead the coffee maker had ever done in his quest for fame and revenge. Everything was recorded in this book. Even the things that were being done to her and her family but how since the book was all the way out here? Anyway who was she to question it. All she knew is that someone was keeping track and someone knew more than they were willing to let be known. She tucked the book into her jacket making sure it was bug-free and ran fast down the tall mountain leading out of the woods. Once in town, she called the police and told them everything. They took the book and the coffee maker was arrested. 

Last I heard he had actually turned over a new leaf and was sorry for all his cruelty and how he had let greed and the love of money turn him into something inhuman.  He wrote letters to all his victims from prison apologizing. Idk if any of them forgave him or not but I was just glad that our part in the story was over and that everyone was safe now.  Oops did I say I well I guess you now know who it was that was still writing things in the book before Amy took it? YIKES, I was going to keep that one to myself oh well the cats out of the bag but I guess there's no reason to be afraid now that old Frank is behind bars. 

okay guys that's my crazy insane story. Stupid I know but hey like I said this is just for fun and it doesn't have to be a masterpiece. It just has to be fun and something that will take your mind off your troubles if only for a little while. I had an ear infection during this story as you can probably tell which is why I wrote about ears and needles LOL Anyway thanks for giving this a read and I hope you decide to write a story of your own using 5 random words.