To the Scorned Woman:

To the Scorned Woman: 

I've learned many lessons in my short life. 

I have faced battles that many grown women have yet to taste before the age of 20. 

I say this not out of pride, but to express in the rawest way possible that I know more than you think about life, love & religion. 

I've hated God.

I've convinced myself He doesn't exist at all. 

I've fallen in love with Him over and over again. 

I've tasted the distain of bitterness, the sweetness of romance and the rotten aftertaste of heartache. 

I have failed. 

At many things. 

I have bottled up pain so great it would bring even the strongest women to brokenness. 

Listen to me closely you broken woman. 

You scorned woman. 

You talked about, beaten, trampled over woman. 

You who think you should just shut up and lay down like the door mat people see you as. 

You who think a good woman is one who grins and bears it. 

You who beat yourself up every day for being a girl that just wants her fairytale. 

You listen to me. 

You are a strong woman. 

You are full of courage and fire. 

You are nobody's door mat. 

You are precious. 

God sees you.

God is not looking down at you with a face of shame. 

Let people gasp. 

Let them talk.

Let them flap their busybody lips until they fall right off their face.

By remaining silent you are already above them. 

There is a time to stay silent and a time to stand up. 

I will stand up for you and with you. 

You are not a china doll; fragile and designed to sit on a shelf and collect the dust of comfort. 

You are a woman. 

A beautiful, fierce woman. 

Fear of the unknown. 

Fear of yourself. 

Fear of others. 

Drop it. 

Kick it. 

 Don't pick it up again. 

Do not lay in the dirt and let anyone throw their stones at you like a victim.

You pick up those stones and build a fortress out of them. 

I've learned many lessons in my short life; 

One of them being that I am worthy of love.

You are not the victim.

You're the heroine. 

Signed, 

A Once Scorned Woman

Shedding Your Dead Skin

I know, my title is pretty gross this time.

I couldn't think of a more perfect analogy to convey my heart. 

As a marathon runner, my feet take a huge beating. 

Blisters, callouses, the works. 

After an endurance event I always go and get my feet worked on. 

This is going to come as a shock, but I never cry over the stripping away of my dead skin. 

Fresh. Soft. New. 

Finally. 

Granted, those callouses served their purpose in my training at some point along the way. 

If I had scrubbed them off myself before running 26 miles, you would see me hobbling at mile 15 with feet covered in blisters. 

Alike, a cocoon serves its purpose, but you do not see a beautiful butterfly lingering around its old cocoon mourning over the loss. 

 

When I was a young girl, I would take my mothers mason jars and take them to the backyard; I was on a mission. 

In the south, kids found it fun to pick locust shells off the trees and save them. 

Now, looking back I see I was just a strange kid.

Funny thing, I never saw a locust weeping by its old shell wanting to go back into its dead skin. 

Yet, so many of us weep over dead skin, callouses. 

Some sort of life choice kick starts the process of shedding the old and gaining the new. 

You will shed people or places, maybe both. 

Mourning has its place, but this is a time of celebration and rebirthing. 

Change is your ped -egg, shaving off every dead particle you no longer need to flourish. 

The butterfly, the locust, they don't just slowly walk away from their old, empty shells; they fly. 

They free themselves with extreme haste and celebration! 

The callouses have served their purpose, but it's time to show off that new skin. 

Enough with the analogy merry go round. 

Some people are in your life to teach you who you do not want to be or who you are not. 

Some people are in your life for a season simply to strengthen you. 

Do not consider their disappearance from your life desertion; it is shedding of a callous. 

Harsh? 

Maybe. 

Not all people are designed to be the encourager or loyal companion you want every human that walks into your life to be. 

Some are in your story to help you find yourself the hard way. 

Celebrate, because mourning over dead useless skin would be bananas.