Broken Beautifully

Part One:

“The Breakup”

I remember feeling as if I couldn’t breathe my next breath because of the amount of pain weighing on my heart, mind and soul at the EXACT same time. I couldn’t ask the famous question we all ask ourselves when pain comes, “how did I get here?” because truth is, I knew exactly how I got there and I think we all know; it’s just a matter if we admit it to ourselves or not but that’s another topic for another day. Anywho, there I was…in the apartment I shared with him for the last 5 years. Every tear on the stained carpet. Every fight on the paint peeled wall. All the laughs in the dim lighted kitchen. All the love in our dark bedroom. All of it, hitting me on every side of my almost lifeless body. I walked into my bathroom – I looked in the mirror; no energy, eyes already bloodshot from crying, 12 lbs. lighter in just 8 days because I wasn’t eating and I cried the ugliest cry I think anyone has ever cried – yes, even the famous Kim Kardashian cry! There I was, alone, looking at myself in my grey t-shirt, hair in thick braids, barefaced and crying because I thought I had lost everything I had fought for, for so long. I stood there and saw who I had allowed myself to become. It wasn’t just a relationship ending. It was the past 30 years of my life; every painful memory and word that I heard and remembered; every heart break; every time I was told I was ugly or fat or would never be anything; the things I told myself, “you’re not good enough!” “you’re nothing!” “you’re second best, IF THAT!” – all of it came into me and I was completely disgusted with myself. I had been wasting the life God had blessed me with and allowed the things people said, done to and thought about me to completely consume me and here I was, miserable. Powerless. Alone. Afraid. LOST! How am I supposed to go on? Who am I really? What is my next step? I had no idea. No clue. I could not be comforted. “You’re better without him!” “You’ll find someone better!” “You’ll be fine, just give it time!” Although the words were kind and appropriate, they weren’t what I needed. The only thing I knew down in my soul is that the only person who could help me even a little bit, was God. In that moment, I told God, “I cannot live like this! You have to take it!” I went into my bedroom and got back in the bed…. covers over my head and I went to sleep.

The next day came and I still didn’t feel okay. I was still sad. I still felt miserable. I still felt the pain. But I ate. Thank God for that. It’s not like I had money in the bank so I had to get my butt up and go to work every day – smile when necessary and cry my eyes out when at my desk, quickly wiping away tears as they fell so no one would see.  The thoughts of that night replaying continually in my mind. Thinking of all the tears and exchange of words but mostly, thinking of how I begged him to stay. Yes, I begged that man! Pleaded with him not to leave me. (Thinking of it now, makes me wanna go toe to toe with my own self. Ugh!) But yes, I was practically on my knees pleading with him to stay because I just knew that if he stayed, he’d see being with me was the best thing for him but I was so used to being forgotten about, I forgot myself. What about what was best for Kiesha? Remember her? See everyone tells you treat others as you want to be treated, not realizing that people like myself, “givers”, focus so much on giving to others the love that is so deep inside of them, that they lose themselves in the process. Isn’t that something to think about? How we can be loving someone with everything in us but forget to love ourselves? We ask them if they’ve eaten anything and we’ve only had two grapes and a stick of gum. Crazy, huh? But that’s what I did. I wanted to love someone, anyone so much and I thought me loving hard would automatically make someone love me but that’s wasn’t and is not the case. That’s why it is SO IMPORTANT, for everyone to start loving themselves FIRST! So that when pain, heartache, loneliness, etc. comes – you will still know how to take care of you! I don’t know how I allowed myself to lose that message or if it is a message that I ever had but there I was. (Okay, this sounds so sad & depressing so I’m gonna skip ahead a bit and give you a little hope though….. I found my love for myself and you WILL too! 🙂 But let’s get back to how GOD turned these very real, deep SCARS into BEAUTY MARKS!)

So here I was, fresh out of a 5-year relationship and not having a clue who I was or what I wanted except, I knew I wanted and needed to be closer to God! I packed up the apartment that had become my safe haven and war zone all at the same time and I moved to a newer apartment and was ready for a fresh start. I’ve always been a private person so I didn’t talk a lot to people but I started to open myself up a bit more to God. Reading my Bible… daily devotions and praying were like fresh air to me! It was the only time I felt safe with myself. Dying to call or text him. Wishing he’d call or text me and tell me it was all a mistake, that he’s so sorry and beg me to take him back and then we could go to City Hall and get married immediately! But that call or text never came. And I was a mess and completely vulnerable but when I read my Bible and prayed, I became so lost in the Words on the pages and the security I began to feel after prayer so I just kept going. I was always afraid to live by myself – being inside 4 walls with no one talking to you physically, seemed like the strangest and scariest thing to me but I knew this was the only option I had and I could either learn to live or just die internally. So, I decided to live! Like, I HAVE to live!!!! Come on now Kiesh! You can’t give up now! You gotta figure this thing out… somehow, some way! So, Bible study at our church was my newest safe haven – I was scared of my apartment at this time, LOL! – so Tuesday nights I felt like I hit the lottery. I couldn’t get to church fast enough! I literally felt at complete peace, walking through those doors even though I knew the lesson could possibly touch on what I was going through and that meant… emotional Kiesha was gonna make an appearance. GAHHHHHHHHHH! She can be so annoying! What I didn’t realize is that emotional Kiesha was part of the key to my freedom! Sometimes, we are taught to hold in our tears. “Be strong.” “You got this!” “Don’t let anyone see you sweat!” We don’t realize that we are suppressing our feelings! That’s not good because that teaches us that what we are feeling needs to be hid and isn’t important but our feelings matter! Let me say that again for the people in the back…. OUR FEELINGS MATTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOUR FEELINGS MATTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We don’t have to hold anything in. We weren’t given emotions to hide them – it’s necessary to express how you feel and sometimes you just need to cry! Walk away from your desk. Go outside. Have a good cry. GET IT OUT! Don’t leave it inside of you because it will eat away at you and then you’ll do what I did: have 30 years of emotions bottled up, losing yourself and forgetting your dreams, breakup with your “fiancé” causing you to have a complete emotional breakdown in your WACK apartment! Okay, so back to Bible study…. Emotional Kiesha came out SEVERAL times! Ugh! But as I said, that was helping me and I didn’t even know it! So, every day, I would read, pray, and then God blessed my mind to see that this new apartment was MINE! One thing I always wanted to do in my old apartment was decorate because it was my first real adult apartment. He showed me a blank canvas – it’s like He was saying, “Make it yours!” So, work, prayer, read my Bible and decorate or buy things to decorate was my agenda! My days were still hard sometimes – especially with my nieces; they were 5 going on 6 and 3 going on 4 at the time and came over all the time and they are kids – they don’t know hearing his name would hurt my soul and take my mind through a memory filled emotional rollercoaster that made me feel like I was going to throw up and pass out all at the same time. So, every weekend, here they go: “where is he?” “I miss him.” “Why isn’t he here?” “he used to swing me around!” “why is he living with his dad?” and I’m just like… you know what, I’m tired of the questions and I just told them “because he didn’t wanna marry me and I didn’t wanna be a girlfriend anymore because I love God!” WOW! I just said that to a 5 and 3-year-old! Not in a mean way but I was just…. Honest. And you know what – honesty IS the best policy! And guess what, they understood as best they could. Sure, they still missed him, he was there for all their life but they wanted TiTi to be married so she could have babies so to them it made perfect sense! When I gave my life back to the Lord we stopped being intimate, I was tired of shackin’ up! I needed to be in good standing with myself and God! I’d given him 5 years of dedication and love – this wasn’t gonna stop; if he didn’t wanna marry me now, he’d never marry me! I was honest with myself and stood my ground of what I wanted and felt I deserved.

Anywho, work, reading, prayer, decorate and repeat! Working and decorating, I was there but my mind was still all over the place but when I was reading my Bible and praying – oh, I was all there. I cried. I laughed. I paced. I asked questions. I cried some more. I became so dedicated. It was amazing to me the strength He was giving me… it still wasn’t always easy but it was getting a little better. Then – the wind got completely knocked out of me. On April 21^st 2017, almost two months after my gut wrenching break up, after shortly dropping my 5-year-old niece off, I was in a major car accident and totaled my car! Never had I ever been in one – I can close my eyes now and still see and feel the car spinning around in the air yet all I could say was “Jesus!” – calmly and expectantly I called HIS name! Thanks be to My King, I walked away sore and with a really bad seatbelt burn across my chest; the other person, he was hurt a little more but thank God, he also survived. I remember laying in the hospital bed and God letting me know clearly – the enemy is trying to kill you Kiesha! He tried emotionally. Now he was trying physically. He didn’t say anything audibly, but I felt Him in my room and it’s like He just let me know in my spirit and it made me want to lock in on God even more. I remember my uncle walking in and all I could tell him is “he tried to take me out! But I’m not giving up!” and I held on to that! I knew in real life, the only thing I had in my life that would remain solid was God…. It was more than a breakup. It was more than a man. This hurt ran deep and although I took steps that pushed me into the path that I was currently in… God was right by me, making sure every broken piece of my heart that was falling along the way, was picked up and stored for remolding and reshaping so He alone could put me back together. I made mistakes. I loved the wrong man. I said “yes” when it should have been “no!” I forgot my worth or perhaps never even knew my worth. Yet, that did not stop God from setting up a plan to have me Broken, Beautifully. Do you know what that means? It means ever so gently. Carefully. Patiently. Lovingly. He slowly allowed me to lose the things that I had so much faith in so He could isolate me and show me that my trust should only remain in Him. He didn’t want to see me cry – He felt every tear that fell from chubby cheeked face but He needed me to see that I was lost and sometimes God needs to strip us of everything we think we want, so He can truly give us EVERYTHING we NEED! The breakup wasn’t my end but my beginning…. It just took me some time to realize it.

With Broken Beautifulness,

Kiesh

Part Two – coming soon.