Day One 12-14-2010

Prayer:
Psalms 18:25-50
²⁵ To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
   to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
²⁶ to the pure you show yourself pure,
   but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.
²⁷ You save the humble
   but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
²⁸ You, LORD, keep my lamp burning;
   my God turns my darkness into light.
²⁹ With your help I can advance against a troop^[a];
   with my God I can scale a wall.
 ³⁰ As for God, his way is perfect:
   The LORD’s word is flawless;
   he shields all who take refuge in him.
³¹ For who is God besides the LORD?
   And who is the Rock except our God?
³² It is God who arms me with strength
   and keeps my way secure.
³³ He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
   he causes me to stand on the heights.
³⁴ He trains my hands for battle;
   my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
³⁵ You make your saving help my shield,
   and your right hand sustains me;
   your help has made me great.
³⁶ You provide a broad path for my feet,
   so that my ankles do not give way.
 ³⁷ I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
   I did not turn back till they were destroyed.
³⁸ I crushed them so that they could not rise;
   they fell beneath my feet.
³⁹ You armed me with strength for battle;
   you humbled my adversaries before me.
⁴⁰ You made my enemies turn their backs in flight,
   and I destroyed my foes.
⁴¹ They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—
   to the LORD, but he did not answer.
⁴² I beat them as fine as windblown dust;
   I trampled them^[b] like mud in the streets.
⁴³ You have delivered me from the attacks of the people;
   you have made me the head of nations.
People I did not know now serve me,
 ⁴⁴ foreigners cower before me;
   as soon as they hear of me, they obey me.
⁴⁵ They all lose heart;
   they come trembling from their strongholds.
 ⁴⁶ The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock!
   Exalted be God my Savior!
⁴⁷ He is the God who avenges me,
   who subdues nations under me,
 ⁴⁸ who saves me from my enemies.
You exalted me above my foes;
   from a violent man you rescued me.
⁴⁹ Therefore I will praise you, LORD, among the nations;
   I will sing the praises of your name.
 ⁵⁰ He gives his king great victories;
   he shows unfailing love to his anointed,
   to David and to his descendants forever.


Lord, I come to you right now, to ask for you to give me the strength in what I plan do to. To start this journey with a strong heart and a strong presence to succeed in this. I ask of you to pour the Holy Spirit through me and inject it in my veins. Let is run like your blood runs through my body, Lord. Oh and I thank you, Lord Almighty, I thank you for everything you have done in my life. I thank you for me coming back into my family's life. Without them and you Lord, I'd be homeless and aimlessly wandering through life. Oh Lord, I thank you so much Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.


Today is the day I start to focus on myself. To take a break from everything I'm known for doing. To find out what I must do to battle those inner demons. Not only to do this, I must stop everything. Stop the hours of being on the internet looking at useless things. To stop procrastinating in those things I want to do. Basically, to be the woman I'm meant to be and supposed to be. I've been reading my bible most of the day today, and yes I am a Christian. God, has saved me from doing things that would have and have ruined me. I'm so thankful for Him.  I honestly, wouldn't be able to do this without the Lord. He gives me the strength I need and helps guide me. I'm thankful, so very thankful. 

Reading my bible today has helped as well as praying for this journey that I begin. I have so many demons to fight inside myself. I have horrible insomnia and nightmares. I've had insomnia for the longest time and with what happened to me in February it's gotten worse. Now, let me explain this situation, this event. My family and I went up to California for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. While we were up there, my sisters car broke down. So after the party and after trying to fix it in a certain amount of days before my parents, and my sister and nephew went back. Well it didn't get fixed, it was something a true mechanic had to do, not my sisters soon to be ex-husband, which I'll refer to him as ex-husband, because he is no husband no more to her. So, my sisters ex-husband and I stayed behind to try and fix it. Which never did happen, so my sisters ex-husband bought this van for us to drive back to Idaho.

Now this van worked perfectly when we drove it around all over town. Even my grandfather drove it around to see if it would work. Now my sisters ex-husband started to act strange. He let me use his phone, which is a HTC Hero, a pretty good phone, but he never let anyone use it at all, not even my sister. For some reason this did not raise a red flag. Another red flag didn't go off when he took me to the movies to see Avatar. I thought he was just being nice and taking me to see it because I had not seen it yet. I realize after that this was a red flag that should have went up. But I never second guessed it because he was my sisters husband, I trusted him. Well, after all that had happened, we got the van. That night I was up until who knows when because of my insomnia when he sneaks up on me, which he has never done before, this was a red flag that night that went straight up in my head and eyes. After a few words he went back into the guest room at my grandparents house and went back to bed. I didn't sleep that night. We got packed up the next day and were going to go on our way. Right as we lost signal on our phones the car started acting up. We turned around and pulled off the side of the road and we had signal on our phones again. We called my grandfather and he came and got us while he paid the tow truck to tow it back up to his house. Now that night my sisters ex-husband went out to the van to put the title back in the car and get his things to bring them inside. I followed to get my things as well and we started talking. Just talking, how irritated he was about the cars and what not.

And this is where the world turned upside down on me. He started to say sexually explicit things to me. Asking me if I wanted him to eat me out when my grandparents went to bed and things like that, which I really do not feel like repeating on here. I firmly said no to everything he said. If we were not at my grandparents I have no doubt in my mind that he would have raped me. Or if the van was still working, I would not be surprised if he drove somewhere secluded and raped me there. After some time I went inside and sat in the living room. He came in a few minutes behind me and went into the bedroom. After knowing he was there I literally almost ran to the bathroom by my grandparents room and locked myself in. My grandparents were in the living room and my grandmother, with God's discernment, knew there was something going on and oh was she right. I called my mother and told her everything, they were in Idaho. She then told my sister and my sister called him and asked if all this was true. Once I came out of the bathroom he saw me, with a tear streaked face and bolted out of the door and away from the property, while this was happening my mother was on the phone with my grandmother, my moms mother, telling her everything. My grandmother in turn told my grandfather and my sister, mom, & nephew drove 10 hours at night to get to me.

Thank God for my family otherwise I would have destroyed myself. And in a way I slightly did. I ate anything I could get my hands on because I thought that would make me so unattractive that nobody would dare touch me or try that again. But I snapped out of that with great advice from many people. Which I am truly grateful for. I stopped shoving morsels down my throat and started to try and lose the weight I've gained which is a continuing struggle. Now from that event, stems the nightmares. The nightmares are the same things playing over and over again. And lately they have evolved into him raping me. It's to the point where I don't want to sleep, and I get myself so exhausted to the point where I make my mind not work and I crash to sleep. But now that's not even working. I can't sleep, I'm addicted to caffeine to help me stay awake. I sleep maybe 3 or 4 days out of the week now. And that's only a few hours, if that.

This is where my faith comes in. God has been giving me the strength to go on and live everyday, not only for my but for my nephew, my sister, my parents, and my grandparents, just to live for my family. But these inner demons inside of my body have been damaging what seems every aspect of my life. This is why I'm keeping a journal, why I'm blogging this. To document it. To document the change and experiences I go through. Because now it is time to focus on me, myself, and I and not everyone else. I hope as I share this in blogging that someone will be inspired to find themselves and a new strength and to battle what ever they are going through, because they are not alone in battling. This is Battling the Demons.

God Bless.

- Ashley