When I was 20 years old, I started thinking about how horrible things always seemed to happen in and around every July. Yeah, it was in July 1964 when I got the letter from my mother, while at my Danish great-uncle's farm, telling me that I was moving to Germany! I would by far, much rather have stayed the rest of my life with my great-uncle!
And in that same July, I was dropped into a small French village in the Belgium border with Luxembourg! Somehow, Germany became France, but hey, no one every asks me my opinion on anything! And I knew NO French what-so-ever! But, my parents could not have cared less.
July 1965 and my mother cracked up on a trip to Spain, never to return to Earth, even to this day! Fifty-one years later and she still has no concept of reality ... sigh. You simply would not believe.
July 1966 all tarnation had broken out in France and we had to be evacuated to the German border. I could not even go to the funerals for all of my friends, whom were butchered in the uprising! And then the fun started ... I had no, still do not, have a birth certificate. I was born on an American NATO base to a foreign father. So, no one would claim me! And then father's war history had to be evaluated by the German's. Sigh. But, best part was being arrested for not being in school. How could I go to school when I was trapped in no man's land!?!?!?!? My sister and I were lucky to be allowed near the toilet! Aaaaargh!
July 1967 and I was removed from my little village I loved so dearly, to live on a NATO base, safely protected from the Red Menace. But, not so much so, from neurotic American teenagers - I learned how to run real well, get the tar beaten out of me real well, and well, as for bleeding - I was gifted.
and on and on and on!
July was the month, it seemed, life is to be having the rug pulled out from under me was to become the norm. No settling down, no real friends, no possessions, they only would last until July anyway ... I know, waah, waah, waah!
But personal relationships, interestingly, were stuck in the same cycle of loss! Get interested in some female, "POOF!" they would be gone in July, at the latest August! It was amazing. And that was what caught my attention. My high school girl friend of many years, whom I was very serious about - POOF and she was gone! A good friend I made in college - POOF. My first fiancee - POOF. And I stopped and thought about this, it was now August 1975. Three July's in a row, three females I had an interest in - POOF!, in a row.
Was it something I was doing? Was I like a July Were-A-Hole, but normal the rest of the year? No, not that I could understand in any event.
One of my friends in my Bible Study offered that perhaps this was curse and I needed to have it exorcised ... well, that was a rabbit trail as I was to learn.
I always have since enjoyed the other popular default Western Theology reasoning: I was obviously the worse of sinners and being punished every July for my unGodly life of sin ... yeah, right ... I did not have to be from Texas to smell that one!
Another thought, perhaps all of this trauma was something inside of me playing out a situation from long ago. And they were close I think. But, no one had a clue as to what this meant at the time.
A few more July's rolled by. Loss of a best friend, loss of another best friend, fall off a 160 foot cliff - survive but suffer horrible foot injuries. Another year was a car accident that cost me 1.5 inches in height due to spinal compression. The years became a blur but I could never figure out what was driving this weirdness - every single July! It was to the point that I would just disappear in July, see no friends, talk to as few as possible, I even stopped teaching Sunday School in July! But even in hiding, you can still get shellfish poisoning! Almost did kill me - nothing like laying in ER and watching your heart monitor go flat line three times! The crash cart crew got to know me and my sardonic wit rather well! Yeah, I will obviously die a smart ass ...
And today is no different, albeit nothing horrible has happened so far this July, no I am still recovering from June's disasters! But, hey holding my breath because it might come in early August instead!
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Past experiences result in anger and frustration, building a foundation of failure in our lives.
Repeated behavior - patterns of response to problems in our past? Over and over and over again? Yeah, probably.
Psychologists will tell you that it all goes back to your parents, your unmet needs from them, and then from others as well. Yeah, well my parents never should have had children - I knew that when I was nine years old!
Was there something in my past which programmed me to fail, to always respond the wrong way? Re-enforcing the knowledge that I am a failure, inadequate, unqualified, unlovable ..... ?
But, this reoccurring drama needs to be seen in a slightly more positive light I have learned across the past several years of July failures.
1. Let yourself be drawn closer to God, not pushed away by events!
2. Know that you can not overcome or conquer in your own strength!
3. Focus on the need for the workings of the Holy Spirit!
4. God will show what He can do with as little as you have to work with!
5. Let God be free to use you to His max!
6. Allow God to get all of the glory!
7. Be content in your spirit!
But you do have to allow God to do His work in your life, without your help.
Let inadequacy be the basis for blessing!
Put it all upon God.
Live in faith that He will help you overcome.
Do not look back ...
Do not stop and accept defeat .....
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And last week, I finally got there, after a lifetime of trying to keep standing from blow after blow. The last one, though was not in a July, but was the lowest of all. I could no longer stand, I have no ability to overcome a blow so low ...
In my pain, I saw it all rolled back to a summer's day, in July 1961, when a neighbor invited me to watch Rocky and Friends, on his new color TV. But, it was how my family reacted - and the police - that broke what had been inside of me. No one believed me, no one cared, I as just the unloved liar ... It took two more destroyed lives before that man was sent to a prison pyscho ward. But by then, no one thought back and said .... hmmmm .... maybe that kid had been right ....
I had been marked for failure ever since.
Well, good to know the starting point, changes nothing other than, I can now understand how that broken kid inside of me has been responding after all of these years to the same trauma. Nor does it excuse my failures before God. Nor does it soften the pain imposed upon me ...
Faith: take a step, faith, take another and continue on - keep realizing that God is driving me - not memories of failures which were never mine to own. And to try and not close myself off from mankind - to continue to be transparent, to be honest, to be available for others. But, I fear that which I so long for, will in the end, never be mine on this Earth ... but that is a tale for another day ...
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