The little girl with the broken heart

"The little girl with the broken heart..........."
That's how I am feeling tonight as I can't sleep, lying tossing and turning and remembering my first childhood memory when I must have been 4, in the arms of my nanny; Lynette, on the back door steps of our second storey kitchen, looking down on the driveway as my daddy slapped my mommy clean across her face, so hard, she fell to her face onto the ground, I shreiked with devastation and helplessness and horror as Lynette hurried me inside so I couldn't watch anymore or see anything else.......how did it end? I don't remember that part, I was too little!

But that moment and many others, just as painful and deeply scarring have come to shape and form me today as a 31 year old, married, mommy to 2 little ones. My baby girl is about to turn 4 next month, perhaps that is why I have this need to process these memories, now! Perhaps the pain that they are causing locked inside my soul, is just unbearable and I cannot carry it anymore, I need to tell this story and so many just like it, in hope of releasing its hold over my soul.
Perhaps writing it out will allow it to stop playing over in my head and in my heart tonight....

I was 15, the night that I watched my daddy smack my mommy, right across the face and she fell to the floor, again. New house, new scenery, new decade of my life, same pain and same devastation.....I was standing all alone, upstairs again in my bedroom, I could see mom and dad from my bedroom window into their bedroom, I could hear it all too. Loud, so loud.....angry and aggressive and abusive, and so violent! Next thing I knew my 2 tiny little siblings, a similar age that my own 2 little children are now, almost 5 and 3 came trembling and sneaking into my room, looking to me; their big sister for safety and rescue from this brokenness, that to this day breaks my heart, so deeply. I did my best, but I couldnt shelter them from what they had seen and heard, nor could I remove the fear that consumed us all and the brokenness that crept into our souls and hearts......
I strapped my tiny little baby brother to my chest and climbed down the outside drains of the house to the ground floor and left him there to wait for me, as I scaled the house back to the second floor to fetch my other little baby brother, Ben, he was 5 or so and he recalls this incident too.....he clung to my chest like a vervet monkey as we climbed down the house to ground and safety and I carried these 2 little babies with me down the street that we lived in; Haddon Avenue, we walked the street ringing buzzers at each gate awaiting a response, it must have been at least the 5th attempt when someone answered and I burst into tears and asked if I could come inside to make a phone call. There were no cell phones then, only landlines, this must have been around 1996, give or take.
I had no grandparents to call for help nor an anuty or uncle, I was 15, and my boyfriend was 24! He was a legal clerk in town, doing his articles and studying at the same time, he lived at home with his parents. He came to get us 3, all little children, looking back I can see how little I was and how vulnerable I was. But I didnt have those luxuries, I had to save my mom and be mom to my baby brothers. I am not sure how the rest of that traumatised, sleepless night played out, but I visited my mom the next day in the ICU ward at the local Mater Dei hospital and she was badly beaten, bruised and in a medically induced coma for rest. I stood, all alone at my mom's bedside, as my little brothers waited for me in the waiting room, with dad....the man that had done this to my mom, the night before and the dr's allowed us children to return home with him to the house and they allowed him access to mom. No one came to save us, my own grandfather who lived 5km from the hospital didnt call me, or visit me or mom or make contact with any of us at all, he was a church elder and lay preacher at the time! I was 15 and had to get home to care for my little brothers, to bath them and feed them and care for them, to make sure their school lunches were packed and their homework was done......

This was the routine in our home for years. Mom was in hopsital a couple of times and when home, she was broken and abused, condemned and opressed, dad owned her soul.........she was powerless. She was a tender hearted mother who adored her children more than life itself and she had no escape from this darkness. It ruled, but not for ever.....

I am free today, I am healing and I am married to the most incredible man that God Himself created and chose especially for me, Ross is God's grace and redemption in my life. He is kindness and patience and gentleness and love and peace personified. He is the adoring father I wish my baby brothers had known, my little ones sleep in warm beds with a content and happy mommy who is by their side, every single day of their lives, I wake smiling and I sing to them all day, I want them to know happiness and safety that I longed for all my life as a child. I have that now, I have that in Ross, from my Jesus Himself. Redemption and restoration is real and alive.....the curse is reversed, just like it was when those flood waters subsided and the earth was able to live under a new covenant after Noah had been in the ark, as that ark sat on Mount Ararat (the curse is reversed) and Jesus Himself rose to life, death was defeated and it has been defeated, this darkness no longer has any power over my life or the lives of my children and in time, we will see this same light shine its powerful restoration into the soul of my daddy; he is the ultimate victim and captive in this story....I wait on my God for His perfect process to unravel, a little at a time, watch with me, wait with me, hold your breath....for the healing and the restoration and revival of Robert Conolly is to come in the name of Jesus
Until then, I worship you my Beloved Saviour, Lord Jesus Christ who was and is and is to come
Amen
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