One of my favorite childhood stories is about a man who paid too many pigs for his wife. As I recall, it goes something like this a young woman grew up in a small village, her sisters were talented, and beautiful they were worth at least two pigs each. But the woman was not considered beautiful and growing up her brother's and father would joke that one day they would have to pay a man three pigs to take her. The young woman knew that she was not worth very much and when suitors came to speak with her sisters she would hide herself away because she knew, she had always been told, that she was not worth any pigs and to show herself while her sisters were being courted would certainly destroy their chances of marriage and hurt her father's farm as they needed the extra swine.

I was holding my child crying and from above me a heard a voice, taking the sound and tone of a familiar voice call down to me from above saying “Michelle! Stop caring what everyone thinks your LIFE is on the line. The word stood out, life, my life was in jepority but I could not comprehend how. I sat there I stayed, I couldn't understand the meaning of any of these things, I had intuition and knowledge, but ignored it, as i couldn't perceive it correctly. Later, that day, another day maybe, it was hard to decern as this dimension was timeless, both happening instantaneously and out of order, was came before did not logically make sense and what came after felt as before. But, another time, I was on the ground, I could not stand up in the face of such great shame, on the ground I begged, too much has been taken, too much of my self ripped from me.

It was like everything i had come to believe about my world was ripped out from under me in one fell swoop. And what was left was cold plain reality. An angry husband and marriage on the brink of divorce. A child forgotten in the wake of it. My job hanging by a thread. Looking at the destruction it was easier to say “that wasn't me” than to accept reality for what it is, but when we deny reality we're crazy and so then i spent the next year with basically skitzo-effective disorder.

Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

I remember sitting on the couch. I felt like i was a sociopath, like i was void of feelings, and felt insecure about it. I said, sometimes i just dont cry, and later I was crying so hard and he came up close to me ans said “look not tears” in regards to himself… as if he did not have any feeling or sympathy towards me.

I watched my sons head dip under water as he struggled to break back above the surface. I was in arms reach, I was watched closely, but I did not offer help. I did not grab him and pull him to the surface. I knew if I did that, if I reached out and pulled him up he would never learn to swim.

I remember when it first happened I was given three choices. I instinctively knew I would have three choices. The first choice started the night before rehab. I already believed, I think, that everyone knew everything- all of my secrets. They had spilled out of me, ugly truths, realizations. My husband took my son camping, and I was confused, panic rose out of me. Before he left he looked at me and said “Michelle choose me. I will protect you. And as he had done before I thought, yes, he will. He will protect me.”

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

God has a way of showing a person what is truly their hearts desire. This is where sin originates: intent.

But, I saw my intentions as pure-ish. I perceived the world as if everything was happening to me, as if my decisions were the product of everyone elses actions. I

I loved my life. Looking back, Its more than a little unnerving the extent that I loved my life, at least what I had built and projected to the world. I worked at the same company, for the same people, for 10 years. And, I worked hard, for someone else's dream. I started as a web developer and did everything I could, all hours of the day and night, my work became my hobby, my happy place, a source of pride. I put everything of myself into it. After many years I worked to gain more and more responsibilities, integrating all their systems and processes and after many years they gave me the ultimate title: COO.

This must be how the seed feels when the sprouts begin to tear it apart. Transformation can be ugly, can be painful and we can only hope what remains is beautiful. If the seed had a choice to be ripped apart from the inside, would it choose to become the flower? Would it choose to turn itself inside out to become something it never believed it could.. maybe not, but God knows what it can become so the seed is planted and watered anyway and if it could protest I think it would shout, no, please, I am happy, I am a seed. I have always been and always want to be a seed it's comfortable, it is right and we would tell the seed "it's okay, you are to become something great. Just wait."