Settling down...

It has been almost a week since I received the threat of "exposure", and I don't know what's happening in the La-La-Land where the threat came from, but here, things are settling down.  My home is starting to feel like a safe haven again.  I am much calmer.  And I am continually astounded at the strength, grace and beauty of the community that God has placed Grace and I in.  I can't give a lot of details about steps that I have taken to deal with the threat, other than the fact that the police are involved, but as far as how I am doing emotionally, I feel much less threatened.

I know that things can change in an instance.  If and when the plan for my "exposure" fails, another plan may be hatched. A scarier, even more malignant plan.  I know that there are no guarantees that this will end soon.  Still, I feel reassured.

One of the most important things that I have learned through this is the power of community in the face of a bully.  A bully's power is enhanced by the silence of his (or her) victim.  This is why so much of a bully's effort is put into making sure the victim doesn't tell.  Someone suggested that I stop writing about my situation in my blog, for my own protection.  This is not an option for the very reason that silence empowers the bully.   What do we tell young people who are being bullied? Tell someone.  When someone is calling my friends and family and telling them slanderous lies about me, they are trying to take control of my story.  My solution?  Tell my own story, my own way. Of course, it helps that I am a writer and a blogger.

So, life goes on.  I still have times when I feel dreadfully lonely.  God has been asking me to stop trying to manage and control my loneliness, and as I have been praying about and working on it, the events of the past few weeks have made the loneliness worse.  My community has my back, no doubt.  But in the dark of night, when anxious thoughts try to invade and the events of the day are playing like a slide show through my mind, it's just me and God.  And God is asking me to accept that, for now, He is all I need in those midnight hours.  I know that He is.  Truly, He is all I will ever need.  I am growing, emotionally and spiritually, into the knowledge of God's amazingly complete sufficiency.  And that is a very good thing.

Peace out.