today i returned to the orphanage i lived in when i was a kid. it was turned into a church 25 years ago and is now in the process of being restored as a heritage building.
it was an emotional time as memories flooded back. they were not happy memories and the tears flowed freely. when my brother and sister and i arrived we were all taken to different rooms. i went to the nursery and they went to the girls and boys dorms. it was maybe a year or more before i graduated to the dorm and was in the same room as my sister.
today the nursery is a bright, sunny room. i only remember it as a very dark, fearful and lonely place.
the dorms are now the sanctuary. what was once a place of torment for me is now a place of worship.
it was here that my nightly terrors began. every night for years i was chased by a spider that was as big as a house and i was the size of the head of a pin. the nightmares continued years later even when i had left the orphanage. i was ridiculed, shamed and humiliated on a daily basis.
i'm not sure why i decided to go today. my sister has returned a couple times over the years. until today i had never returned nor wanted to.
in the past year i have become more aware of my timidity. today as two of the church ladies prayed for me one said she could feel my gentle spirit. as a witness for Christ i want to be bold but i haven't been.
if i have a prayer request i will not speak it as it usually means i will have to pray for someone else. i will take a prayer request home with me and pray there but not in a group. i can talk to God for hours but to pray in public - forget it. it took me a very long time to feel comfortable in praying in my bible study group. now i am involved in other groups and i am silent there.
when i finally went home to live with my mother she told me many times that i wasn't good enough. and they definitely told me that in the orphanage.
i toured the whole building, upstairs and the basement. i didn't even remember there was an upstairs or a basement. although i may have blocked out some of the memories as the worst of them were at the forefront.
today my memory is of a beautiful, warm, homey room. it's where the pastor counsels people. it's what i want to remember.
2 comments:
well i can't say that i've conquered the spiders but at least i don't have the same recurring nightmare.
i have a wasp nest here and the wasps eat the spiders. my garden and patio were spider free this year which i can only attribute to the wasps so the wasps stay.
There are places that I won't go because of the memories that they hold. You were very brave to go back and see it as an adult, and to exchange some of those memories for something else.
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