Category: books

amwriting, books, Human Interest, Inspiration, Opinion, politics, Reflection, Revelations

An Army Family Now – Momma’s Tears

Reba Nietert

The other day I watched my 24-year-old independent son join the Army. I watched him realize he had a fully successful independent life that he was giving up, to be owned by our U.S. Government for our freedoms. I watched the pride in his eyes. I felt pride in return, and then I cried… for days.

 Today I am better. Filled with some purpose for my own life. 

I keep thinking about him and the last moments that we talked about. I replay every conversation, everything he said to me, and why he chose to go into the Army. 

I suppose to some, I seem ungrateful, maybe not appreciative of his own choice. You need to know that I am very proud that my son would give up his freedom for mine. That in and of its self is honorable. 

I cannot completely identify the pensively, the apprehension, the fear, the understanding that not all boys go in and come home; and I suppose it’s because of the things I have seen and the things that happened to me, that has not happened to the majority of people. I, more than anyone understands how quickly a life can be over and how quickly life can leave you devastated in despair! 

I’m not clear on why the tears continue to fall… I just know that I can’t stop them on my own, but what I don’t need to be told is to shove my feelings aside or be told my feelings shouldn’t matter or be told that I have no right to feel the way I do. I keep thinking of the Bible passage about God forcing Abraham to sacrifice his son on the alter because to me, that’s what this feels like. My faith needs to be as strong as His! 

We are an Army family now and as such, there’s a reality we can’t lie about. My good friend, Dennis, said to me, “He is defending an idea. An idea that is enshrined in the Declaration of independence and the Constitution. The idea that we all have the same inalienable rights. He is there to defend our way of life. Only two people in history to offer their life for yours are Jesus Christ and the American Servicemen.”

I used to believe in idealism too. Sadly I believe and this is just my belief that Americans have moved so past “inalienable rights“ and become so incredibly selfish that I have no faith the president who is our commander-in-chief above all others, will have any less regard for the American population. I digress because this is not about my pride for him, his pride for his country, the idealism of America nor even the pompous jackass who runs it. This is about my love for my boy, plain and simple.

amwriting, books, Human Interest, Inspiration

Sex at Every Age!?

Reba Nietert

Yes. That’s the topic. When relationships mature into wise mindful working relationships that constructively work, what happens to the intimacy between two people? In the movie, “Yours Mine and Ours” with Lucille Ball and Henry Ford; his character, Frank Beardsley, explains to this daughter the realities of life. I am going to mess this up, so I will try and say the quote as best as I recall. He said, “Love is easy. It’s the mundane that counts. You show me a man who loves when there’s laundry to do or the dishes need to be done. Anyone who can get through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff, now that’s true love.”

He was correct. Life is truly about the art of either being content or not being content but still being present in the moment enough to enjoy it and not allow whatever chaos seems to be unfolding pisses you off one more time. Yet this fundamental key to genuine authentic behavior seems to elude even the most mature of people.

What happens in the most general of terms is that one or both partners in a relationship begin to take each other for granted. The niceties present in the beginning seems to subside when the duties and stressors of the day become more important to “get done” than the undeniable necessity of feeding the other’s soul. Before long everyone is walking through their life passionateness about love and over-impassioned about things that just don’t matter. Their focus on what should be is directed to what they believe is societal “must be’s.” In the end, they create more anger, angst, jealousy also division because they have sold out to the better job, the better home, the best this or that. The worst thing is that they don’t even know it’s happened to them. No wonder hey cannot focus on how to offer their partner any possibility of intimacy. They’ve all but completely robbed themselves of it.

When the mini-explosions, the constructive criticisms and the monumental disappointments of life resonate as the prominent feeling of the day, how can one stop, and take care of themselves or their partner? By electing to be a little romantic. Romance as a general descriptor is not dead, it’s an action or word with supporting action of professing or doing something for someone else that they need. Whatever you choose to do must be something they would ask for, they would require, and that they would tell you but are electing not to.

So the next time you feel like spouting off that which has offended your great senses, remember that person who you want an intimate relationship with, is watching. Even though you’re not pointing the rage at him or her, they feel the anguish you do which is the antithesis of what you’re trying to achieve. Stop yourself from a constant barrage of what you feel, and give weight to the fact that your partner may need to see your kindness, your loving side, your Justice and especially the side of you they fell in love with.

No matter what happens at any age, things are always better after a mature and loving conversation. Everyone feels better when they feel heard when they feel loved and cared for. Everyone wants to feel like they’re your priority. Once you make that person feel the way you intend, they will return the favor and that intimacy that has been missing will eventually be alive and kicking in your relationship. It just takes motivation and action.

Good luck. Happy Valentines Day!

Rebecca Nietert

amwriting, books, fiction, Inspiration, Opinion, Reflection

Encouraging Inspiration…

Reba Nietert

When children are raised with more criticism than encouragement, discrimination, abuse, neglect, loathing, or condemnation; and then suffer PTSD from violent criminal acts, that child would sooner lash out than treat others with calm grace.  When a toxic parent (I hate that word) uses a long list of arsenal built over time such as lying, judging, abuse, using shame, manipulation, abandonment, humiliation and also criticisms to establish control over you, it’s not okay.  

Christians must understand they are to revere parents. To respect despite how they act, the words they use, or how they lead their lives.  In this difficulty, that many struggle with behavioral challenges they find increasingly difficult to navigate through.  This concept is good in theory from a Proverbs 31 woman or a man raised with Timothy, but become increasingly difficult with a parent who falls extremely short of that kind of maturity.  Nonetheless, it is still called us.   

The negative behaviors that cause emotional damage are designed to control a child’s behavior but deliver merely doubt for their own importance, their worth, that they are deserving of love, of approval, of validation and that they are insignificant.  To be taught that God loves above all rubies and jewels are merely words to these children.  The concept of such love is so foreign that they live their lives in utter confusion. 

It does not matter the depth of love you have for someone, if they remain broken and unwilling to change their brokenness, they will only continue to damage you from the inside out.  No amount of self-reflection nor explanation will fix the brokenness inside you. So to keep the relationship you love intact, you must come to terms with the truth that you may need to understand appropriate boundaries, you must understand that you will be the stronger one and that the pain they cause may bubble up from time to time.  So do not flog yourself over weakness for the choice to love them despite their actions, because that is quite a strength.  Put up an emotional forcefield and allow their comments to bounce off you.  

You may have been led to believe that you’re not lovable, smart enough, beautiful enough, capable or funny enough, or for that matter enough of anything. You may get an onslaught of well-armored attacks on you, but do not let that faze you.  Own only the mistakes you make. Do not personalize someone else’s inability to take responsibility for their own actions.  That will only cause you more anguish and suffering.  Allow them to sit in their contempt as you break the bondage of their emotional control over you.  That’s the best thing you can do for yourself. 

My suggestion is for you to write down that which holds you back.

  1. What do the challenges that get in your way look like?  Use facts!
  2. Next to the emotion you’re challenging, write what that’s costing you.
  3. Then write the emotion you want to replace the harmful ones. 
  4. Find ways to refocus your mind on the positive in your life. 

Thoughts drive feelings, feelings become actions and actions define our character.  Just write one or two to get started, and pretty soon the fog will clear and you will begin to feel how precious you are to those who love you, and how precious you are to you.  It is extremely challenging to alter your perspective simply by forcing your mind to focus on the good, but it can be done. This holiday season I wish that for you.  That and all the blessings that were always intended for you before you were born. May this give you some healing. 

amwriting, books, Clubs, fiction, Human Interest, Inspiration, Novels, Opinion, Reflection, Revelations

Why Does Family Hurt So Much?

Reba Nietert

In a time when holidays are coming up, I have to ask myself, “why do I try so hard to keep the peace?”  Falling on the cross has become a necessary component of keeping those family members who judge unjustly at bay.  For me, I have been told I am “weird, emotional, unable to respect, worthless,” and often an “outsider” until became an adult and left the wholeness of my family behind me.

My family is predominately brunette, with dark eyes, and darker olive colored skin. They tan easily, they have thick manes of black or brownish hair and they all have hourglass figures. Smaller breasted, and big on the bottom. The majority of them are short, stocky built, with almost French looking features.  I on the other hand am tall, statuesque with lanky arms and long legs. I am thin, sometimes pencil thin, no hips, and blonde hair. So, for me, I look different.  I became the “white sheep” of my family.

Those wounds never truly healed for several years, not until a seminar in 1998 cracked the bonds that tied me to the baggage of disappointing rejections I received.  It was in that seminar when I began to put the pieces of my life and the tragic understanding of violent events unfolded before my eyes in a memory that I could only experience as a child, having all but forgotten most of the memories. See, when you’re an adult and you’re reminded of painful memories, you don’t recall them with an adult intellectual brain, they bubble up with all the emotions of the age you were when it happened.  Yeah, to say it was a painful process is an understatement.

I don’t bring these things up to cause you to think for one minute I am a victim nor that I am triumphant in my ability to raise out of that. I tell you these things because later – much later in my life I understood why God brought me through the immeasurable pain that others inflicted so that he could believe the promises of my desires.  Yes, that happened too.  I also bring them up because I have something to say about the emotional brain that we get into because of our families lies about us. You see, the deceiver uses these wicked hurts to keep us in the bondage of our faithlessness.  As long as we’re focused on the pain it’s hard to get to thankfulness for the blessings we do have.  That’s not from God nor is that what he wants of us.

The other day one of my family members said I live in a fairyland.  They wondered if I am a liar, that what I went through wasn’t real. That it didn’t happen.  Certainly not the way I said it did.  I used to personalize and question myself when I heard these lies. I no longer do.  Maybe the reason I do not personalize their truth as my own is the very reason I never told them in the first place? I didn’t want to suffer through more humiliation than the crime that had already been assaulted on me.

If you’re struggling with pain, hurt, processing through the grief of disappointing acts that are keeping you in the burden of your transgressors please I beg you to forgive them.  Take your power back. Do not let the burden of their rejection put you in a place of no value, of unwittingly giving up your power or your voice.  You can be around them once again as soon as you give no power to the words they say.  Don’t defend yourself or your actions, knowing that only YOU are the one who can make you feel in any manner. No one can force you to feel anything without your permission.

God sees all of us as treasured children of the Kingdom of the Most High God.  Today instead of listening to the dialog you tell yourself, “I am not good enough, She makes more money than me, they’re doing better than I am, they’re not treating me right”–realize you are worth more than rubies and gold. God desires for you to be thankful, to change your perspective to see His blessings. He wants to give all that has ever been promised to you, but it takes you to lay down the burden the deceiver has placed upon your heart.  Ask the Holy Spirit to come into your life and refresh your soul, to make you new again, to seek those like minded who can fill that soul so much that it embraces all the good in store for you.

Take care,

Rebecca Nietert