Author: battlewithinme

Christ follower, Husband, Father of four amazing boys, entrepreneur, Police Officer.

Fear

So, I’m going to do a little skipping with my biography, and talk about the past 24 hours of my life. I haven’t said this previously, but I have been a police officer for 20 years. I have seen a lot of crazy things in my career, a lot of evil, but also a lot of good in people. I think the hardest part for me as an officer, is all the people that are lost without Jesus in their lives. God loves them, just like he loves me. I get cynical towards people sometimes, and its human nature. Going to the same residence, over and over again, for the same issues, they can’t get along and call the police to referee the arguments.

Last night while working I had several calls for service, nothing too major, honestly, it was a good night, we all went home safe. One call that sticks out was a “check the well-being” of a female who was threatening to harm herself. Typically, we get these calls on a regular basis, which is sad. This call a female had stated to her mother, that she was going to harm herself, and she was going to take her life by jumping off a bridge.

After several attempts, we were able to make contact with her by phone, and as she was talking to our dispatch, she hung up several times. One of our other officers was able to talk with her directly by phone, and while on the phone, she informed him that she was on a bridge, and going to jump.

I was sitting in my squad next to him, and immediately saw the urgency in his face and I started racing to the location of where she was. I alerted other officers on the radio of the situation and it was a race against time to get to her.

I will tell you that officers sacrifice their lives and their hearts to help people. We had no idea who this lady was, or what was going on, but we were willing to put ourselves in harms way to help her.

As we arrived to the bridge, I heard other officers on scene calling on the radio that she was on the ledge. My heart sank, as I thought about others that had taken their lives over the years. Racing with my emergency lights and sirens, I remember saying, “God, be with her”, as I was driving to the top of the bridge through traffic.

As I got there, I heard a call on the radio that the officers had her down off the ledge. I later learned that two of the officers had actually grabbed her from the ledge and pulled her down. It was a motorists who was there that distracted her, by telling her to look at something, and then two officers grabbed her. It was quick, just a matter of a second to get her to safety. My fellow officers, without hesitation grabbed this lady, who they didn’t know, and possibly saved her life last night. Just to give a perspective on the height of this bridge, it is about 120ft drop to the bottom, it’s actually one of the highest bridges in our area that I can think of. We were at the highest point.

At any moment, had they grabbed onto her, she could have grabbed them, taken one or both of them with her off the bridge. But we do those things, without hesitation, because we want to serve and help others.

That young lady was taken to one of the area hospitals to get treatment and help. I am glad she was ok, and I’m glad my brothers were safe.

Something that has plagued me the past years of my life, FEAR. I don’t understand why? Its a funny thing. I will put myself in harms way, risk my life for others and without hesitation. Yet, in my personal life, FEAR has consumed me at times.

Fear of what people will think of me, of who I really am. Fear is crippling, it will make you do things in your life that you will regret. Fear is not from God. If God is for us, then who can be against. There is no fear in Christ Jesus.

Fear has crippled my personal life, it has crippled and almost destroyed whats left of my marriage. Going through separation in marriage on the verge of divorce is crippling, the FEAR has ruined my life. My prayers have been to have no fear, no fear on how my wife sees me, or how my kids see me. I don’t want to tell half-truths and white-lies in order to look better than I am, yet FEAR of what people think of me causes me to do just those things, and that has destroyed me as a man, as a husband and as a person.

My prayer is that God would consume me, take away the fear. I have fear, I am not ashamed anymore to admit the FEAR I have. I am a good man, I have a good heart, and I love Jesus. I love my wife and I love my kids. I want God to help me to conquer my fear. I have no fear while in uniform, I want to have the same out of the uniform. No FEAR on who people see me as. I want to not care what those around me think, I want to be who I am.

God, take away the FEAR.

Dark childhood secret

After my parents had separated and divorced it was a very stressful time in my life as a kid. You would think, as a child being 8 and 9 years old, there wouldn’t be stress, it would just be a joyous time in your life. The reality for me, was that I was stressed, and had no out. I was lost. I had a mom and dad who had been torn from me.

With my parents being divorced both my brother and I had two working parents and therefore had various babysitters and people to watch over us while my parents went out and earned money. They did the best they could, they tried their best to provide for both of us and themselves in the process.

What I’m about to share is extremely difficult for me. It is a dark secret which I have kept inside for 30 years or more. There are a few people who do know about it, but not everything.

We had several regular babysitters that would watch us during an evening. My brother and I both hated them. I mean hate. We did all kinds of things in order to make life for them miserable. We never obeyed, and knew they would do nothing about it.

I did have one person who watched over us that I really admired and enjoyed. I am going to call her Jane. (not her real name). Jane was a fun person to be around. She enjoyed being at our house and enjoyed playing games and doing fun stuff with my brother and I.

I always enjoyed Jane being at our house to watch, because I knew that we would always have fun with her and she would enjoy being there. This all changed in my life one evening.

It was very common for older friends of Jane to come to our house and hang out with us, it was really fun time for us. It was fun because we felt older and I felt accepted. They listened to me, they laughed and it was just enjoyable for me. Occasionally Jane would have her boyfriend over, not really sure if he was her boyfriend, but they would sit on the couch together with me and they flirted, even at the age of 9, I knew they liked each other. To this day, I have no idea of that kids name. I can picture him in my head, even as I type this, but his name slips my mind. Sometimes in therapy I think I know his name, yet I can’t remember. Its only been during the past few years in which I have realized that all of these fragmented thoughts I have had over the years was my mind, attempting to put together the incident.

I remember sitting on the couch, just the three of us, and Jane and him were touching and kissing on each other a little bit. I remember her hugging me and asking me if I was ok. I felt uncomfortable, but I didn’t want the relationship to be gone, it was really the only type of acceptance I had at the time.

At one point during the time, Jane began to rub my leg and my penis with her hand, which gave me an erection. I remember her touching me a lot. I also remember her telling me it was ok. It was a normal thing to happen. I remember the guy who was there had his penis out and Jane began to rub it with her hand. At 9 years old, I was devastated at what I was witnessing and involved with, but I was scared. My heart raced and I wanted to cry. I didn’t want to lose Jane as my sitter, and didn’t want her to be made at me for not wanting to be there in that moment. I sat there, crying inside, fearful, and worried. They said it was normal and that this is normal for older kids, and they were helping me learn. I was scared, but did as they told me.

I don’t want to recount and go into the graphic details of that event, but that was the first night that I was sexually abused by people I thought loved me. I thought at the time they cared for, and loved me enough to help me along and be my friend. Years have gone by until I realized that was not the case. They took my life from me, so much so that it has affected every aspect of my life to this date, including my marriage. I have had to stop and walk away a few times in writing this. Its difficult for me to share with the world what I have gone through and who I really am.


The beginning of my life

I was born in the summer of 1977, yes, that makes me 41 years old. This is probably going to be the hardest part of this blog to write, do to who I am, what I do, and what I’ve been through. As I have sat in silence at times, trying remember my childhood and remember things I did when I was younger, it has always been difficult to remember. I have never known why until recently.

Within the past year, I have started to become more honest with myself. I know my childhood wasn’t great, my parents were separated and divorced when I was younger. It was always a struggle to live and have “things”. At the time I never understood what my part was in all this, but I knew that I had to hide my feelings and I did just that. Unfortunately it has carried into my adult life and has caused all kinds of issues.

I don’t have a lot of memories of my childhood. I remember some things being younger, around the age of 5 or 6, especially the times at my grandparents. I remember hiding in places, playing games with both my Grandma and my Grandpa. I remember being happy and just enjoying life. I remember wanting to just live with them. It was quiet, not hectic. My Grandma was always doing something inside the house and making tea for my Grandpa and I. I remember sitting in the garage for hours upon hours with my Grandpa, just working on stuff. His boat, fishing gear, cars, trucks, and just about anything that needed fixed or repaired, he could do it. He was a welder by trade, and could just fix anything!

I remember being there for hours and days on end, just watching him do things. I was there daily, and there were times where I was able to skip school and go fish with him. I don’t know how I convinced them to call me in sick to school to go fish, but it was the best times of my life.

There were also other fun times around the neighborhood. There were a group of about 20-30 kids in our neighborhood. We always were doing something. We all hung around together after school and during the summer. We played games until dark, outside. We went through several bikes each, because we were always outside riding our bikes and having fun. We didn’t get into video games like today. We were always playing street football, baseball out in our field, or we were down in the woods building forts and exploring, those are the things we did.

Don’t get me wrong, I can remember some of the things we did as kids, but at 41 years old, its’ kind of a blur at times. There is also some time that I just don’t remember. I have since learned why.

The next few things I am going to talk about is my life around the age of 8 years old is going to be very difficult for me. I am going to be transparent, and will do my best to get through it all. So, if you are actually reading this, just know it will be difficult, and there will be times that I just have to walk away from the keyboard in order to pray, calm and regain my composure. As I am working on typing this, the memories of that time frame are returning and I am full of emotions, anger, rage, sadness, bitterness, they all are creeping in. I want you to know that God is helping me through this, without Him, I am nothing.

When I was 8 years old, my parents divorced. I remember hugging my dad in the bedroom, with my younger brother. Him telling us that he loved us and that would never change. I remember he was dressed in his military BDU’s, and I think he had just gotten home from drill weekend. I faintly remember him getting a few items and then leaving out the door. I don’t recall much after that. I think I ran to my room and just cried. I don’t remember talking to my mom about it at all. As I sit here, I never remember her even talking to me about it again.

I had rage, I was angry that mom would kick dad out of the house like that and divorce him. I remember thinking many times, if I had just done better in school, or had been a better kid, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t feel loved by my mom nor my dad, at all. I felt completely abandoned. I remember leaving one day on my bike and riding out on the back Farmdale roads in the middle of nowhere. Just riding at age 8 or 9 thinking I just want to leave everyone. Of course, I didn’t, and I ended up coming home, but I was heartbroken and bitter.

My brother was two years younger than me. I never understood why, but from that point on, my brother was favored. He got all the clothes and shoes and games and whatever else he wanted. He was “babied” and instantly became the favorite child. I never understood why. He never got in trouble for anything. We both would do the same things, and I would be the recipient of harsh discipline and he would be free, no punishment. It always baffled me.

I loved playing football, and I was really good. I remember my brother no longer wanted to play football, so my mother would not allow me to play if my brother wasn’t going to play as well.

Many times over my childhood years, there were baseball games in which both I was playing on a diamond and my brother was playing on a diamond, I don’t ever recall seeing my mom at one of my games. I am sitting her now remembering how much that hurt in my childhood. I remember finishing games and then walking over to where my brother was playing to see my mom sitting there, watching his game. That was pretty hurtful as a kid. My dad just worked so much he wasn’t able to come to most games. He did show up a lot when he could. My grandpa also came to as many games as he could. I would see him walking from one ball field to the next, just to watch both me and my brother play. He always did that when he could. Saturday mornings, he would have his coffee and his chair and would go back and forth.

I remember my first year of kid pitch baseball. I was a pretty good hitter and on two different occasions during that season, I hit a ball over the fence for a home run. I remember being there and my coaches and team mates hugging me and giving me high-five’s. I was excited and happy. I also remember looking around for my mom, dad, grandpa or anyone. No one was there. It was heartbreaking. I was a hero for a moment, and no one was around to see it. Devastated is the only word that comes to mind. Even all these years later, I remember how I felt that day. I sit here almost to tears at remembering the feeling.

Who am I ?

Like any other human being on this earth, my life is filled with choices. The choice to do what is right, the choice to do what is wrong, the choice to ignore or the choice to get involved.

One thing I can tell you about me, honestly, I am passive aggressive. I can keep all sorts of things hidden, deep inside, yet it comes out as a passive form of aggression to others, and most of the times, it has nothing to do with them. This passive aggressiveness is due to the choices I have made. This blog is mainly for me, a way to release the real me, since the real me is hidden inside most days.

I am a husband and father to four amazing young boys. I have been married since 2003 to an amazing woman, who I believe God brought into my life. It hasn’t been a perfect marriage at all, we have been separated from each other since January 2018. I still love her greatly, and I see my boys on a regular basis. However, our marriage is a wreck, mainly because I can’t seem to be honest with her or myself, I can’t be me, and I can’t be trusted. The fear of losing her has always been a reason, because she was the first person in my life who I think truly cared and loved me, just as I am, other than Jesus. And I just haven’t been able to accept that. The reality that has hit me is this: Jesus is in her heart, and He has shown her grace to give to me. She has filed for divorce in February of 2018, and it has been a roller coaster for me. I’ve tried, really hard to do the right thing, and get help with my issues. I am still trying. The divorce was dropped i September of 2018, however, my issues have still existed, and my fear has gotten worse. We are still separated, but I know that my life is still a long way from where I want to be. How can I ever work on our marriage, if I myself can be real and my demons dealt with?

I have been working through many things in my life, in order to make myself better, but recently my life has been to the bottom. The main worry I have about this blog, is that it will expose the real me, who I really am, and it will cause people to disregard me, and no longer want to be around me, however, I am going to be real. I am going to be brutally honest with everything, and everyone who reads this will know the real me. I have a fear of losing friendships, business, even my job as a police officer, just because I want to share the real me. However, I have no choice but to allow it to be known, so that I can be free and that I can live a freedom life.

I am a Christian. What does that mean, well it means that I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe that He came to this earth 2000 years ago, and that He performed miracles, signs and wonders. I believe that He walked this earth and was beaten and crusified on a cross so that my sins would be forgiven. I believe that He died, and three days later, He rose again, to tell the world that death will not overcome those who believe in Him. I believe that Jesus is Lord and He will return to this earth someday to take those who believe in him to Heaven. There is a Heaven and a hell, they both exists. If you don’t believe that they do, then you are fooled. God is real, and the devil is real. There is evil in this world, and I have seen it first hand.

Present day, I own a small company, in which I really enjoy doing. Its a failing company today, as the economy and my lack of being real with people in the business has left the company to slowly go from one of the best, to one that is barely getting by. I will touch on this later. In addition to being a small business owner, I was a police officer from 1998 until 2010, working full time for two different cities. I enjoyed those times, and looking back, I would change a lot of things I did. I started my business in 2006, and it grew, and after I left my Police Officer job in 2010, I was able to work full time at my business. I still worked part time as police officer and currently work part time as an officer. I have been a detective, supervisor, and patrol officer. I have also served as a deputy coroner for several years during the past 10 years.

This has been about who I am. I have no goals with this blog other than to be real with myself. People may never read any of it. Someone may read it, dealing with and going through the same things I am, and I hope that God will use it to speak to them if needed. I pray that God will allow me boldness and strength to continue on this blog, and to be me, the real me.