As a person who emotes almost solely in anger, I am learning to look past the surface when I get angry to see what the true issue involves. I just have so little time that surface cleaning has become a wasted effort. I almost need to go straight to soaking my heart in bleach. Or Jesus. Depending how mature I am acting on a given day.
One of my daughters is a Tinkerbell fan. I actually like the little wench myself. While goodness usually triumphs in fairy tales, Tink is not sweet and kind and is actually much more realistic than most characters. There is a new movie out about Tinkerbell and in it she is given a voice for the first time since she was introduced in 1953 in the Peter Pan movie. That made me mad. It was all I thought about during the entire movie. While my daughters are pointing out the facts of the movie that are unbiblical, I am pissed she has a voice in this movie. I realized I felt the same way when Blue from Blue's Clues was given a voice. I also remembered when I was in Korea, a girlfriend and a Korean woman convinced me I needed to get my eyebrows done.
At the time I sported a unibrow and never thought much of it. It was what it was and I do not think the skinny brow was a thing yet in the states anyway. I was so stinkin mad after my eyebrows were waxed! It looked so different I actually had people comment on it. What is different they would ask. Shut the eff up! I would yell at them and turn away. I hated it for one reason. It was different. A change.
Today I keep my brows groomed and while do not go for the super skinny brow, I feel uncomfortable when I need to let them grow out a bit before I go in for a professional appointment. Just so ya know.
I think I am mad about the movie because it is a change. Why is change so hard? Even change from a bad to a good situation is hard. I had been in many relationships that had ended and while it was always hard, the one I had the most trouble with was the one I wanted out of most. I found a way out of an abusive relationship that lasted about 3 years and even though I had wanted out for a long time, I had the hardest time letting that one go. I was appalled at my reaction and knew I not only needed out but wanted out but I had trouble functioning outside of the relationship for a long time. It baffled me to react that way and I can only think it was so hard because it was such a big change.
I love what Jon from Stuff Christians Like wrote recently about our comfort zones in post #429. Our definition of comfort is so different than God's it is truly an injustice to allow us to play the Almighty and create our own comfort zones. I want to change. I need God to change me otherwise I will not have the same attitude as Christ (Phil 2:5).
I heard a teaching on inner core pain once that said the bad has to come out in order to have room for the Love and Good that is God to go in. Maybe when I feel the anger rise up in me over a change, I can let it come all the way up and out and let it leave me so I can have room for God to equip me with the change He wants to bring to me.
I feel some changes coming in my life and I can not just allow the anger to consume me this time. I want to embrace the adventure God has called me to and trust Him to be my Comfort through whatever comes. It will not be easy but maybe it is time to drop anger as my protection and defence and accept the change that God has in mind for me. Skeery.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
5 years later in the shack
Since I am not generally a fan of Christians, I do not often jump on the bandwagons than seem to ride unchecked through Christianland, so when The Shack was the latest book 'ya gotta read!!', I was like, NAA. 
But I have this friend, see, that somehow can talk me into stuff I am not into on my own. She talked me into a facebook account of all things! And she talked me into reading The Shack once she started reading it. I can understand why more than she realizes. It is an emotionally traumatic read that will strip you raw and then dump some salt on you.
By page 2 I was naked and shaking at the relatableness of the story. A parent who had a horrible childhood loves his kids but now lives with grief. The word imagery is an incredible description of life with grief and I find myself on my knees at the relief that someone, ANYone can understand my guts. My friend wanted someone to understand what she carried from reading this book and I get that so much. There are things I carry, we all carry, that we want someone to understand but that is not always an option.
As a human, I think it is a natural (albeit fleshy) desire to want to be understood by another human. God is my Creator, of course He understands and while that can be enough, at times, it is not. Right or wrong, it is hard to live with thousands who do not get you. Is it good and beneficial to not be understood, but I am just talking about basic carnal wants.
So the words I need to use up today are about another area of me I have never been able to share adequately. Ironically, it happened almost exactly 5 years ago.
My girls were 7months, 2 & 4. The baby and I had gone to WalMart to do the weekly shopping and my husband was 'babysitting'. Reluctantly. I had been a Christian just about 4 years and my love was still wrestling with the concept. Life was not easy then and I was still in a lot of pieces from an extremely traumatic year during the pregnancy with my youngest. I had bounced a lot the previous year between thinking it was too hard and cost too much to love Christ and knowing deep that my Savior was the only lifeline worth even reaching for.
My love faced his own demons daily and I am ashamed to say, I was not exactly fighting on his team all the time. I was on my way home when my phone rang. It was him telling me he could not find Emery. I screamed into the phone something like do not call me and say that. Do not say that to me. If you mean it you call 911. Then I hung up on him.
By the time I got home, he was outside running around and I left the car full of groceries at the end of the drive where it would sit for the next 2 days. The cops arrived soon after I did followed by fire, friends, family, neighbors and lots of emergency responders.
Nothing made sense. We had an alarm system installed recently when death threats were made against me and the girls and she was 2. Mem was not the type to wander off and Kenneth had been playing video games in the front room. Add in his extreme paranoia and someone sneaking into the house made no logical sense. Nonetheless, I slipped into crazy irrational mode.
I avoided my husband and he avoided me. I avoided the kitchen where there were knives. I was afraid if he looked me in the eyes and I could get a hold of a knife, I would try to hurt him. I had a baby on my hip that wanted to nurse and was tired and reacting to my emotions and a 4 year old by the hand that kept asking what if we never find her sister.
I remember a police officer telling me to start looking in the house for her and I began looking where ever he was looking. He shooed me out the room he was in and I just wandered around my house praying and cursing God. At times when the 4 year old would say what if we never find her I would scream at her 'do not say that because in Jesus' Name, we WILL find her' thinking He owes me that. After all I had been through, after all I had been through because of Him, how DARE He take another of my daughters.
I shudder now at my lack of fear and I shudder at His Love and grace for me for allowing me to spew my venom all over Him.
She was found an hour and four minutes after I was told by my husband he could not find her. In those 64 minutes my mind took me down many road full of horrific possibilities. I was sick that ANYone who did not love her would even touch her soft brown skin and disgusted at the idea that she may have called out for me or her daddy and felt let down. I remembered the death threats and the books I had read, movies I had seen and news stories I had watched.
I remembered thinking not her, not this one and being horrified that I even considered the thought that it would have been better to be one of the other 2 girls.
I got put on daily anti anxiety meds not long after this because some of the places my mind went were too evil to deal with while attempting to function outside of padded walls.
When she was found asleep in my bed wrapped in 3 king sized comforters, I fell to my knees. Someone grabbed the baby from my arms and the 4 year old from my side as I gave in to full blown hysteria.
I remember going into the fetal position and violently releasing everything that had held me together the last hour, maybe the last 20 years. I have no idea how long they let me go on but eventually an officer told me to pull myself together. He said 'mom you need to get up and get yourself together, you have 3 little girls who need you to take care of them'.
So I did. I dried it up, inside and out, sat up with my legs out in front of me and all 3 girls were given to me as I sat there. I did not speak and I did not move for at least a couple of hours. Kenneth was told outside and people started to clear out slowly.
I was so weak and drained I could not speak or get up but I remember some emergency responder who was a woman telling me she understood how I felt. If I had the strength, I wanted to get up and beat the crap out of her then drag her to the cemetery where my daughter was buried and slam her face in the dirt covering all that was left of my baby and ask her if she still understood me. I never even lifted my head to see her face above me. If I knew what she looked like and I saw her again, I would hate her.
Hear me when I say I am just barely scratching the surface. I remember not speaking for a day or two until everything was tucked away nice and tight on the inside as I righted my house that had been torn apart during the search. As I put things away on the outside (every cabinet and closet had been emptied) I stuffed things away on the inside too. I had little to say and just as uncharacteristically my husband had so much to say.
He does not read so I can not ask him to read The Shack after I do but I wonder if his internal closet would explode and spill it's overstuffed content at the trigger of this book.
5 years later I have grown a lot and I still have the safety net of my medication. My relationship with my husband and more importantly our God has grown and matured.
I kept looking at my Mem with her narrow beautiful features and the huge gap from her 2 missing teeth that is my favorite and remembering that for one hour and four minutes I questioned if I would ever have today. I thank God over and over that I do. And I break for those who do not.
I may need more than a weekend at my shack with my Papa. At least now, 5 years later, I trust Him enough to allow Him to help me clean out my closets.
But I have this friend, see, that somehow can talk me into stuff I am not into on my own. She talked me into a facebook account of all things! And she talked me into reading The Shack once she started reading it. I can understand why more than she realizes. It is an emotionally traumatic read that will strip you raw and then dump some salt on you.
By page 2 I was naked and shaking at the relatableness of the story. A parent who had a horrible childhood loves his kids but now lives with grief. The word imagery is an incredible description of life with grief and I find myself on my knees at the relief that someone, ANYone can understand my guts. My friend wanted someone to understand what she carried from reading this book and I get that so much. There are things I carry, we all carry, that we want someone to understand but that is not always an option.
As a human, I think it is a natural (albeit fleshy) desire to want to be understood by another human. God is my Creator, of course He understands and while that can be enough, at times, it is not. Right or wrong, it is hard to live with thousands who do not get you. Is it good and beneficial to not be understood, but I am just talking about basic carnal wants.
So the words I need to use up today are about another area of me I have never been able to share adequately. Ironically, it happened almost exactly 5 years ago.
My girls were 7months, 2 & 4. The baby and I had gone to WalMart to do the weekly shopping and my husband was 'babysitting'. Reluctantly. I had been a Christian just about 4 years and my love was still wrestling with the concept. Life was not easy then and I was still in a lot of pieces from an extremely traumatic year during the pregnancy with my youngest. I had bounced a lot the previous year between thinking it was too hard and cost too much to love Christ and knowing deep that my Savior was the only lifeline worth even reaching for.
My love faced his own demons daily and I am ashamed to say, I was not exactly fighting on his team all the time. I was on my way home when my phone rang. It was him telling me he could not find Emery. I screamed into the phone something like do not call me and say that. Do not say that to me. If you mean it you call 911. Then I hung up on him.
By the time I got home, he was outside running around and I left the car full of groceries at the end of the drive where it would sit for the next 2 days. The cops arrived soon after I did followed by fire, friends, family, neighbors and lots of emergency responders.
Nothing made sense. We had an alarm system installed recently when death threats were made against me and the girls and she was 2. Mem was not the type to wander off and Kenneth had been playing video games in the front room. Add in his extreme paranoia and someone sneaking into the house made no logical sense. Nonetheless, I slipped into crazy irrational mode.
I avoided my husband and he avoided me. I avoided the kitchen where there were knives. I was afraid if he looked me in the eyes and I could get a hold of a knife, I would try to hurt him. I had a baby on my hip that wanted to nurse and was tired and reacting to my emotions and a 4 year old by the hand that kept asking what if we never find her sister.
I remember a police officer telling me to start looking in the house for her and I began looking where ever he was looking. He shooed me out the room he was in and I just wandered around my house praying and cursing God. At times when the 4 year old would say what if we never find her I would scream at her 'do not say that because in Jesus' Name, we WILL find her' thinking He owes me that. After all I had been through, after all I had been through because of Him, how DARE He take another of my daughters.
I shudder now at my lack of fear and I shudder at His Love and grace for me for allowing me to spew my venom all over Him.
She was found an hour and four minutes after I was told by my husband he could not find her. In those 64 minutes my mind took me down many road full of horrific possibilities. I was sick that ANYone who did not love her would even touch her soft brown skin and disgusted at the idea that she may have called out for me or her daddy and felt let down. I remembered the death threats and the books I had read, movies I had seen and news stories I had watched.
I remembered thinking not her, not this one and being horrified that I even considered the thought that it would have been better to be one of the other 2 girls.
I got put on daily anti anxiety meds not long after this because some of the places my mind went were too evil to deal with while attempting to function outside of padded walls.
When she was found asleep in my bed wrapped in 3 king sized comforters, I fell to my knees. Someone grabbed the baby from my arms and the 4 year old from my side as I gave in to full blown hysteria.
I remember going into the fetal position and violently releasing everything that had held me together the last hour, maybe the last 20 years. I have no idea how long they let me go on but eventually an officer told me to pull myself together. He said 'mom you need to get up and get yourself together, you have 3 little girls who need you to take care of them'.
So I did. I dried it up, inside and out, sat up with my legs out in front of me and all 3 girls were given to me as I sat there. I did not speak and I did not move for at least a couple of hours. Kenneth was told outside and people started to clear out slowly.
I was so weak and drained I could not speak or get up but I remember some emergency responder who was a woman telling me she understood how I felt. If I had the strength, I wanted to get up and beat the crap out of her then drag her to the cemetery where my daughter was buried and slam her face in the dirt covering all that was left of my baby and ask her if she still understood me. I never even lifted my head to see her face above me. If I knew what she looked like and I saw her again, I would hate her.
Hear me when I say I am just barely scratching the surface. I remember not speaking for a day or two until everything was tucked away nice and tight on the inside as I righted my house that had been torn apart during the search. As I put things away on the outside (every cabinet and closet had been emptied) I stuffed things away on the inside too. I had little to say and just as uncharacteristically my husband had so much to say.
He does not read so I can not ask him to read The Shack after I do but I wonder if his internal closet would explode and spill it's overstuffed content at the trigger of this book.
5 years later I have grown a lot and I still have the safety net of my medication. My relationship with my husband and more importantly our God has grown and matured.
I kept looking at my Mem with her narrow beautiful features and the huge gap from her 2 missing teeth that is my favorite and remembering that for one hour and four minutes I questioned if I would ever have today. I thank God over and over that I do. And I break for those who do not.
I may need more than a weekend at my shack with my Papa. At least now, 5 years later, I trust Him enough to allow Him to help me clean out my closets.
Friday, October 10, 2008
a broken book
I have been reading Jeremiah for about a week now and I have the same reaction I often do to God's chosen people.
What a bunch of sorry losers!
I mean really yall. You got to walk through the parted red sea, you have prophets to tell you what to do and not do. The terms seem easy to understand; follow God and be blessed or don't and die.
I know. Why I have not been struck by lightening is beyond me.
I guess I just can not get away from conflict and confrontation.
I have been praying for increased conviction and to let go of control and to trust God. Ballsy, I know. I am what I am.
The problem is, I am being called out. As I read Jer. 16:10-13, I wondered if God ever thought that about me?
16:10 "When you tell the people all these things, they will ask, 'Why has the LORD decreed such terrible things against us? What have we done to deserve such treatment? What is our sin against the LORD our God?'
16:11
Tell them that this is the LORD's reply: It is because your ancestors were unfaithful to me. They worshiped other gods and served them. They abandoned me. They did not keep my law.
16:12
And you are even worse than your ancestors! You stubbornly follow your own evil desires and refuse to listen to me.
16:13
So I will throw you out of this land and send you into a foreign land where you and your ancestors have never been. There you can worship idols all you like – and I will grant you no favors!
I have all 66 books of the bible to guide me but I still am blind in so many ways.
One example? Well, instead of asking God to give me a healthy relationship with my parents, I try to just get by with niceties and hope they die sooner than later. Sad, but true.
I think God is asking me to love my mother and maybe even become a little vulnerable with her and I would almost rather be taken into captivity by Babylon.
If I do not yield to and obey the Holy Spirit's leading in my life, my soul can not be conformed to the image of Christ which will keep me from carrying out His purposes.
I may as well just set up a statue of buddha.
I know me loving and possibly supporting my mother will not go over well with those who love me and know the risks but the Word also says in Jer. 15:19 that I am to influence them and not let them influence me. Or the Holy Spirit in me anyway.
Sometimes I wish I had a prophet that would come over and scream at me and tell me what to do. That is just how I like to roll.
What a bunch of sorry losers!
I mean really yall. You got to walk through the parted red sea, you have prophets to tell you what to do and not do. The terms seem easy to understand; follow God and be blessed or don't and die.
I know. Why I have not been struck by lightening is beyond me.
I guess I just can not get away from conflict and confrontation.
I have been praying for increased conviction and to let go of control and to trust God. Ballsy, I know. I am what I am.
The problem is, I am being called out. As I read Jer. 16:10-13, I wondered if God ever thought that about me?
16:10 "When you tell the people all these things, they will ask, 'Why has the LORD decreed such terrible things against us? What have we done to deserve such treatment? What is our sin against the LORD our God?'
16:11
Tell them that this is the LORD's reply: It is because your ancestors were unfaithful to me. They worshiped other gods and served them. They abandoned me. They did not keep my law.
16:12
And you are even worse than your ancestors! You stubbornly follow your own evil desires and refuse to listen to me.
16:13
So I will throw you out of this land and send you into a foreign land where you and your ancestors have never been. There you can worship idols all you like – and I will grant you no favors!
I have all 66 books of the bible to guide me but I still am blind in so many ways.
One example? Well, instead of asking God to give me a healthy relationship with my parents, I try to just get by with niceties and hope they die sooner than later. Sad, but true.
I think God is asking me to love my mother and maybe even become a little vulnerable with her and I would almost rather be taken into captivity by Babylon.
If I do not yield to and obey the Holy Spirit's leading in my life, my soul can not be conformed to the image of Christ which will keep me from carrying out His purposes.
I may as well just set up a statue of buddha.
I know me loving and possibly supporting my mother will not go over well with those who love me and know the risks but the Word also says in Jer. 15:19 that I am to influence them and not let them influence me. Or the Holy Spirit in me anyway.
Sometimes I wish I had a prophet that would come over and scream at me and tell me what to do. That is just how I like to roll.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Arm Pit Hair
My oldest will turn 9 this month. Her little breast have started budding and this week we found arm pit hair. Mercy.
I was 9 when I got my period. (sorry men.)
You hear so often how fast your children grow up but sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees. 9 is pretty much a half way mark. 9 years down and I have 9 left to parent my daughter and equip her for life and the world.
Have I done enough? She is a great kid but she does not read her bible daily or want to be a missionary in a foreign country. Not having any kind of parental example to follow and becoming a Christian later in my life I am unsure about so much.
I easily get overwhelmed by the complexity of the Christian subculture I live in. I have so much to work on myself and so much to pray about between all the people I know about that need prayer, it can consume me to the point of not serving. I can serve so much and so hard I get sucked dry and to the detriment of my spiritual health.
Here is where I hold on to; Love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 says the greatest is Love. I know Christ loves me no matter what I have done, am doing or will do. I feel the same for my girls. I may not deal the right way with arm pit hair but I will love the crap outta my girls. That has to count for something. That must count for a lot. I know My Father's Love for me is enough.
So I bought her pink shaving cream and pink razors and helped her shave her pits. I also reminded her this was a sign of her growing up and we talked again about what is to come. She asked for some books to read on getting her period so I went to the library and got her some.
I never thought arm pit hair could be so provoking for me. Who knew?
I was 9 when I got my period. (sorry men.)
You hear so often how fast your children grow up but sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees. 9 is pretty much a half way mark. 9 years down and I have 9 left to parent my daughter and equip her for life and the world.
Have I done enough? She is a great kid but she does not read her bible daily or want to be a missionary in a foreign country. Not having any kind of parental example to follow and becoming a Christian later in my life I am unsure about so much.
I easily get overwhelmed by the complexity of the Christian subculture I live in. I have so much to work on myself and so much to pray about between all the people I know about that need prayer, it can consume me to the point of not serving. I can serve so much and so hard I get sucked dry and to the detriment of my spiritual health.
Here is where I hold on to; Love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 says the greatest is Love. I know Christ loves me no matter what I have done, am doing or will do. I feel the same for my girls. I may not deal the right way with arm pit hair but I will love the crap outta my girls. That has to count for something. That must count for a lot. I know My Father's Love for me is enough.
So I bought her pink shaving cream and pink razors and helped her shave her pits. I also reminded her this was a sign of her growing up and we talked again about what is to come. She asked for some books to read on getting her period so I went to the library and got her some.
I never thought arm pit hair could be so provoking for me. Who knew?
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