Baggage...We've All Got It.

It amazes me, that no matter how much we think we've offloaded our emotional baggage, how quickly we pick it right back up.  I had an experience this week with someone that I love dearly.  We have a history that includes emotionally hurtful behavior that we are openly aware of and neither of us wants to continue.

A certain set of circumstances occurred, and I expected him to react a certain way that would cause him to be hurtful to me.  He actually didn't react in the old way, maintained control of his feelings, and acted in a very positive, constructive, not hurtful way.  But guess how I reacted?  I reacted as if he had behaved as he had in the past!  And worse, I treated him as if he had behaved as he would have previously.  It was my old emotional imprint of feeling unimportant and rejected and shameful as I had felt in our previous relationship.

Thankfully, through some serious prayer and physical meditation (3.5 mile hike in steep terrain!) I saw things plainly and relatively quickly.  We were presented with reoccurring circumstances, he acted very deliberately in a way that should have helped me feel respected and valued.  Instead I reacted with anger and mistrust, and pulled away a bit from the relationship.  I tried to pressure him into taking an action that would make me feel better, but would not have been the wisest course of action.  Thank goodness God showed me my error.

Today I was able to speak plainly about my reactions, apologize and express gratitude for this person's correct actions, that required a good deal of courage, trusting me and faith on his part.  I set down my baggage and extended my hand.  He was very gracious, understanding and appreciative......and love continues.

Growing Pains

Most folks think of personal growth as a joyous process....and for the most part it usually is.  Three years ago I was facing a very desperate situation in my marriage that had affected me very deeply as a person.  The dynamics of my relationship had reduced me to dust, emotionally, physically and most of all spiritually.  Through a series of truly miraculous events, God led me out of that harmful situation.  Thus began a long, diligent process of healing, recovery and growth.  Much of it was pretty messy, but there have been some truly graceful moments laced with ample amounts of joy.

One of those miraculous events presented a possibility, an opportunity that my heart of hearts has been hoping and wishing for, for the better part of three years.  That opportunity may be here, or very nearly here...and yesterday I had to face some hard truths about myself and this particular situation.  My personal growth has brought me to a place where I am having to choose to follow God's will, to honor the person I've become, at the risk of losing this long hoped for opportunity.  It was a truly painful experience, emotionally and even spiritually, to make a choice that I knew I had to make, possibly jeopardizing this opportunity.  But then even more bittersweet and painful in a way was that I was ok with it.  It felt good to make such a strong and certain choice that I knew was right, but it was sad to feel the potential loss, and feel it so deeply.

I had been reading in the gospel of Luke, about the cost of being a believer, and that before committing to follow Christ, you should carefully weigh the cost of such a decision.  Regardless of your denomination or philosophy, choosing to live a life of a higher degree of ethical, moral and spiritual standards is going to cost you.  Sometimes quite dearly. But in our increasingly narcissistic society where a constant tug of war of manipulation and compromise are tearing our moral fabric to shreds, I was sadly happy to make this sacrifice in place of a compromise that would have taken me back several steps in emotional and spiritual growth.

Personal growth isn't always pretty, or joyful, or welcomed by those around us, or appreciated....it is sometimes painful, messy...sometimes those closest to us try to inhibit our personal growth, and those relationships end up falling by the wayside.  You can't really go back on true personal growth, some things you just can't "un-grow" and there is sometimes loss involved.  We could call it the cost of doing business, or rather, the cost of taking care of business. For the most part, I've been ok with this aspect of personal growth, this time gave me pause, however. I have to trust that as long as I stay true to who God wants me to be, the results will be worth it, however painful the process.

Fortunately, my opportunity remains intact...and is now even a stronger possibility because of my better choices and decisions.  Miracles never cease....thank God :).

Visions of {fill in the blank}....

I'm a huge fan and practician of vision boards.  I started my first vision board after reading "The Secret", as a part of a work related focus/networking group.  At the time, I thought the book was a lot of hooey, but being a visual thinker the vision board idea caught like wildfire for me.  My first board was a modest one foot by two feet, demure thin black frame.  I tentatively added one or two images a week, never really completely filling it up.  My images included materialistic things mostly, or image conscious things with the occasional wistful hope for my mostly hopeless life.

Today my vision board takes up the better part of one of my bedroom walls, it's sturdy, with a wide, decorative red frame (red is my favorite color!).  I often remove everything and spend an entire day filling it up until I run out of space...overflowing onto the wall around it.  My most recent re-vision :) includes almost nothing material, every image and word on the board is related or connected to a principle.  And yes, Faith, Hope, Love and Grace are central themes.  My metamorphosis is physically, emotionally and spiritually awe-striking and deeply humbling.

I started my first board over three years ago.  I placed the impossible on that board.  Today, I'm 70 pounds lighter, I'm single, free of a harmful marriage, I'm financially at ease, I'm on speaking terms with God again......and I wake up with joy every single morning.  I really do, there are no more mornings of dread and disappointment.  My first vision board was a conglomeration of unconscious, unspoken prayers.  Things I know needed to change in my life, but I was at a complete loss as to how to make those changes happen.  Today my vision board is clear, conscious, detailed, specific intentions about the person I want to be.  My teenage boys even put things on my board, because they've seen results in my life.

I truly believe that God has a plan for us, and that part of that plan is us being fulfilled, happy individuals.  It's ok for us to ask for what we want.  God knows our heart, He knows our intentions and He knows what we need.  He is an expert at reading between the lines of our hopes and fears.  Maybe we ask for a million dollars...He knows we are asking for financial security.  We may not receive a million dollars, but we will receive abundance in a million different ways.  We may ask for new clothes, a fancy car, a big house.  What He hears is that we want to feel good about ourselves.  We may not receive materialistic goods, but we may receive an opportunity to better ourselves emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Recently I went through a book with a handful of other people in a workshop.  I think the single most important lesson I learned from this experience was the importance of setting goals, of setting the intention to fulfill that goal and then letting go of the outcome.  I know it sounds contradictory.  But it goes back to sharing our hopes, fears and desires with God, being willing to do the footwork while being accepting of whatever possible outcome God has in store for us.  In my personal experience, God's answers to my prayers, conscious and unconscious, spoken and unspoken always far exceed any expectation I ever have.  And one of the best side effects is not having to worry, or be fearful, or be stressed out.  My heart is right, I'm doing my utmost best, the rest is happily in God's hands.

So go make a vision board, I dare ya. ;).  It has been my most profound lesson in Faith, thus far.

Not Broken...Just Needing a Break

So Siri can't help you blow your brains out.  Just one more obstacle to my day today.  I asked, but she couldn't even find me a suicide prevention hotline.  My iPhone is fired!  And my laptop can tag right along.  For all of my serene, peacful talk thus far on this blog you might surmise that I gently, carefully, quietly help bees pollenate flowers in a field of wild clover in an ever perpetual summer.  I'm actually purposefully self-employed at a fairly stressful, difficult, thankless profession that I do love on most days.  I negotiate with the Big Banksters 5-6 days a week on behalf of the little guy, who is even embarrassed they need me.  Today the banksters pulled out all the stops and gave me a run for my money.  I'll take the win in small victories, today, thank you very much.  They certainly ran me down, though.

Truly, this has to be God's front porch, right?

The work I do is mentally exhausting.  Sometimes I have to leave the office to "take a lap" around the building.  We keep a picture book of a very cute dog to take the tension down a peg or two.  Or I visit www.cuteoverload.com somewhere in my 47th minute of being on hold after my 8th call transfer to yet another person that cannot help me figure out where the bank lost our file.  Which is actually a huge improvement over the wood chopping I used to do in my garage when I first started this work.

I sometimes wonder why I stay in it.  Why, day after day, I choose to suit up and hit the ground running for people that would rather not need my services, going up against organizations that don't really want to cooperate and go out of their way to make my job difficult, tedious and mind-blowing in the wrong sense of the term.  I know why I do it, though.  I love doing the right thing, I love fighting for the underdog, I love winning for all of the right reasons and in the right ways.  And I love knowing that I've helped someone with what I do, each and every day.  And I love sleeping at night, knowing I've done good. 

The opportunity was presented to me at a time when I needed a bridge financially, but also out of my harmful marriage.  This work I do allowed me to work from home, afforded a similar income and allowed me the time and space mentally and emotionally to cope not only with my life transition but to help my kids transition with theirs, which was not their choice and a more difficult move in many respects. 

So my stressful, thankless, complex and difficult work has been a true blessing and rolling up my sleeves and going to work everyday, sometimes 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., is a committed gesture of gratitude on my part to the owner of my company and to my heavenly Father.  His timing is always perfect, He's always got the perfect players in the game right when they're needed.  I'm happy to be that person in my clients' lives, even if it's exhausting sometimes.

Ok, back at it, getting ready for a 6:00 pm client consultation. :)

Overthinkeritis.....God Bless This Mess I've Made

I'm a dyed in the wool chronic overthinker.  A worrywort with a high IQ.  With (not so) brief flashes of control freak.  But I'm not OCD.  OCD.  OCD.  I can think myself into a frenzy that makes a perfect storm of crazymaking look like a gentle summer evening breeze.  I can literally worry myself sick with migraines, insomnia, exacerbation of my chronic illness, weight gain.  Please join me in saying, "That's no way to live"...and follow it up with a hearty "Amen!".

Someone pretty Awesome and Amazing whispered in my ear once, "Have faith".  Not only am I an overthinker, but I'm stubborn to boot.  I really am too smart for my own good and become my own worst enemy.  But, fine...faith.  So I set about studying, testing, proving and disproving faith.  I read books, I read the bible, I talked about it, I prayed about it.  When I was first exploring faith, I was also becoming newly re-acquainted with God after a long period of The Silent Treatment.  So I would pray these long, elaborate prayers telling God how things were going to go.  I'm sure if you listened in it would have sounded like trade negotiations between warring countries....a lose-lose scenario all the way around.

I'd do one of two things.  I'd get frustrated and/or desperate and surrender a big thing to Him, let Him work his miracle, then I'd take back over to manage (control) the details.  Or, I'd test faith by putting forth some sort of ultimatum about some small issue.  Talk about doing things the hard way.  But as time passed, as I learned more about faith and as God continued to patiently shower me in gentle grace, I became more and more comfortable trusting Him with both big and small things.

Light Bulb Moment!

The key was that I started to discover the distinct relationship between fear and faith.  Everytime I was struggling to trust God with something, I was able to admit feeling very fearful about the outcome of the same something.  Being able to let go of my fears is directly proportionate to me being able to let faith rush in.  As I come to understand the faith/fear ratio more clearly, it becomes so much easier to trust God. My prayers become less elaborate, knowing the final outcome and timeline become less important...and I worry so much less.

Being a single mom, money is always a concern, and this is where God has taught me my best lessons with faith.  Also self-employed, I'd become downright frantic about my next paycheck and where it might come from.  I'd worry about my lights staying on, I'd worry about feeding my kids, I'd worry about gas in my car, etc., etc., etc.  Again, I'd pray these elaborate, self-piting prayers...asking that so and so sign a contract because I really really needed the money for such and such.  One day, exhauste from worry, I just stopped and said, "God bless my bank account". And guess what?   I didn't win the lottery, but my lights stayed on, food was on my table, my car never ran out of gas.  I don't always have money, but I'm always taken care of, one way or another.  Nice side benefit, I've learned gratitude on a much deeper level.  But that's a whole 'nuther post.

God knows what we want, He knows what we need.  But more importantly He knows what our ultimate potential is and how that will work into His plan for us.  Take fear out of the equation (sometimes our first prayer!) and share with God your hopes, dreams and desires.  His intention for you will far outshine anything you can imagine.  A simple "God bless this mess I've made", a humble willingness to do the footwork, and patience is all it takes.

WordStudy: Fear

fear[feer] - noun

1.  a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm. Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity.

2.  a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights. Synonyms: phobia, aversion; bête noire, bogy, bogey, bugbear. Antonyms: liking, fondness, penchant, predilection.

3.  concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone's safety.

4.  reverential awe, especially toward God: the fear of God. Synonyms: awe, respect, reverence, veneration.

5.  something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of: Cancer is a common fear.

 

Fear: Friend or Foe? 

 

 We all live with fear.  Some forms of fear are actually healthy and necessary...the fear that keeps you from walking too close to the edge, or that intuition that cautions you about a particular person. And then sometimes our "healthy" fear becomes broken or goes haywire.  Having been a participant in harmful relationships, I am all too familiar with unhealthy, unrealistic fear as an undercurrent to the entire relationship.


I've recently returned to church after a 20 year absence.  There's lots of reasons for this, which may be another post or may just emerge through a series of posts about other topics.  But, one of my biggest issues with going to church in the past was having to live in fear of God.  From early childhood I lived a life of (unrealistic) fear in a dysfunctional home...I desperately needed church to be my refuge, which it very much was.  It was the safest place I knew...but there was no room for fearing God in my heart.  I was being punished enough at home, I couldn't be punished by God, too.

Today I listened to my (new) pastor deliver a sermon on the fear of God, which I very much welcomed, as this was still one of the loose threads of my frayed heart.  He explained that the fear we are encouraged to have in regards to God is not the paranoid, frantic, apprehensive fear most of us assume.  But rather we need to adopt a reverential awe of God.  Like when we stand in front of the ocean....it's awesomeness is really beyond us..we stand in reverence of it's enormity and it's power.  

Same goes for God...regardless of your specific denomination, God is beyond our comprehension...we need to stand in reverential respect and awe of Him.  Don't fear what He will do if we "misbehave" but rather fear what He won't do if we don't allow Him to work in our lives.  God doesn't punish, He forgives...if out of frantic, paranoid, faithless fear we choose to leave Him out of our lives, we've created the consequence of not being able to benefit from His love and grace.  He's laid the table with a wonderful bounty, we can choose to eat or not, all He asks is that we come to the table in reverence and humility.


So having lived and participated in harmful relationships and then having to wrestle with the idea of fear throughout my healing process, I've had to define and determine what healthy fear is.  I've had to redraw the boundaries and cement them with my ever-blooming faith and God's grace.  For a time, I flew the flag of being "fearless".  Maybe it was a necessary phase of my healing as I made a clear choice to live a life of love instead, but "fearless" can also be dangerous.  Now I allow healthy fear to fulfill it's role, to allow it to caution me against real and present dangers and to respond without reacting (work in progress, by the way). 


But the real joy came today, in being able to resolve one more conflict with my need for an active fellowship life and my hesitations with "church-going".  "Fear" has taken on a deeper meaning for me today...and has a much needed and respected place in my life.

And Then There Was One.....

I've been single for nearly three years now.  It has not been glamorous and at times it has been far from gracious.  It's been sometimes messy and at other times it's been a downright train wreck.  But the beauty in it all....is that from day one I put the decision in God's hands.  I didn't do this out of any sort of desire to be devout. Far from it......I was scared.  To death.  Literally on many fronts, but spiritually most of all.

It was a warm evening in late summer, near dusk.  I was pacing a deck on a house that backed to acres upon acres of wilderness.  The sun was setting and the stars were starting to blossom in the night sky.  An unseasonably warm wind was blowing about, my hair whipping up now and again, my skirt getting caught at the wind's whim.  I had the means to leave, I had the opportunity, the timing was right...but I was so scared. I was scared of being on my own, scared of being alone, scared of hurting myself and my kids, and even my husband, scared of failing.  As I paced I argued and debated with myself all of the pros and cons until I thought myself in circles.

Finally, I just gave up.  I stopped pacing, I started crying...and I prayed.  This may not seem like a big deal, and to many of you it'd be a "no-brainer".  But this was my first real, conscious communication with God in years.  I had been very angry with God about many things.  So me making a desperate plea from a broken heart was equivalent to the destruction of the Berlin Wall.  It was no small thing and changed the course of my life. 

I put the whole mess of emotions, doubts, fears and shy hopes in God's hands.  I asked that He make the decision for me, and that He guide my path effortlessly in either direction, His choice, and I promised to obey.  All I asked for was love...that either way it would lead to the kind of love that I was missing and needed.   From that point forward a path unfolded in front of me that, within weeks, lead me right out the door of a marriage that was harmful not only to me, but to my husband and to my children.  I've had friends and acquaintances compliment me on my courage, my bravery and my grace in handling the departure.  I can claim none of that.  All I did was chicken out, God did the rest.  And I thank Him every day.

Since then, I've been traveling a lovely, messy, sometimes-gracious-but-sometimes-not path of healing.  Along that path I've regained Hope for a healthy, loving, intimate relationship with a wonderful man.  I thank God every day that he did not allow me to jump into another harmful relationship immediately, and there's been plenty of opportunity.  He has put a desire in my heart for the right relationship with the right man, and my heart is stubborn.

I have learned to deal with loneliness and longing, with aching for affection, with the need for companionship and intimacy you can only find in a loving relationship with a mate.  Today, I'm ok being single.  I'm ok being alone.  Because my stubborn heart is determined to wait.

Recently, I came across this song from my new favorite band, Little Big Town.  Today, I "Live with Lonesome" by choice.

Like a Bird From a Trap.... Psalm 124

What if?

Psalm 124

1. What if the Lord had not been on our side? Let all Israel repeat:  2. What if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us?  3.  They would have swallowed us alive in their burning anger.  4.  They waters would have engulfed us; a torrent would have overwhelmed us.  5.  Yes, the raging waters of their fury would have overwhelmed our very lives.  6.  Praise the Lord, who did not let their teeth tear us apart!  7.  We escaped like a bird from a hunter's trap.  The trap is broken, and we are free!   8.  Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

"Enlightenment is the end of suffering." - Buddha  

It is when you choose to end suffering that you make the conscious choice to let God do some of His best work...healing.  Psalm 124 instantly brings to mind the pain, fear and anguish I felt while I was part of two very harmful relationships...one with my step-mother, the other with my ex-husband.  I recall very much feeling engulfed, swallowed alive and drowned by the abusive nature of those relationships. I have often asked "what if" I had continued to participate in those relationships?  I wouldn't be the person I am today...I may not have even been here at all.

It is because of those relationships and God's grace in springing the trap and encouraging me to fly again that I am who I am today.  It is hard to be grateful for a painful past, and is only something I've only recently been capable of.  But had I not known that acute pain, I would not have known how deep God's love reaches.  So today I felt compassion for my deeply wounded step-mother and ex-husband, and expressed gratitude through prayer for their roles in my life, the lessons learned....and God's patient, undying love.

I start my day nearly every day with Psalms or Proverbs, usually Psalms.  I flip at random, letting my fingers wander...on not more than one occasion I have felt led to certain passages.  This morning I read Psalms 120-126, with 124 coming alive, right off the page and it has come back to me several times throughout my day.  I've often asked "what if?" about different life altering events in my life...each time being (gratefully!) able to point to God's hand leading me to higher ground, to safety, to healing.