Category Archives: Healing

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Spoken Of — And Spoken For

This is a special passage to me… God used it many times during my year overseas to comfort and encourage me. It came back to me again, as I searched Scripture for answers to a different question.

Amazing how God always comes through… even when we are searching for something different than what He hands us… Yet in His hands we find everything we are looking for.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

Isaiah 61:1-4

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Worth It All

It was a long, dark weekend. Depression Day followed Depression Day… you know, those days when you just can’t get out of bed; so you hide under your covers till way past noon, stay in your pajamas way past afternoon and finally shower around dinner time…

No, perhaps you don’t know.

I don’t understand Your ways
Oh but I will give You my song
give You all of my praise.

There is a darkness that overtakes you. A darkness that is not spiritual, yet impacts your spirit in monumental ways. It obliterates everything in your life, and everything you’ve ever learned. It is all-consuming. It sucks you in and blinds every sense you have. It’s darker than a moonless night, darker than a room with no windows and no lights. The kind of dark where you can’t see your hand even though its an inch from your face. The kind of dark that horror movies are made of

It is a darkness that is profoundly misunderstood by the general Christian public… and even by most well-meaning Christian lay-counselors. Sadly, because of this, most suffer the darkness in silence. Until one day death finally takes them. Or, they hurry death along in their own way.

You hold on to all my pain
with it you are pulling me closer
and pulling me into your ways.

My darkness is inky black. It is filled with sorrow, confusion, guilt and rage. I scream and kick and cry until I’ve spent myself and all that’s left is exhaustion. No one knows I’m raging, no one knows I’m crying, screaming, kicking, spent in sorrow, confusion, exhaustion.

No one knows because no one can see it. No one can see it because it all happens in my soul.

To look at me, you’d probably think I’m tired. Or irritated. Or uninterested. Or perhaps just aloof. I, myself, can hear the chiding voices of previous mentors and counselors. “Now Lu, you can’t let yourself withdraw.” “Get back into the game.” “Just go back and do the last thing you left undone.” “Somewhere you’ve made a wrong choice, chosen a wrong reaction, and now you need to get up, go back to where you left off and go. Go!”

I cannot go. I cannot. I have nothing to give. I have nothing to go to. I cannot see the way to go. Won’t somebody please help me.

Its gonna be worth it,
Its gonna be worth it all,
Its gonna be worth it,
Its gonna be worth it all.

God Speaks. Every day He speaks. Every moment of the day He speaks. He never demands I get out of bed. Never scolds or chides. Never says I’m lazy or a cry baby. Never says I’m weak for withdrawing. For hiding. Never.

God Speaks. In a gentle, loving voice, He says, “it’s okay. You are okay, just as you are. I am in this darkness with you. It’s okay to be here. Don’t try to be something you are not. That’s not living in integrity. Don’t try to pretend you’re happy and that all is well inside you when it’s not.”

“We’ll get through this,” He says. “We’ll get through this together.”

You hold on to all my pain
with it you are pulling me closer
and pulling me into your ways.

How can the God of all creation, the God who has all power and all might in the palm of His hand… Who watches over every living creature… How can He care so much for little me? Why does He care?

All my life… All I had, all I thought was mine, all I thought was my life… it’s all been demolished. I stand in the ruins of me. Not just of my life. But the ruins of ME.

Yet God daily uses this destruction and pain to create deep intimacy between us… intimacy I never knew was possible. In that space, He reveals to me the depth of His gentleness. And patience. And love.

Now around every corner
up every mountain
I’m not looking for crowns
or water from fountains
I’m desperately seeking, frantic believing
that the sight of Your face
is all that I’m needing.

His love. His gentleness. His enduring compassion draws me in. It creates in me a need. Or perhaps it only awakens a need I’d always had.

Either way, I need to see His face. More than I need His praise. More than I need His power. More than I crave His word. I’m desperate for His presence. To see HIS face, feel HIS touch. To see Him in my mind’s eye and know He is here. Right now.

I will say to you then:
Its gonna be worth it,
Its gonna be worth it,
Its gonna be worth it all,
I believe it.
All my pain and all my joy,
It’s gonna be worth it

Is this enough? Is this enough to live for? Am I not supposed to have a mission? A purpose? Goals and objectives and various ways to use my “gifts” and “talents” for God? Is it enough to say, “it will be worth it. One day, all this crap will be worth it.”

I can’t find anything to live for. All I look for is Jesus. His sweet presence. That’s the only thing I want anymore. The only thing I can think of. The only thing I can “see” in this pitch black inky darkness. I cling to Him and will all the strength I have in me, I believe.

Its gonna be worth it,
Its gonna be worth it all,
Its gonna be worth it,
Its gonna be worth it all.

Worth It All written By Rita Springer, from her album “Effortless”

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Together

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven. — Phil 3:12-14

This morning I sat on my balcony and took some time to breathe. To inhale deeply of God. It’s been far too long since I did that.

As I sat and watched some beautiful birds flit around the trees, some fighting and vying for the best branches or favorite perches, God and I talked a little about the direction of my life.

I have no idea where I’m going. I don’t know how the bills are going to be paid. It seems that every time I think I see a light signaling the end of this long dark tunnel I’m in, that light ends up being a mirage. Something else pops up. The road takes a sudden dive and we’re back down in the darkness, exploring the deeper recesses of life.

God sat beside me, patted my hand, pressed His thumb to my forehead, as He so often does and assured me He is here.

As I contemplated whether life was for the “hereafter”, as Paul seems to be looking forward to, or for the “today”, I looked at God and said, “I want healing now. I want to follow You now. I want to know what you want me to do, where to work and how to get through the days now.

I heard Him whisper, “My healing is for now, and for the future. My salvation is now, and in the future. I inhabit Today, and every one of the Tomorrows. But I don’t work backwards. Yesterday and all the other days that have gone before it, I don’t live there anymore.

“Don’t live in the past, My sweet child. Don’t look back. Don’t look back in regret. Don’t look back in sorrow that the best has come and gone. Don’t look back. I’m not there anymore. I’m here. And We, you and I, will get through this. Together.

Press on, My baby. My Beloved Bride. You and I will have that Wedding. And between now and then, there will be so much We will do. Together.

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At Last

A migraine hit about 10:30 this morning and hasn’t abated since.

Perhaps that’s the reason my mind has been mired down in negativity all day. I was drowning in a cesspool of thoughts and didn’t know how to get out.

“Self-talk”, the psychologists call it… negative self talk filled my mind all day. Every mistake I made, I berated myself. Every decision I made was second-guessed, and ultimately found lacking by my petulant mind.

Perhaps it was also the migraine that caused me to forget to get clarification before setting out to complete any given tasks. This failure inevitably led to at least a dozen trips up and down the elevator from the 2nd floor to 5th floor to lobby and back again. The last trip I made, it was all I could do to laugh and share a knowing look with the guard, with whom I had just shared my afternoon elevator saga, when the president told me to just put what I had come down to get, again, “in his office”…. which is on the 5th floor, where I had just come from….

But after that last trip, I was done. I stared at my computer, knowing there were things I needed to be doing. But I couldn’t get my mind to engage in anything but mudslinging.

It’s an odd thing to know your mind is waging war on your own psyche. Aren’t they all supposed to be working together? They are all a part of one body, why is one attacking the other? And how does one go about making peace with…. one’s own self?

I know the verses that talk about “taking every thought captive…” but I felt powerless to do so. It flowed so effortlessly from some deep reservoir of my mind. One I didn’t even know existed… I don’t think. And one that seems to have a limitless supply.

I cried out to God. Often. But all I could think to say was, Help me! Sometimes I’d hear a whisper not to listen, not to believe… but it all felt so true, looked so true… how could it be a lie? I don’t know how to fight thoughts like that. Even though I’ve been a follower of Christ for too many years to believe, and even though my relationship with Him is the most intimate it’s ever been, I just can’t seem to conquer this mountain. Once the landslide begins, I don’t know how to stop it, and eventually it buries me.

And I was buried deep. The negative “self talked” flowed freely all day. It wasn’t until I crossed the threshold of my home that it quit. Now isn’t that a strange thing…? It’s as if my mind had finally run out of nagging words, so it got quiet. Just shut up. Now all that’s left is the pain…. and the “leaded-limb” feeling the medicine I take for migraines brings.

I can’t wait to lay my head on my pillow and put this day behind me. I feel beat up, battle weary, sucked dry of life. Even now I can feel my focus slipping from me as the medication finally kicks… the Colts are playing on Monday Night Football. Adria’s yelling at the television — somehow she thinks the Colts will hear her and respond. My PowerBook feels warm on my lap. My head still hurts, but all is quiet in my mind. At last.

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I’m So Smart Nobody Knows What I’m Saying

WARNING: The title of this post has nothing to do with it’s content.

I don’t really have anything to say tonight.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I always have something to say, but tonight I’m letting my thoughts percolate. Those of you who understand StrengthsFinder-speak will understand when I say, one of my Strengths is Intellection. That doesn’t mean I’m an intellectual. It means, in the words of Gallup themselves:

You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the “muscles” of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused…. On the other hand, [it] may very well lack focus. You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective. In a sense you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound. This introspection may lead you to a slight sense of discontent as you compare what you are actually doing with all the thoughts and ideas that your mind conceives. Or this introspection may tend toward more pragmatic matters such as the events of the day or a conversation that you plan to have later. Wherever it leads you, this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

Finding out that there was actually a name and a reason for all my mental activity, for that constant hum, was such a freeing and hope-filled thing! Finally (!!) I had proof I wasn’t just a “daydreamer,” as many a childhood teacher had labeled me, or a space-cadet freak, as some of my schoolmates might have said. There’s a cool-sounding, legitimate reason for my mental exercise. Even better, it’s a Strength. Awesome. Rock on!

Gallup’s paragraph on this Strength really describes me quite well. Add in my other top four strengths — Restorative, Input, Connectedness and Command — and you’ve a pretty good picture of me. Granted, this doesn’t take into account my personality, my spiritual giftings — and the effect of my “family of origin issues”, as the psycho-babble goes — but I’ve found that they all seem to fold together and compliment each other, like all the pieces of a mosaic.

Isn’t it amazing how God has put us together! Even if you and I share all five of our top Strengths, we still will be distinctly different individuals. God’s imprint on us, through the combinations of our personalities, Strengths, spiritual gifts and life experiences, is as unique as a fingerprint. His fingerprint on us.

How we use this unique combination to serve others — or to serve ourselves, whichever way we choose to go — is our imprint on the world. That is such an incredible thought, isn’t it! We leave an indelible, and unique imprint on this world. For better or for worse. We leave a mark. I wonder what mine looks like… without the fun-house mirrors of my own insecurity-filled self-perception…?

Which brings me back to the original point of this post… yes, there really is a reason for this post…. sheesh, you’d think you’d never read someone’s ramblings before… Barney and I uncovered a whoooole lotta stuff in my counseling time today. It was a powerful time. We were at it for 2 full hours. He is very gracious with his time, I tell ya! We covered… er, uncovered — a lot of ground today…. and I need time for all my thoughts to perk and simmer. They’ll be ready to spew forth from my brain in a few days… probably… maybe… check in later and I’ll let you know…

Wow, 652 words in this post. That’s a whole lotta words to say a whole lotta nothin’…. Maybe I should consider a career in politics. Do you think it’s too late to throw my hat in the ring for the presidential election?

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Captivated

Your face is beautiful
And Your eyes are like the stars
Your gentle hands have healing, there inside the scars
Your loving arms they draw me near,
And your smile it brings me peace
Draw me closer, oh my Lord,
Draw me closer Lord to Thee.

Through all the craziness of the day, I had precious little time to just Breathe. Lately my alone times with God have been shoved into my drive times, or snatched moments throughout the day, rather than a more consentrated block of time toward the end of the day.

This isn’t the way I want to live my life. I want it to be focused on God, where HE gets the best of my "time slots", not just slotted in where I have time. For all the frustration and loneliness I had in Cyprus, one thing I had plenty of was time alone with God. Even then it didn’t feel like "enough"… can a person really get "enough" of God??

But here, in the US… there are just so many distractions. So many things I "could" do, "should" do, want to do. God so often gets put on the "when I get to it" list. I don’t think He likes that much.

Today I heard Him calling… well, more like felt the strong pull of His heart. Kerry, my boss, was bouncing around the office like a ping pong ball, taking calls, booking interviews, and doing God-knows what else — He reminds me of some people in my past. My old Type-A friends, and a lot of executives I knew in the industry. You know, those people who always seem to have it all together, always look perfect, and never crack under the pressure.  So life, the universe, or whatever, heaps more and more upon them in some silly, vain attempt to find their breaking point. Let me give them all a piece of advice: give it up. I don’t think Kerry has one. With all the running around he did, I never saw him sweat. Which is just wrong. But that’s beside the point…

Things got crazy fast, and I, unlike Kerry, was sweating like a pig. It’s been far too long since I’ve been in the thick of things like that, and I wasn’t liking either the pressure or who I saw myself becoming under it.

That’s when I felt the pull. "Get out. Go for a walk. Take a drive. Step away. It won’t fall apart without you. But you will fall apart without Me."

Captivate us, Lord Jesus.
Set our eyes on You.
Devastate us with Your presence
….Falling down.
Rushing river draw us nearer.
Holy fountain consume us with You.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus,
With You.

I grabbed my purse and car keys, and headed out on the pretense of getting some lunch. Even as I entered the elevator to go down to my car, I felt the exhaustion creeping into my soul. I need, Jesus, I whispered. I need.

This is our "code". Years ago I recognized I had a "soul need", one that nothing I tried could ever touch. Finally, in desperation I cried out to God, "I need! I don’t know what I need, I just know I need! Can you fill me?"

Your voice is powerful
And Your words are radiant bright.
In your breath and shadow
I will come close and abide.
You whisper love and life divine
And Your fellowship is free.
Draw me closer, oh my Lord.
Draw me closer, Lord,
To Thee.

When God decides to answer a question, He doesn’t go half way. He took the next few years of my life to show me just how fully and completely He can fill me, in all the cracks and crevasses of my Needing. Today my soul-need was particularly deep, and as the elevator headed to the parking garage, I took some time to Breathe, to  fill my soul with the fragrance of God. To allow Him to breath fresh Life into every fiber of my being.

It was the best elevator ride of my life.

Captivate us, Lord Jesus.
Set our eyes on You.
Devastate us with Your presence
….Falling down.
Rushing river draw us nearer.
Holy fountain consume us with You.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus,
With You.

I had gotten a message on my cell phone from a friend in LA. As I drove down to Arby’s I listened as she poured out her heart in voicemail, a request for prayer. She, too, has been fitting God into her time slots because the fast pace of LA life has made a disaster of her Day-timer. — Well, okay, she doesn’t have one of those, but if she did, it would’ve been rendered useless long ago.

I wept as I listened again to her message. Why is it, Lord, that we say with our mouths we long to worship at Your feet all day long, yet our lives speak to a totally different set of priorities? How can this be, that two single women with no major family or career commitments can find their days so totally tied up with "To Dos" that they have no time for the only One who can, and longs to, fill them completely?

Let everything be lost in the shadows of the light of Your face.
Let every chain be broken from me as I’m bound in Your grace.
For Your yoke is easy, Your burden is light
You’re full of wisdom, power and might
And every eye will see You…

I listened as my friend told me of her weekend, of hurts too deep to fathom in just the few minutes we had, and of frustrations, discouragement… and her soul-need. I hung up with her, turned to Jesus and said, "Help my friend…. please! Help my friend!" That’s all I could think to say. All that she had spoken of, all that stirred in my heart, it all came down to that one thing. My friend needs, Jesus. Only You can fill her. Please help my friend!

I don’t know if her "lesson" on God’s ability to meet her soul-need will take nearly as long as mine (I’m a slow learner), or what paths it will lead her down… But, a strange thing happened to me in the process of giving my heart over to her pain: God filled my soul-need.

Whether it was my time in the elevator inhaling deeply the amazing aroma of Jesus, or taking the time to ask God the hows and whys of my life and that of my friend, or the simple act of telling her how much I love her…. I don’t know. But somewhere in those thirty minutes, God revived my spirit and fed my soul.

I am continually astonished by God’s constant presence in my life. He makes Himself obvious to me in powerful yet subtle ways every single day. And every time, it surprises, amazes and humbles me. You would think this to be enough to completely captivate me. Forever. You would think.

But the lure of the physical world often captivates me more, then takes me captive to all it’s sparkling nothingness and sucks me dry of Life. I need Jesus to captivate me. And re-captivate me… a thousand times over and back again… Perhaps that’s how He designed me to be… a constant needing for Him, who alone can not only fill me, but captivate me, completely.

Captivate us, Lord Jesus.
Set our eyes on You.
Devastate us with Your presence
….Falling down.
Rushing river draw us nearer.
Holy fountain consume us with You.
Captivate us, Lord Jesus,
With You.

"Captivate Us"  written by Nathan & Christy Nockels – from Watermark’s The Purest Place album

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Welcome To My Mind… It’s a Scary Place (aka Happy Halloween)

My head hurts.

There are so many thoughts swarming around in my brain, I can’t decide which one to give attention to first.

Do I focus on the dilemmas I have with my new temp job… as I contemplate the possibilities of it becoming a long-term gig? Do I want to stay? There are things I’ve noticed, patterns emerging, echoes of sounds I’ve heard before. It’s one thing to deal with those things in a non-Christian environment, where I can excuse the problems with the reality that the people I work with don’t know Jesus, so I can’t hold them to the same standard I hold myself to… but this is a place where everyone "supposedly"  is a Christian… what do I do with that??? What do I do with actions I see, attitudes and behaviors that to me stink of worldly wisdom and desire. Do I stay and try to make a difference, or do I walk while I still can?

Back to the thought-swarm.

OR– Do I focus on what we talked about tonight in our Gathering… spirituality, inspiration and creativity…? What is spirituality? Can it really be defined as we defined it tonight: "the honest, earnest search for God/Truth." Where does inspiration come from? What is it, really, and why does it seem so fleeting? Is creativity only that which can be defined as "art"? I don’t believe so, but I also don’t know how to readily identify what it can be defined as. Well, that’s not entirely true… this weekend, an idea, almost an epiphany, shoved itself to the front of the thought-swarm… Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 theses to the door of the Whittenberg Church was an exceptionally creative act of rebellion, which led to another creative act… a reformation of the Church. It came about because of Luther’s honest, earnest search for God/Truth. So I guess, in some respects I can identify creativity outside the realm of art… but it seems so rare, and fleeting. How can I become more adept at it?

Back again into the thought-swarm.

OR– Do I focus on the creative ideas currently banging on the walls of my brain, begging to be let out…? Poems that are like wraiths swirling just beyond my grasp. The minute I reach forward to grab hold, they turn into so much mist and vanish… The frustration of this dance causes me to leave them alone entirely, which just seems to make them scream louder to be paid attention to…. I long to be a writer, but find myself often frustrated, not in the process, but by the lack of my own ability to produce a finished work. Everything I have, it seems, it half-finished… I lost inspiration and just left the thing where it stood.

OR– Do I focus on verse God led me to this morning, Isaiah 43:1. God, in His infinite grace, unfailing love and unfathomable ability to cut through all the crap and straight to the core of my struggles spoke pages to me through that one verse. Do I delve deeper into the passage? Do I meditate more on it, and on what I heard Him say to me as I meditated on it this morning?

OR– Do I focus on some things that have come up in my counseling recently…? Things like giving myself grace, allowing myself to grieve publicly, realizing just how much I have to grieve over, dealing with all the feelings accompanying and stirred up by all those losses…

All these thoughts demand attention. All of them want to come out at once. All of them want to talk all at once. For months my brain shut down, went on strike, refused to say a word. Now I can’t seem to shut it up. There’s so much noise inside my head I can hardly hear the sounds outside it.

Is it any wonder why my head hurts.

But now, this is what the LORD says- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine." — Isa 43:1

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Love’s Recovery

during the time of which I speak
it was hard to turn the other cheek
to the blows of insecurity.
feeding the cancer of my intellect
the blood of love, soon neglected,
lay dying in the strength of its impurity.

Have you ever had a time in your life where you felt beat down by another’s insecurities? Felt captive to  a cancer that slowly ate away at your sense of self, sense of value and desireable-ness? You watch helplessly as the love in your heart just shrivels up and dies. Your love for yourself, your love for others, perhaps even your love for God. Life seems to unravel at it’s seams… you unravel along with it. Slowly, like rush hour traffic on the 405, your life devolves into a brutal fight for survival. Survival of your own soul. And it doesn’t matter who gets hurt in your attempt to live.

meanwhile the friends we thought were so together
they’ve all gone and left each other
in search of fairer weather

we sit here in our storm and
drink a toast to the slim chance of
love’s recovery

A year of my life was spent in that kind of hell. Life started out like a dream… a budding romance, with flowers, amazing dates and all the excitement and newness of getting to know a new lover. Then the blows began…  I ignored the first few, thinking surely my new lover didn’t mean to hurt me. It was a mistake, an aberration… But the blows didn’t quit. My new lover was insecure.

They were all insecure. I don’t know who started it, or how it all began. And frankly, I don’t care anymore. I just know I walked into what I thought was going to be a great new adventure, and instead found myself in the middle of a mess. A battlefield where neither side trusted me and no one was secure enough in their own selves to know whether they really wanted me on their "side."

It got harder and harder to turn the other cheek to the blows of another’s insecurity… not to mention the blows of my own insecurity that followed each of their blows. I had no where to go. No sanctuary from the arrows that flew. I tried to embrace the reality. Tried to keep my head in the midst of the insanity of battle. But I slid on the all the blood… and fell.

I found myself nearly drowning in a sea of red. Their blood, my blood — it all mixed together. It’s amazing how on a battlefield, you can’t tell the difference between the blood of your "side" and the blood of the "others".

there I am in younger days, stargazing
painting picture-perfect maps
of how my life and love would be.
not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection,
my compass, faith in love’s perfection,
I missed a million miles of road I should’ve seen.

A black cancer grew deep within my soul. A cancer that fed on confusion, frustration, insecurity and unmet expectation. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be! This wasn’t the way I’d imagined giving my life away for Jesus would look. I didn’t understand why God would allow me to walk blindly into this mess. I cried out to Him.

He answered and met me. Deep intimacy followed. His roots dug deep into my soul, into places I never knew existed, into places I never knew He could reach. His roots took hold — somehow finding rich soil, how I don’t know… or perhaps He created the rich soil as He went… His roots took hold and have never let go. Never. Not even when I hacked at them in my panicked attempts to survive.

Yet the cancer grew. Months passed. Then suddenly confusion and frustration gave way to anger. Embers fanned. Flames burst forth. Clarity… I was a fool. A stargazing fool.

But I’m not an idiot. I  know  who I am. I know what I am and what I’m capable of. And I know who you say I am is not who I am. You don’t know crap. Stay away from me.

Life moved on. Like a dream — or perhaps, more accurately, a nightmare — it suddenly shifted focus and location. New battles raged and more wounds felled my soul. God had lifted me out of the sea of red… only to set me down in a valley where I created my own lake of blood and tears. And still, the cancer raged in my soul. In places I wouldn’t allow God to touch. Like a child who won’t allow her mom to put healing balms on a painful wound, I wouldn’t let God touch my cancer-infected places. It just hurt too much. Like a perfect Lover, He waited. He stayed with me. And waited.

Did He know this time would come? Did He know I would finally be strong enough to say, Cut the cancer out. Do whatever you must do to heal my soul. I believe. I believe You can. I believe You want to. I finally understand my redemption and restoration isn’t just about "someday, when we all get to heaven". I finally get that Your salvation is for here and now. I finally see that You want me to live in perfect Shalom with You now. Bring it on, Jesus. Please. Bring it on.

oh how I wish I were a trinity
so if I lost a part of me
I still have two of the same to live.
but nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal
as specks of dust were universal

so let this love survive
and be the greatest gift
that we could give.

tell all the friends who think they’re so together
that these are ghosts and mirages,
all these thoughts of fairer weather

though its stormy now
I feel safe within the arms of
love’s discovery

Sitting on my porch, looking at the brilliant colors of dying leaves, signaling a change in seasons, I sense a changing of the seasons of my soul as well. While I look out at signs that winter is coming — a blanket of cold, perhaps even ice, where all living things go to ground and the world as a result looks dead — I feel a stirring in my own soul, an awakening. Glowing embers being fanned into flame by the Wind, annoucning the arrival of spring.

I am out of sync with nature. But I feel so very in-sync with my God. Finally, the ice is melting. The cold of my soul winter is giving way to the warmth of my Beloved’s spring.

though its stormy now
I feel safe within the arms of
love’s discovery

"Love’s Recovery" written by the Indigo Girls, from their self-titled album

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The Monster

The Monster. She rarely wakes, but when she does, she a thing to be feared. Truly feared. She is the Black Abyss of agony, grief, anger, of pain beyond belief and overwhelming emotions too deep and too powerful to withstand.

She woke up one morning. Easter morning. I nearly died that morning. I nearly was swallowed whole by her. My wailing, I’m sure, could be heard all over southern California, as wave upon wave of darkness and agonizing pain crashed over me. No words can express the place I went to that morning.

Naked, exposed, no place to hide, no weapon to fight with. I screamed to God, "If you are going to rescue me, as you promised, Now is the time! NOW. I need you NOW. I cannot wait another second. Please, God! If you are going to rescue me, NOW is the time!"

Eventually the Monster spent herself. Or perhaps she was merely stretching her claws… and wasn’t yet ready to devour me. I don’t know. I just know she got quiet. The storm subsided and I was left still naked and exposed. And now raw. My throat was raw from screaming (I wasn’t speaking metaphorically when I said I cried out and screamed. Thank God my roommate was in Alabama with her parents, or she would’ve been frightened out of her mind by the sounds echoing through the house). My heart and soul were raw from the ravaging claws of the Beast. And mind my was raw from the whole violent experience.

That’s when I felt His presence. So powerful. So potent. If He’d been wearing cologne, I’d have smelled it. God was in the room. Not just in the room, but at my feet. At my feet! The Living God was kneeing at my feet, holding my hand, speaking soft words of comfort, enveloping me in a soft, warm blanket of deep love that I’d never known before. We walked through the rest of the day that way, like a dad holding close his blanket-bundled child who’d just been pulled from a frozen lake, or rescued from white-water rapids.

All day. And into the next, and even the next.

Then the Monster shifted in her sleep, and I was pulled back into the darkness. I moved like I do when I have a migraine that’s just gotten quiet. Careful. Slow. Deliberate. "Do nothing sudden, quick or jerky that could awaken the pain."

Do nothing to awaken the Monster.

That became my mantra. Do nothing to awaken the Monster. I nearly didn’t survive our first encounter. I know I’ll lose the next. I felt the power behind her claws. She was holding back. I just got a taste. That was like the fat lady clearing her throat. The next time I won’t get off so easy.

A couple of weeks ago my counselor, Barney, urged me to embrace the pain of my grief… which, by the way, he’s the third counselor (my one in LA, and my one in Charlotte, lest you think I’m just counselor-hopping) to tell me I’ve got so many "grief points" I could make it to Mars and back a couple of times. I decided he was insane, until I realized. He doesn’t know about her.

So I told him about the Monster, and how foolish I felt it would be to wake her… Embrace her??? Forget it. I’d rather go to the gynecologist.

But again he made his case: Embrace the pain. Face the Monster. Wake her. And let her have her way with you. You will be stronger. She will diminish.

I left his office emotionally raw and spent. But also relieved that finally someone else knew and understood the power of the Beast. And even knowing her power, he believes I’m strong enough to handle her. Silly man.

But God decided to weigh in on this argument as well. He began to whisper… "She didn’t just spend herself and go back to sleep…. I fought her, and drove her away from you…. I will protect you…. I will help you face her…."

But the thought of waking her scares the crap out of me. And I struggle every day between God’s beckoning voice, "face your fears and Live," and my overwhelming desire to run from everything hard and painful.

And all the while she sleeps. In her restless fits. And since I’m tethered to her, I feel her restlessness and my sleep is fitful too.

Why didn’t she finish me off when she woke last time? Did she just go back to sleep, or did God truly overpower her, in one of His David-the-shepherd moments, and send her back  to her cave?  In my more lucid moments, I sense the latter is really the truth, and the former is just a lie from the enemy. Yes, even Narnia has enemies living within its borders.

Will He come if I purposefully wake her? Will He stand beside me, hold me up? Will He fight for me…? And who will win?

I’m tired, so tired, of being tethered to her. Of her restless sleep dragging me back into the darkness when there’s so much light outside. I want to live in the light. In the brightness of Life. My LIfe. This new fulfilling, amazing dream-come-true Life I’ve been gifted.

If you think of me, pray.

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Hard Days, Dark Nights

It’s after 2am and I should be in bed….. why, I don’t know. I won’t be working tomorrow, so what’s the point in going to bed "tonight"?

Narnia may be beautiful and magical, but it’s still full of the same pain, fear, frustration and uncertainty the "real world" is. The job I thought was going to be my new focus, isn’t working out as I’d hoped. Oh, I still like the job — and they still like me I think. It’s just, well, their non-profit, church organization. They can’t afford to pay me. Forget paying me what I’m worth! They can’t even pay me what I need to earn to survive, even working 40 hours a week.

Today, my boss told me he can only afford to pay me around 30 hours a week, so I better plan on taking tomorrow off.

The problem for me is that this will leave me somewhere around $425/month in the hole. Taking a second job was an option I considered, then rejected. No part time job could pay me what I need… and frankly, taking that second job would take too much time away from the reason I came here in the first place, to plant a church.

So far, I’ve managed to make ends meet by living off my inheritance from mom and dad. I had such high hopes for that money. I wanted to invest it somewhere. Put it away and watch it grow, provide myself a nice little nest egg for my old age. But instead, I’m watching it quickly dwindle.

I know mom and dad would want me to use it this way, but, dang it! I don’t want to use it up this way.

God, I guess, has other ideas… What they are, I don’t know. He hasn’t chosen to share them with me.

How I wish mom and dad were here!! I miss them so very much. Their words of wisdom, their laughter… mom’s comfort, dad’s long hugs…. The both always knew how to make things "all better."  I don’t know how to live without them. Every day I wonder how in the world they lived for so long without their parents.

It’s not something you ever think of asking your mom and dad when their alive. It’s not even something you want to contemplate. I know. I never wanted to contemplate this life either. Even now, I try to find ways of not dealing with it. I watch waaaay to much tv, and eat waaaay too much. If there was another "waaaay too much" that I could figure out how to get away with as a Southern Baptist, believe me, I’d be knee deep in it already! Anything to escape the pain. Anything to not have to acknowledge the grief that consumes me.

I miss them so much my heart feels like it’s exploding and my soul feels inky black. It seems, many days, I still live in that darkness, and just visit the dream life I have here in Nashville. Even after experiencing days of unbelievable fulfillment by just life in general (something I never thought truly existed), I somehow find myself sucked back into the darkness, with the Monster sleeping nearby.  She is a Beast that demands to be fed and pacified, or she’ll turn and devour me. A beast of my own making, through months of running away and hiding from Pain. She is what keeps me from living in Narnia. She keeps pulling me back through the wardrobe doors, back into the past. Perhaps it’s her restless shifting that pulls me back, the same way something in the "real world" pulls us out of our dreams and back into the darkness of our night-filled rooms.

Between the Monster and my own rabid fears of financial ruin… did I mention I’m a drama queen? … poor Aslan is having a struggle getting an audience with me.

…Okay, I’ve finally run out of steam and am starting to fall asleep while typing… I didn’t know a person could do that. I’ve fallen asleep writing before, but typing…?

I will post a follow-up on this later.