A Cause and Effect God

I have struggled spiritually so much over the last several years. When you reach a dark place, it is very difficult to train your eyes to see even the tiniest spark of light. I would dare to say so hard that often in despair you close your eyes and surrender to the darkness. This is where I have been.
As I struggle back to the surface, trying to find some grounding, and allowing my eyes to adjust to light and my heart to surrender to the love that surrounds me, I see a flaw in how I have viewed God. So much of what we're taught about God makes us think of our relationships to him as "cause and effect". Do good things and be rewarded. Do bad things and be punished. It leaves a person in a bad situation to believe that they have deserved what they got, they were the map that led to this destination, the magnet drawing in the negative consequences. This line of thinking leaves a person in despair, hopeless, drowning without a life raft.
I have come to understand that good things often happen to people who do not deserve them. David knew this (Psalm 73) when he lost his footing at the sight of the prosperity of the wicked.
I have also seen good people suffer through ungodly circumstances. If this were not so, how would we account for babies born addicted to crack before even living one day on this earth? How would we account for the atrocities of war, the holocaust, the elderly rotting in nursing homes day after day with little more than having their basic needs met?
Our culture tells us that we are rewarded or punished for our deeds, and somehow this concept has been applied to God and spiritual things. I know it is not true. Moment by moment, in my pain and suffering, He has not abandoned me. I have suffered things I know that I do not deserve, but I know that through it all He has not abandoned me. He has been beside me all the way. My pain is His pain. It was for the hurts of humanity that Christ went to the cross. The next time I am tempted to close my eyes in despair and let the darkness swallow me, I will remember I am not alone.

Hollow

This morning I feel like one of those hollow chocolate bunnies, the kind you get for Easter. The heat has turned up, as we get closer to the day when I pull away from my home and marriage with my three kids in a moving van to let it all fall apart, it is causing this feeling that I might dissolve, cave in on myself. I am so very sad this morning.
I need a friend. Not a phone call or an email, but flesh and blood to just sit with me in this pain - the way Dwayne reminded me Job's friends did after they ran out of answers.
There is a deep ache. I have this sense of wanting everything to go "back to normal" and yet I can't find a marker in time where that ever existed for us. It was always me, trudging along, trying to appear as if we were like everyone else. Now I find I wasn't even able to fool myself. I have reached the end of my strength, my resolve. Boxes are everywhere - tidy packages of the pieces of my life - a life I no longer know how to go on with.
The desperation threatens to overtake me. I never wanted this. I don't want it now. I want him to be the hero, to come crashing in to save us from this worst moment in our lives together.

No Miracle

God - I need you.
I am the one leaving, yes. I am walking away. While he talks of miracles and things that might be, I have heard it all before. I am not a stone. I feel it. I want it. It was supposed to be him in the framed pictures of all that I see for the future. Not cracked glass and an image torn in two.
I got boxes today - tidy and neat containers in which to put the pieces of my life if I had the strength to pick them up.
A heavy need to wail overcame me when I started this post and I stopped to indulge awhile. There is no comfort for my pain. I mourn as one with no hope. My prayers for the miracle of his softened heart turned to me fell on deaf ears for far too long to endure. The vow to love hanging over me unfulfilled.
How do you start to see the world again through cracked glass, with only half of what you thought you were? This is a pain that feels too deep to bare alone, and I am left here, crying like a baby for her mother. No mother will come. No miracle.

Trying to Remember

When I look back on the best memories of my life, they were all without him. Outings with friends. Trips. Vacations. Walks on the beach. Laughing with my children uninhibited by someone's criticism. I've waited for the better life together, the time when he calms enough to enjoy life with me, laugh with me, love with me. I moved across the country in the hopes that he would be happy, but the cold hard fact is that he never will be. We'll never have the jacuzzi on the rooftop, romantic vacations, frolicking together with our grandchildren. All the dreams are dying. But I'm trying to remember that every moment together was one in which I had to manage him, make sure he wasn't uncomfortable, unhappy, unsettled. It was always too much work. I made my life without him. I am trying to remember why this needs to happen. I've been married alone. Not much is changing for me except the tremendous relief of not having to always make sure he is okay. I need to concentrate for a change on making sure I'm okay. What I want more than anything right now is to have a mom - someone to show up and help make sure my kids have food, the floors are swept and life is manageable for me. I want someone who I can put my ugliest crying face on in front of, who will wrap me in their arms with no pretense and let me cry my eyes out.
It is all frightening - like being on the edge of a cliff and having others tell you that they know there are arms that will catch you. But YOU know that the free fall you do on your way down, starting with that first step off the edge must be done alone. I keep hearing the words of Elisabeth Eliot, who used to start her radio show with “…..you are loved with an everlasting love, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
I can go on. I will step off this cliff. I have been on my own for so long anyway. I just need to continue to remember.

Feeling Too Much

I don't know how you go from being numb to feeling so much you feel like the pain alone will kill you. I spent about half an hour in my bathroom crying until I was vomiting, with my children holding my head. I don't know how to conceal the hell I am going through from them. While every intimate detail is not laid bare in front of them, I think there is no way to shield them from this. It is our mutual nightmare to live through together.
I feel like I can't listen to the radio or watch TV. Everything stirs up feelings inside of me. I don't really know what to do but put one foot in front of another. I would love nothing more than to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head and pretend this all is not happening and is not necessary.
Please continue your prayers dear bloggers. I know there is something supernatural that keeps me moving forward when I want to stop and sit right here in this pain and die.

Bear It We Must

It is hard to be happy today when others are suffering. All I could think of this morning when I woke up was this line that Elisabeth Elliot opened her radio show with for years. You are loved with an everlasting love...and underneath are the everlasting arms. If anyone knew what it was to be held by everlasting arms, it was that amazing woman.
In the last week I have heard so many terrible things -
The loss of a child
The end of a marriage
A cancer diagnosis
It all seems to much to bear at times, and yet bear we must. Even when it is hard. Even when we feel we can't. We are witnesses and participants in pain. I have no answers.

Today is our 20th anniversary - Travis and I, which is nothing short of a miracle. It feels wrong to find anything worth rejoicing over when other are hurting so much.
Lord bear up under us with everlasting arms. Oh how we need You.

The Veil

Without trying to make myself sound like some sort of martyred super-hero who only does things for the greater good, I wanted to explain something that I was able to articulate earlier today in an email to a friend. I have often thought this, but it has become crystal clear in the light of my present circumstances. So often we do one another a disservice by drawing a veil over a part of our lives that is hard, difficult, ugly, disturbing, dark, morbid, weak. In so doing, we have become salesmen for Jesus. We wear the squeaky clean suit, folded hankie in our pocket, sport impeccable grooming - because instead of being real with people, we want our countenance to reflect perfection. Relationships are damn hard. People are unpredictable. Our emotions fail us, and often leave us in crumbled heaps. Our humanity is frail. We do not cease to be human when we come to Him, and I do not understand the superhuman, power-suit mentality that some Christians posture in front of others. We do have a care in this world - often a lot of them. I will let you peek behind the veil of my life because I believe it is our duty to one another to say - this is hard for me too. It sucks and you are not alone.
Maybe some have found my blogging disrespectful, raw, gruesome. It is - I know because I'm not just writing it, I'm living it. Some have said it was powerful, brave. It is because they could relate. It is real, and that is all I can be, authentically me. My introverted friend said, "stop telling people stuff!". I don't think that will ever be my style, but I love her for wanting to protect me in the way that she naturally defends herself. I am not a secret keeper. The truth is that I never really had a veil at all except that which others imposed on me. I am going to walk this road through the good and bad right beside you my bloggy friends. If it helps you to be a better person, so be it. If you find it annoying, whiny or repulsive, fortunately my turn around time is pretty quick, and I should be back to blogging about good stuff in a couple of days. You might wanna check back in a few.

Going Under

My friend Stephanie sent me the words to this song after all the verbal vomiting I've been doing. I want to apologize if it has been hard for anyone to read. There used to be a time when I would've kept it all a secret, kept pretending that everything was alright when it wasn't, and smiled and laughed through the pain. Now it all just comes out, almost like carbonation in a bottle that's been shaken too hard and can't be held back. I am tired of believing lies, trusting those who have repeatedly broken trust, and silently wondering why some people are blessed with love and adoration while others are neglected and abused for a lifetime. This song resonates with me on so many levels.

Busy Sitting

All those of the male persuasion, can politely excuse themselves from further reading. This is a "girls only" topic. If you have ever had a urinary tract infection, you will know how miserable my day has been. I have been in and out of the bathroom a hundred times and sit for what feels like forever for the reward of the ever so slightest trickle. I haven't had one since before I had children - when a kind nurse told me once that I needed to get up immediately after......you know, and use the restroom. I have practiced this faithfully for almost 20 years have not had a bladder infection. I don't know how this happened. I'd like to meet that nurse in a dark alley - and no I wouldn't hurt her - but I would tell her that her plan has failed, and ask her what I am supposed to do now. I can't sit or stand or walk or lay or do anything that makes me feel better even the remotest bit. Ugh. Sorry......gotta run.......nature calls, but she is mocking me!

Numb-skulls

It has come to my attention more and more what a society of "feelingless" people we are becoming. I don't mean to say that we don't care about one another, but that we are a society that continually rejects our feelings. Many people in my generation (late 30 somethings) grew up in a time where we were taught to stuff our feelings, ignore them, pretend that they do not exist. It caused a lot of emotionally unhealthy adults.
Currently, I think the trend may be reversed in some ways. Many in our culture are preoccupied with feelings, offended at the slightest suggestion of an insult, a discussion about a choice we have made, or maybe even going so far as to think that anyone who does not feel as we do - share our sentiments, thoughts or opinions is being critical of us. (Trust me, been caught in this trap myself!) I think therapists couches are full of people trying to analyze and over-analyze ever minute conversation, gesture, or look we have in our interactions with other people. It is making us sick. What does God's word say?

He who covers an offense promotes love. Proverbs 17:9

Another trap I think that we are finding more and more prevalent is the numbing of all feelings. My mother-in-law lost her husband of 51 years last July. She is grieving. However, more than one person has suggested to her that she needed anti-depressants. I think this is a mark of our culture. I don't mean to take issue with those people - I think they are making their suggestions in love, but I worry about the trend to suppress our feelings. There are normal stages of grief, and if you do not go through them, I believe they will come back around again. Numbness is not overcoming, it is denial and I think that as a society we are in big danger here.
I know that many people take medications such as these to function - I have myself. I went through a time of such severe anxiety that I was literally having to remind myself to breathe. I had so much on my plate that I would go to bed at night and think to myself, what is the absolute least amount of sleep I can get and still function? Not healthy thoughts. So I took medication for a while - and then got my life straight - and found I no longer needed the medication. Some of the most healing times in my life were when I absolutely came to the end of myself, and beat my fists, cried my eyes out and screamed to the Lord to help me. God's word tells us repeatedly to "cry out". I don't know about you, but I'm going to take Him at His word - He seems to know best! If I had been a zombie, I would not have been able to grow through the difficult times.
I worry that some will react negatively to what I have said here - but please know - I am not talking about a physiological need for medication - I am talking about the generation of elementary school children who are drugged up so they can conform to the standards of a classroom, adults who take medication by the handfuls so that they don't have to feel guilt or pressure or pain for infidelity, cheating on their taxes, walking out on a wife/husband and children, etc. Our feelings are a tool God uses to drive us to Him, the place where it all comes back together again.

Prayer Request - Our Pastor's Family

When we started visiting the church we are currently attending on the last day of 2006, the pastor shared with us that his mother had just been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. He is a self-professed “mama’s boy” and you could tell it to be true by how he spoke of her. Sometime this weekend – there was some confusion at church this morning about whether it was Friday or Saturday – his mother went to meet Jesus. Please pray for this hurting family.

I would like you to especially pray for this precious man that they call “Brother Randal”. He’s a big old guy with the dearest heart, and he loves the Lord so much. But as I have recently read A Grief Observed, I have come to know that even those whose faith is strong can be shaken while grieving. Pray for his strength.

This morning, the substitute pastor preached out of Habakkuk – chapter 3, verses 17-19 – which say this:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.

We can rejoice in the Lord in spite of our circumstances. And yet saying this to someone who is grieving seems as if you have no understanding of their pain. Through the grief, it is the enemy’s battle plan to take us out. Please pray for this man of God that he would be able to stand, even through this greatest hurt of his life.

While this was on my heart today, I read this wonderful post about death at a blog I read frequently – and it says it all. Death has been swallowed up in victory! I Cor. 15:54

Lord, please comfort the hearts of Brother Randal and his family with this blessed assurance.