Non-Static People

Lately I have been going through what could best be described as a mid-life crisis.  I'm bored, I'm restless, I'm anxious and easily agitated.  I go from laughing to crying and back again.  Some days I wake UP in a funk that doesn't clear most of the day - which is not my usual "bubbly" (as my hubs calls it) demeanor.  I'm impatient (at least in my head) with people over things that should not be so irksome, including myself.  I'm unreasonable and irrational and I wonder how it is possible that anyone could find me lovable in such a state, especially my husband who has been married to me for just nine short months.  If he doesn't occasionally wonder what on earth he has gotten himself into, I think he should be awarded some sort of sainthood.

We were having a discussion about this fledgling personality disorder that I am developing earlier today. He knows that I am, as cliché as it sounds, trying to "find myself" and has been my biggest cheerleader.  Abusive relationships diminish a person's true self, and I am still very much in the healing process.  Often the progression of self-discovery is hindered by self-loathing and you literally have to learn to examine who you are and evaluate that this person in the mirror is good, valued, lovable.  In a lot of ways, Gary has gotten to know me better than I know myself. His honesty and willingness to hold my hand through this unfolding of my true self has made all the difference.  In one of my emotional tantrums, I was asking him if he could still love me as I change and grow. "People aren't static" he said. "I'm going to love you no matter what." 

People aren't static. They are dynamic and changing and organic and vibrant, and I am among them. Being loved securely, come what may is truly the greatest gift imaginable. 

Judge Not

I woke up this morning on the dawn of my 41st birthday with a headache. There is an impending storm, but the overcast day will do little to make me forget the sunshine of yesterday or the spring that is waking across the mountain. A hike yesterday afternoon with my family revealed that even in the depth of the woods, new shoots of green leaves are pushing through the surface to make their appearance known. So many symbolic references to be made between the newness of my life and the emerging new life of spring, but that was not the intent of this blog post. 
Yesterday morning's sermon was about the judgments we pass on one another and how the church should be a place of acceptance, outstretched arms of love to those around us.  The pastor said that instead of being the conduit of the love of God to a hurting world (my paraphrase), we judge and condemn them for doing what comes naturally. That struck such a chord in my heart. So often instead of being appalled by the sin and the consequences that follow, I am disgusted with people. I wonder in my own heart, "What is wrong with them??!" As a believer, I already know that they do what they do because they are slaves to their human nature.  Even fellow believers still have the flesh to contend with, that wages war against every bit of what is inside of us that is good. I have been hurt as much inside the church as I was ever hurt from the outside. But I try to remember that I too have inflicted similar hurts on others, and keep this as a warning inside my own heart and mind to tread lightly and hold grace as a banner over others. (At least this is what I want to do, though often I do not do it.)
Recently in a newcomer's class at the church we have started going to, I faced the judgmental words of a woman that said, "I've never been divorced."  This has been one of my biggest, most paralyzing fears that I would be summed up as a person and a Christian on the sole event known as the end of my marriage. Without having to bare your soul for the world, nobody knows how hard you tried to make it work or what you endured so that this would never be the final outcome. Even in marriages that put on a happy face, nobody knows if the person asserting, "I was never divorced" was the most miserable spouse in the world, in a marriage that lasted due to no credit of their own but because of the patience and long-suffering of another. The fear of this judgment over my divorce has held me back from the body of Christ. I have attended church over the last couple of years sporadically, but I have not invested in a body of believers or the people around me for fear that if they got to know my situation or me, that they would decide I was "less than".  I think it is time to risk the judgment and the fear of rejection and embrace the fellowship of other believers. I have missed this for so long. 
The sermon yesterday spoke this hope into my life, that I was free. 

That's How We Always Did It

So pretty much everyone has heard this story in different variations of the woman that cuts the end off of a ham/roast.  She tells her husband who asks why she does this that it's what her mother always did. She calls the mother to find out and she says it was what her mother always did.  When asked, Grandma says she cut the ends of the meat off because that was the only way it would fit in her roasting pan!

I heard this story years ago and it made me wonder what we do because "that's how we always did it" without questioning the whys.  I am a "like to know why" person but even something like this has snuck in on me from time to time, where I do the thing someone shows me, unquestioningly.
Recently we have been exploring the delicious world of raw milk and the nutritional benefits of kefir and unpasteurized dairy.  Raw milk is not only unpasteurized, but also non-homogenized.  (Homogenization being that process that fuses the cream that rises to the top with the rest of the milk so it does not separate.)  I've been drinking pasteurized, homogenized milk my whole life but for some reason, I grew up always giving the milk a few good hard shakes before drinking it.  I never stopped to wonder why. My parents did it and I learned to do it and then passed this little milk-shaking tradition on to my kids.  I can hardly bring myself to take a swallow from milk that doesn't have the little bubbles on top from being shaken, or out of a plastic cup...... but I digress.  The other day when shaking the raw milk, intentionally to mix the cream in with the milk, I realized that this "milk shaking" must have been passed on in my family for several generations.  Though we have been drinking milk that did not separate and thus had no purpose for shaking it for many years now, still we shake it, because that's how we always did it.
I'm looking at the world with new eyes. I'm questioning everything and asking why.

Oh Christmas Tree What a Year Can Bring

The holidays were so busy and with activity and chaos that when it all settled we weren't in a hurry to take down the Christmas tree.  It was only after the holidays that I found the opportunity to really sit and enjoy it.  But come down it must.  So yesterday Gary and I set out to accomplish this task, together.  

This is new for me - this idea of doing things "together".  I don't believe it has anything to do with being newlyweds, as some would say.  This is a goal for the two of us who suffered our share of heartbreak, lived for years with spouses who were not committed to us and struggled on our own to change this cruel fact and are determined to make this marriage, this relationship everything it can be. It is such a joy in life to finally not be alone.
While Kullen is away at winter camp this weekend, the girls were here to give us a hand.  I had gathered all of the Santas and stockings and nativity set pieces from around the house earlier in the day. I boxed away all of the Christmas cards we received for 2010 with the commitment to sit down next year when the decorations come out and read through them once again.  When the four of us went about removing the ornaments and lights and trimmings from the tree, I couldn't help but think of all that might change in the year before we see these things again.  So much has changed in the year since we visited them last and I am acutely aware of how much can change in the coming years as children grow into adults, parents and grandparents grow older, and time it seems stands still for no one.  In this past year though painful like childbirth, the changes have all been for the better - more peace, more love, more joy.  But I know that some years can be full of pain and struggle and loss. I have lived years such as that and though I have no desire to endure it again, it makes me stronger knowing I won't face it alone.
It was nice to see items that we took out independently from our separate stores to decorate the house for Christmas intermingled when we put them away.  Gary packed the boxes away in the container in the garage until next year and I set about cleaning and rearranging the living room.  With my birthday around the corner followed the arrival of spring, I will likely soon forget the depth of thought provoked by undecorating the Christmas tree, but then again there's always next year to remind me.

On posting a picture and wrapping the text:  it has taken me nearly half an hour to remember how to do something I used to do in my sleep!

It's the Little Things

Tonight I arrived home from work to a husband standing at the top of the stairs with my favorite Tequila Sunrise in hand.  The house smelled of the Italian chicken and pasta he had made for dinner.  On the table, a salad with a side of chopped mushrooms just for my bowl, since I am the only one who likes them.  During the day, he ran to town to take the comforter from our bed to the laundromat.  I have never been spoiled in my life.  I have seldom even know what it was like to have someone that not only didn't need me to take care of them, but invested their time and energy into making me happy and making my day just a little easier. In the few months that he entered my life, Gary has shown me more love and companionship than I have ever known.  I can still remember what it was like to be alone in the world, struggling.  I hope I never forget so that I always appreciate this gift given so freely, daily of his love.

2011: Day Two

This year is starting out much like all the rest.  Busy-ness, chaos and activity.  I have been off for most of the last two weeks, and I am looking forward to the routine and consistency of going back to work.  This morning was church and then a trip to the airport to send Kaitlyn's sweetheart, Matthew on his way home after a visit from Texas.  Soon he will graduate and come to college nearby so they can be together more often - but for now the ache of separation.  Kullen also said goodbye to his friend Tessa.  These first budding feelings are so fragile.  I think that I woke this morning burdened for my children and their sadnesses.  Fortunately, the busy-ness of the day did not allow me to carry them for long.
My goal in the next few days, weeks and months is to slow myself down. I need a few minutes each day not to be sucked away in the flurry of activity and the demands of others so that I can breathe a little. I want to write and paint and cook and do absolutely whatever I find to do without the tug and pull of obligation.  The one solace in any day I have is this - the fifteen or twenty minutes every night before I fall asleep in the arms of my sweetheart. I share the days joys and burdens with this man who exerts that it is his pleasure to walk this road of life beside me.  This makes all the difference.

A Little Bitter, Mostly Sweet

That is the best way that I can describe 2010. The year has come to a close and a new one has begun. When I was younger, a new year was met with excitement. Much like the exhilaration of a new journal, so many blank pages and the joy and anticipation of time and what story they would write - a new year was a story waiting to be told. In recent years I had become more cynical and increasingly more hopeless. No eager anticipation - just an ever increasing sense of being stuck - stuck in pain, stuck in misery. Just stuck.

I am thankful for the resilience of spirit and the inner strength that could only be from God that brought me through. This past year has been one of the most difficult of my life. I had to resign to the fact that my marriage was over. I saw the words in black and white of my divorce decree. That in itself did not hurt as much as I would have anticipated. My marriage had been dead for a very long time. What hurt was the letting go and giving up on something that I had worked so hard on. I was the EMT refusing to quit CPR though all signs of life had ceased.

From the ashes came beauty. About six weeks after my divorce was final, in a time that I would have never anticipated, I met someone. Gary and I were married on September 26th. He is truly my best friend. There is so much to how we met and why we married so quickly and what our plans are for the future. I am sure this venture back into blogging will offer many opportunities to share some of that. My blog has been more therapeutic than I ever could've imagined. It was here I poured out much of my pain, sorted a lot of confused thinking and found much comfort, support and advice. On these blank pages of this blog, over the course of this year I want to share our story as we write it. This is a story of love, forgiveness and laughter. It is a chronicle of family and faith and much healing.

The Mother Wound I Give

This morning - the overwhelming emotion is melancholy. A sense of sadness for what my kids are feeling. Kullen poured his heart out to me last night. He told me that though he didn't used to want his dad and I to get back together - he did now. He said he thought that his dad had changed and that the fighting would stop. It breaks.my.heart. It takes me back to my 9 year old self, standing in the driveway, begging my parents to fix what was broken, to love each other again, to validate me - the girl with a "real family" and not the girl whose life would always be marked by this horrible sadness.

All I know to do is hold Kullen tight. If he needs to be angry at me, to let that be okay.

He does not know the way the girls do how I pushed further, loved deeper, held on tighter. He doesn't see with any maturity how the neglect and abuse and loneliness choked my spirit, crushed me as a person, until I ceased to do more than surviving, limping around broken and bruised.

My heart aches for this beautiful child who daily is pushing towards manhood, but is still very much my little boy. Oh how I wish I could carry his pain, quiet the brewing storm and tenderly hold and protect him from this.

For so long I had this loop tape that played over and over again that "God hates divorce". How that one little phrase imprisoned me. It took a caring voice to tell me that God hated equally the things I was going through. I thought I would lose His love. I know now that He loves me - period, outside of my actions. He is the one day by day setting me free.

I can only hope that one day, my kids will all understand that I am holding out for a better way for all of us. I stayed as long as I did because I didn't want this hurt for them, but now see with more clarity that by staying I allowed them to be hurt in a different way. This is never what I wanted for any of us.

God help me minimize the damage and maximize the love.

Who is in Control?

I have been reading a book called "Boundaries" over the last 9 months or so. You can tell I've just been plowing through it. A co-worker loaned it to me and it's been sitting on my nightstand. Once in a while when I need a little encouragement, I pick it up. Last night was one of those nights.

When this book first came out it was pretty popular in Christian community, and therefore gave me an aversion to ever wanting to read it. This is part wisdom, and yes I confess at least in part, pride.

I do have very messy boundaries. I tend to throw myself into a relationship - whether it be friendship, parenting, or my relationship with my spouse in a sort of all or nothing kind of way. I have loved extravagantly, lavishly, overwhelmingly emptying myself of every reserve to find that I didn't save enough of my energy or care for my own survival.

What I am about to share is not going to be pretty, but it is about one of the most truthful things I have ever said about myself. Once I hit empty, I often lash out at the people that I've given so much to - given what they didn't ask for or what they may have asked but should have gotten a "no" answer. It's my own fault. I create the dynamic for a lot of the chaos and problems in my relationships.

The thing I learned last night is how much of what I do and say that is "reactionary". I sometimes don't fully digest what another person is saying before I react. I know where this comes from - I grew up feeling as if every thought and feeling I had were not valid. I didn't feel like anyone ever listened to me. When someone did take the time to listen, they always reacted with explosive anger because they couldn't control my emotions or me. The Boundaries book stated clearly that the person that reacts gives away control - but the person that responds maintains control, not over the other person or the situation, but with options and choices for yourself. This was profound.

I have put a lot of blame outside of myself in my relationships. I'm not saying that these other people are perfect, we all obviously do a lot of things that trigger the worst in one another. But the only thing I can really work on is me. I'm starting today to pay attention, to slow down my responses and try to respond instead of react.

Now, I owe someone an apology for last night, which is a start.

Can I Be Authentic?

I have always prided myself on being authentic. I share what I am feeling, and do so openly with others. One thing I found when I became a believer is that a lot of people seemed to candy-coat their troubles with smiles, a lot of "God is in control" jargon (not that He isn't in control but that it seemed a crutch versus a true belief as if they were convincing themselves in the saying so), or a sick and twisted martyrdom that seemed to relish the pain.

I had a friend admonish me for some of the dramatic things I was posting as my status updates on Facebook. I appreciated the feedback. It made me take a step back and look at how this was being conveyed. I was wearing my hurt on my sleeve for all of the world to see. This was very helpful. It made the me think about my audience, and what I want to share. This post is not meant in any way to be a rebuttal of what I learned from that person's words, but some things God has clarified in my heart.

In tossing this around, I started to think of people in the Bible and how they handled pain. I remembered these words of Job in his distress:

"Obliterate the day I was born. Blank out the night I was conceived! Let it be a black hole in space. May God above forget it ever happened. Erase it from the books! May the day of my birth be buried in deep darkness, shrouded by fog, swallowed by the night. And the night of my conception - the devil take it! Rip the date off the calendar, delete it from the alamanac. Oh, turn that night into pure nothingness - no sounds of pleasure from that night, ever! May those who are good at cursing curse that day."

How's that for drama? I know that my losses may not stack up to those that were suffered by Job, but they are losses nonetheless. I think that there is a time and a place for lamenting. It may not have been as public as Facebook is for Job or King David, but I don't believe it was done with their head buried in their pillow behind closed doors all the time either. This given the fact that we have their words of lament to read centuries later. This shared human hurt is a place where we all connect.

I have been lonely. I have been sick. I have been burned by love. I have given and been denied what I gave in return. I have lost my house, my kids, my job. I have been kicked when I was down. I have been put down, torn up, and shut out. We can all relate to these statements and somewhere along the way, this kind of sharing helps us to feel that we truly aren't alone. Another person can say, "I was where you are, and I survived to hold your hand while you go through it."

Too often I think we want a quick fix for everybody. I think that the suffering of other people often makes us uncomfortable. We want a drive-thru spiritual fix for these deep rooted issues, these lifelong hurts and there is no such thing. Sometimes we have to see people at their worst - I know that the people who have met me in the last year have seen me at the worst possible time of my life. It is what it is. As some healing starts to take place, things are shifting. I've been leaning on things that remind me so much of the snow I fell in yesterday - when I try to brace myself in the wrong places, I find I just sink deeper.

I really don't understand a culture that will spend so much money on watching the fictionalized drama of people on TV or in the movies, who are so unwilling to deal with the real life pain and problems of people right next to them. I don't know what God is doing with this wreck that I am. But I do know this, I have His permission to lament, to question His love for me, to doubt and fear. He isn't afraid of any of that. He can handle it. It has been through those moments that His love and care for me have become most real and absolutely tangible. Maybe I'll share it on Facebook - maybe I won't, but if I do - both sides of the story will appear over time - both the hurt and the doubt, followed at some point by the healing and the comfort. If others are uncomfortable then they can feel free to look away, with my blessings.