I've found myself addicted to many things that have hurt me spiritually, but with the help of an AMAZING God, a WONDERFUL husband, and a few good friends I am overcoming. I have what some people call an addictive personality, and I have heard it said that when one addiction is given up it can be quickly replaced with the next best thing that comes along...all I can say is I HOPE SO.
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Being
11:05 AM by Christi Bowman
A year and a half ago God revealed Himself to me in the middle of my addictive mess. He said: "I did not create you for this"
Today, as I was listening to "China" by Tori Amos I was reflecting on the fact that although the song is meant to be a love song, it is still very indicative of how I feel about the relationship I have with my mother.
As I sat looking out the window bathing my soul in beautiful lyrics I mourned a relationship that I thought I had, lost, and have been trying to get back for years. A tear slid down my cheek, and at that moment Jesus whispered into my ear: "This is what you were created for."
I picked up my book "The Wounded Heart" and began reading. God's perfectly timed affirmation and confirmation blew me away.
"Paul was willing to be poured out like a drink offering, to fight the good fight, and to finish the race, because he knew his hunger for the Lord's appearing would be rewarded with the prize of the Lord's commendation. To be greeted by the Lord with the prize of His "well done" embrace was a reward that supplanted the ordinary concerns for comfort.
The person who desires to deal with the wounds of past abuse will not feel courageous, nor will there be the immediate exaltation of starting out on a new journey; the bonds of the soul will not be quickly freed or broken. What, then, is the reason for moving toward the goal of God's embrace? Again the answer is a hunger for more. God has made us with a natural desire to be as He is: alive, righteous, pure, passionate, loving. To honor what God has called us to be is the reason a man or woman chooses the path of change."
I am changing my extended family's dynamic. I don't feel courageous, and immediate exaltation is definitely absent. My parents are not healthy, but when God placed me in my mother's womb He knew this day would come. He loves my parents much more than I do and He wants them healed. He has chosen to live out His courage in me as I stand against what is unhealthy for all of us. But I must cling to Him in order to to have the strength to carry out His will.
The path of least resistance for me is to run back and allow my mother to act like nothing ever happened until a time when it suites her to throw my behavior back in my face. We (my family) have all been in this place before, but we have never been any farther that this. The unknown is scary. I am facing an uphill battle as I trudge ahead into unfamiliar territory. Today my mantra will be: "Perfect love drives out fear"
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." ~ I John 4:18 ~"
China all the way to New York I can feel the distance getting close You're right next to me But I need an airplane I can feel the DISTANCE as you breathe
Sometimes I think you want me to touch you How can I when you build a great WALL around you In your eyes I saw a future together You just look away in the distance
China decorates our table Funny how the CRACKS don't seem to show Pour the wine dear You say we'll take a holiday But we never can agree on where to go
Sometimes I think you want me to touch you How can I when you build a great WALL around you In your eyes I saw a future together You just look away in the distance
China all the way to New York Maybe you got lost in MEXICO You're right next to me I think that you can hear me Funny how the distance learns to grow
Sometimes I think you want me to touch you How can I when you build a great WALL around you I can feel the distance I can feel the distance I can feel the distance getting close
God is so good and although at times He hurts us to heal us I am finding that He both affirms and confirms each step of the way.
On the day I first called my mother, God confirmed what I was feeling in a publication I read every morning:
"I grew up with mixed feelings of love for my parents. They both were generous and helpful at times, but bad things from others happened to me while I was under their watch. I was shaped by things beyond my control, and my love for them became a mixture of emotions - it was an inconvenient love filled with an unconscious resentment." ~ Lowell Martin - "Under The Morning Star"
I have read Mr. Martin's publication every morning now for the last 5 months and this was the first time that Mr. Martin had hinted at past abuse.
Tonight, as the relationship I had with my parents comes to a close I read this quote in "The Wounded Heart Workbook:"
"The process of change is rarely easy; the decisions at important forks in the road are not quickly clear" ~ Dr Allender ~ pg. 7
I am having a hard time not responding to my dad's email but I know it is the best decision. I do feel as though I am at a fork in the road; do I call, sweep my feelings under the rug once more, and beg for their mercy or do I cut my losses and go forward without them? The answer is in the following quote:
"The tragedy of abuse is manifold, but one singular tragedy is that abuse victims so often find themselves repeating patterns and reentering relationships where they are violated in ways that replay dimensions of the past abuse"~ Dr Allender "The Wounded Heart" pg 26
If I choose to respond to my dad's email in a way that causes me to sweep my feelings under the rug and beg for their mercy I am once again not living in the freedom that God is offering; instead I am repeating patterns of being invalidated every single time I expose my heart.
"The fruit of healing, freedom, and aliveness is not always happiness. Biblical change actually opens a new realm of service and worship that, at times, puts one at odds with relationships that were founded on our willingness to be sick, enslaved, or dead. ~ Dr Allender ~ "The Wounded Heart Workbook" pg 8
"One woman described the process of dealing with her abuse as a cure that at times seemed worse than the disease...'I am finding reality is more of a nightmare than it was when I lived in the deluded, distorted fog of self hatred.'" ~ Dr. Allender ~ " The Wounded Heart Workbook" pg. 7
Recently, I have found myself at odds in certain relationships; and since I have started this journey reality really does, at times, seem like more of a nightmare...
I feel as though God is saying it is OK to feel this way...it is normal...although I feel as if I am being driven crazy...I am not crazy.
"The best path is through the valley of the shadow of death. The crags of doubt and the valleys of despair offer a proving ground of God that no other terrain can provide. God does show Himself faithful; but the geography is often desert-dry and mountainous-demanding, to the point that the path seems to dangerous to face the journey ahead...the path involves the risk of putting into words the condition of our inner being and placing those words before God for His response...The obstacle to life is the conviction that God will damage and destroy us. The problem is that the path does involve His hurting us, but only in order to heal us"
I am being broken, dashed against the Cornerstone. I am proving God in the "crags of doubt" and the "valleys of despair." He is there, but it is a waiting game! Jesus is not like us; He does not rush through pain or bypass it altogether. He purposefully walks right into the center of it. He is unafraid. Jesus makes pain His home. He makes it ours too if we allow Him to take us there. The painful places are where He wants to go; they are where Jesus feels most at home. We are the ones who want a quick fix. Pain makes us uncomfortable. We want to hurry it up and sweep pain under the rug.
My mother never really had any friends. She kept everybody at arms length, eventually even me. For a time I knew her inside and out. I knew other people considered her a friend, but I also knew that she did not trust them. She had a beautiful facade and put on a glorious show but I knew who she really was. It was not that she was a bad person...when you are loved by her she is the most amazing person in the world. Growing up, she was spectacular, and others in her path thought so too. It was not that she did not get along with people it was that she did not trust them. When people would get to close or demand more from her than she was willing to give she would, without a word, pick up and silently move on. I am not sure she would be able to admit this to herself, even today.
My mother and I have had a very strenuous relationship for years now. She used to call me her best friend, but that was many years ago. she has since picked up and silently moved on and left me with only her shell. For a few years we enjoyed peace, but what I did not realize then was: The harmonious times would only last for about as long as I remained the person she wanted me to be. When I dressed the way she wanted me to dress, when I did the things she wanted me to do, when I dated who she wanted me to date, when I could be controlled and therefor trusted my life was filled to the brim with pleasantries. But, when I dared to step outside of her will I became uncontrollable and therefor incapable of being trusted. I quickly found out that my mother's love was conditional. Nothing has changed.
Today I do not get phone calls, although it is expected of me to call. when I can bring myself to call, which is not often enough, I can feel her keeping me at arms length and when I am in her presence the distance feels even worse. There are so many elephants in the room, so much pain and anger swept under the rug for the sake of niceties that the air is thick with tension.
I have recently told my mom that I want to start being honest about the things that hurt me hoping against hope that honesty might remove some of the tension. It was my sincere desire to find out, through truth telling, that I had somehow created her, in my head, to be a person that she was not. I assumed that by being honest about my feelings she would come through for me and I could then change how I saw my mother. This was not to be.
If I ever needed a mother, these past few weeks were the time. I called her on a Thursday at 2 a.m. to talk about some of the memories I was having. I was desperate for her solace. She was not supportive. She spoke words that stung rather than words of comfort and she cut me very deeply. I tried to be honest with her the next day and she only got more angry. I could not talk to her so I passed the phone to my husband hoping that he could somehow make her aware of the pain I was in. She continued to say hurtful things.
After I was out of treatment I sent her an email trying to explain my state of mind and why I was angry with her. She was unable to hear that. During a phone call she was quick to absolve herself of any guilt during the 2 a.m. call saying that she was not in the right state of mind at that time for that type of phone call. I told her I could understand that, but I wondered why, during a time when phone calling was more appropriate, she had said hurtful things about me to my husband. She never denied those for a minute all she could do was accuse him of betrayal. After blaming my husband for things that were not his she went on to say that she would never be able to forget the hurt I caused her for choices I made as a late teen finding my way through the pain of past abuse. As I hung up the phone I realized that the tension that had hung so thickly in the air for all those years was gone but to my surprise there was no longer a relationship underneath it.
Today I got an email from my dad making it very clear whose side he was on. I do not blame him really, but he also had to walk me through, in many paragraphs, why I was a bad daughter. He completely invalidated me and at one point even bolded, underlined, and in all caps said "shame on you." I couldn't believe my eyes. My heart began to race and I began to sweat. Time does heal wounds but the process takes longer when people keep ripping those wounds wide open. I had just begun to heal and make sense of yesterday's phone call when I received today's email.
After today we are being proactive and my husband, in an effort to protect me, has blocked their emails. The other day a friend informed me that God does not hurt us only fallen people do...but I will have to disagree. The relationship with my parents has been toxic for years and in the last few weeks has become unbearably painful. As of yesterday and today I have felt free of any need to continue a relationship with them, but that freedom came with a price tag and its price was pain.
Today, on Wrecked For the Ordinary, I read a timely piece titled "Love in the Midst of Pain." Kari Miller writes: "Why had love exposed my tender place only to leave it unprotected?"
Ms. Miller said it correctly. Jesus exposes our tender places only to leave them unprotected. Fallen people do hurt, but Jesus tenderizes the hard places and that belongs only to Him. He does this for freedom...not freedom from flesh and blood, but freedom from powers and principalities and that type of freedom is costly and its currency is pain.
I am reading a book, "The Wounded Heart" by Dr. Dan B. Allender. On page 13 Dr Allender states: "One of the central messages of most books on abuse, this one included, is freedom from the guilt of the past abuse." I excitedly underlined "freedom from the guilt of the past abuse" because I was hopeful, but then I read "What occurred is not your fault.", and I was crestfallen.
I do suffer from guilt, but, unlike most, maybe, I understand that the abuse was not my fault. I don't need anyone to comfort me in that way. I struggle with the continuation of the cycle. I struggle not with anger towards my abuser, but with anger towards people in general and my children specifically. I struggle a bit with OCD. I also struggle with depression when my OCD is unmanagable because I have small children running around. I struggle with control, and personal space. When people, besides my children, disturb the order of things I choose to not be around them which, I will admit, is very limiting, but, my kids, I cannot choose to avoid.
When my children disturb the order of things I find that sometimes I can control myself but at other times I just can't. I do things that I don't agree with and that, my reading friends, is what I want freedom from...and no, I don't just want freedom from the guilt of the things that I do...I want freedom from the things I do.
Please pray for me; I covet your prayers. I am being proactive. A friend of mine told me that people don't change until they find that they are in to much pain to continue on in the way they always have. I did not quite believe her because I was very aware that my anger has always caused me great pain and I have always believed the pain of it to be unbearable, but I could never change no matter how bad the hurt or how hard I tried.
That all changed on a Wednesday night two weeks ago (05/13/09.) I couldn't sleep. I was journaling about this most recent healing season I have entered, and a memory of past abuse grabbed me and yanked me back to my past. I woke my husband at 2 a.m. desperate not to be alone. I told him I was tired, tired of holding it all together by a single, bare thread. I was tired of not knowing when I was going to have a bad day. I was tired of desperately trying to behave myself when a bad day was upon me, and I was most tired of failing and doing and saying things that I regret to those I love most in this world. One of my biggest fears is that my little ones whom I love will in some way become like me and this cycle will continue for generations to come. I want to be the cycle breaker!
There have been days when I have not wanted to get out of bed, but I have done it anyway for the sake of the children. There are days when I wanted medication to ease the insanity and take the edge off, but I had none. There were days when I wanted to tear apart the house with my bare hands but I chose to yell and belittle instead. I felt as though I was my own worst enemy because I looked like I was doing just fine, but I wasn't. On Wed night I told my husband that I was tired of behaving, but that I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to just let go and so I wanted to die. Wednesday night was the first night I have ever been suicidal and I was in indescribable pain.
On Thursday we took the kids to their paternal grandparents house and we started looking for places to help me get well. On Saturday we settled for inpatient treatment at Linden Oaks hospital and I checked myself in. I was there for five days and they were well spent. Life on the outside was like finger nails on a chalk board everything around me was overstimulating to the point of absolute craziness.
Those five days taught me a lot about myself. On Thursday I was discharged to an outpatient program and aloud to return home in the evenings. After I have completed the outpatient program I will continue to see a therapist. I was able to see my three beautiful children over the holiday weekend in St Louis and I was overjoyed to spend some time with them. They will remain with their paternal grandparents for about two more weeks as I continue to stabilize.
I want freedom from abuse...both past and present.
I was abused in a home daycare setting when I was very young. I never told anyone the extent of the abuse. I did not know how. I remember trying to convey to my mom that it was a mean place and that I did not like going...I was told repeatedly that my abusers loved me. When I brought this to my mother's attention several months ago she confided that she did remember my complaints but was under the assumption that I did not like discipline.
I do not talk about this much on here; truth be told I do not let it define me. Most of the time it does not even bother me.
I had repressed a lot of the abuse for many years...though not all of it. I have always had an extreme dislike for the family and whenever their name or that time period would come up I shuddered and hate would course through my entire body. I walked away with a few tangible memories. Later, those memories would solidify other experiences.
Several years back, when my oldest was a year old, my husband and I were in Arizona without her. We happened to be in our hotel room late at night watching a documentary on legal brothels in the United States. The content on the television along with the gnawing absence of my cute little girl led to my first "trigger" moment.
That night in our hotel room, for the first time in ages, my mind was forcefully yanked back to my youngest school aged years. I had a few very vivid memories of acting out abuse like scenarios on myself, my friends, and my little brother during sleep overs; there were a few times when my mom would walk in and catch me in the act red handed...those were the times that mothers were called and my friends were sent home. I was always lectured up one side and down the other after such events and told that good christian girls don't behave in that way. I did not know how to stop.
On one such occasion I made a tape with a friend as we acted out our drama in her room. Later, after I went home, my friend felt horribly guilty about what I made her do and played the tape for her mother. Her mom called my mom and wanted to come over and play the tape for her...I distinctly remember my friend's mom telling my mother that I knew way to much for someone my age. The tape mysteriously ended up destroyed and the meeting never happened. I often wonder now what might have happened had my mother heard the tape. At that point I feared for my life, and never thought myself so lucky as when the tape mysteriously disappeared, but now, as a mother myself, I often wonder if maybe, just maybe, had my mother been able to listen she would have realized that something was dreadfully wrong.
As I lay there frozen by my memories I began to put my little girl in my place and me in my mother's. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I had come up against all of my sexual exploits as my mother had mine and if the little girl that was participating in them belonged to me and not to her I would have ceased conveying that she was bad and that she should not behave in that manner...I would ask her what had happened and I would get help for her. I was mad at my mother for many years after I came to that conclusion because I could not talk to her about it. I felt very betrayed. I had indeed cried out for help and I was told that I was dirty. It was not until much later that I came to realize that as a mother in the twenty first century I had a lot more education on what to look for in an abuse victim than my mother ever had.
That hot Arizona night was the night this journey to uncover deeply buried secrets began and it has not ended. I find that moments like I had in Arizona come in waves and I am thankful that the cycles have distance between them. Once my mind is drug back to that place and time it takes a few weeks to recover, but I always emerge with more "evidence" than I had before. One night during an episode several years after the first, but still a few years back (my oldest was 4) I was so tired of being haunted by this that I begged God to help me get to the bottom of it or take the memories away completely. He was faithful to reveal the truth, although not right away. He had His work cut out for Him. He had to first get me to a place where I would allow Him to take the lead.
During the time after my little prayer my alcoholism grew steadily worse, as did other addictions, and the loathing of myself. It got so bad that I could not carry on a conversation with anyone without the "innocent" little cup of hidden booze. How I recovered from all of that is chronicled in this blog as my first post ever was the first time I confessed that I was an alcoholic and my journey goes on from there.
After only two months of sobriety I was flooded with another wave of memories brought on by the debriefing of an AIM psychologist after taking the Taylor Johnson test. I was aloud no numbing agent to ease the pain. At any other time I would have convinced my husband to buy a bottle of wine or two...he would have had half a glass and I would have drank the rest including whatever was left in his glass...I would have cried on his shoulder until I passed out. I would not have had the courage to do anything else. I was not in my right mind...I was scared.
Without the numbing agent I was in a lot of pain, but I was not scared. I was angry. I was ready to admit that the thoughts I was having were not something I had conjured up...they were real and I could not grow as a person until they were dealt with. I looked up my abuser with the help of Google and I stared at him for a very long time; that was the first time that doing anything like that occurred to me. Afterward I journaled like a mad woman until I was ready to confront my mother and the one thing that I refused to listen to anymore was that I was loved by my abuser. I needed her to know the full extent of what had happened and I needed her to acknowledge it. She did.
I am now a year later still dealing with the consequences of abuse. Just the other day I was reading a book "The Furious Longing of God" by Brennan Manning. I was caught of guard when a nun started telling her story of abuse in the book. My mind was once again yanked back to the past and the affirmation I received weighed on me like a ton of very heavy bricks.
I am in the midst of this healing crisis, it has not yet passed. I am not on the other side looking back at how much I have learned. I am moving out of the eye of the storm and although it is not quite so agonizing as the eye itself it is still a painful place to be. I know God is with me. I know He is healing me, and I know that sense will be made of all that has happened, if not in this life than the next...God has all of eternity.
Kevin and I have been desperately seeking authentic community while we are still state side. To be blatantly honest it has been a lonely road; authentic community that lasts past the excitement of the "getting to know you" phase is extremely hard to find.
Last October Kevin and I went to investigate a long standing group of Christians living out community together in the city of Chicago; it wasn't what we were looking for. Soon after that we left institutional church and began fellowshipping in our home with a few couples; we had some good times, learned a lot, but we still found we had a deep longing for something different and we were not being filled even within that group.
Once again, finding ourselves in a very restless spot, we checked out another existing community within the Chicago land area, Reba Place. Grant it we are still in the "getting to know you" phase, but it is looking very promising. Kevin has always said that if he were ever to leave the Church's of Christ, it would be for a Mennonite community and we were pleasantly surprised and very pleased when we found out that that is exactly what Reba Place is...it was a confirmation of sorts.
Today was the second Sunday in a row that we attended Living Water, a church affiliated with Reba Place and pastored by one of its members. I am not a fan of pulpits and although Living Water is still filled with "pews" I heard some VERY promising things...things I have never heard from a pulpit in the church's that I have attended.
Living Water is looking for a new pastor, as the current pastor feels the Lord is moving her on. As she stood before the congregation sharing with them the interim plan, she asked fellow congregants to step up and fill her shoes by putting their name on a roster...but that was not all...what floored me was the plan to invite people to speak in their pulpit from other denominations so that they might learn something...WOW...the humility!! Other denominations that I have been a part of could really learn from that example. It seems refreshing to me to be growing closer to a community of people who are willing to admit that they don't have all the answers and are also willing to admit that they could learn something from people who don't see things quite the way they do.
"If God can forgive a host of sin why not a host of bad theology?"
We should really be asking ourselves, Why don't we want to hear anything different? What are we so afraid of?
The second thing that I heard and felt my spirit leap with joy for was that Living Water believes that the church is still growing and learning and that God is still revealing new things to the church via revelation. I know that it is easy to believe something with all your heart and then when faced with it resist it, but if Living Water lives this belief out than it is a place of freedom and not the frightening place I found my last church to be. Denominations exclude; they exclude people who do not subscribe to the same set of beliefs that they do...down to the littlest of jots and tittles. Living Water, from the pulpit at least, acknowledges that the Spirit is living and active and they seem to be receptive to Him breathing fresh new life into them...that is promising!
"Blessed are not the enlightened who's every question has been answered and who are delighted with their own sublime insight; the mature and ripe ones who's one remaining action is to fall from the tree. Blessed rather are the chaste, the harassed who must daily stand before my enigmas and cannot solve them." ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar ~
Last but not least, from the pulpit, violence and greed were not only denounced but it was said that an individual Christian who is growing in the Lord will need to denounce them as well...that sets a higher bar than the places I have been affiliated with. I received an email forward the other day filled with "great christian" bumper stickers against Obama. The sticker I found to be most shocking and egregious stated:
Warning. I'm A Bitter Christian Clinging To My Gun
Sadly, most church's today are still believing that God's dream is the American dream. It's not!
I came home to the suburbs with a sad heart. I was sad that I could not stay in Rogers Park and experience what that community experiences on a daily basis. I get a taste and then I must go home. Sadly that is the season I am in right now. God gives me a fabulous taste of what He is doing...in Africa, in Lexington, in St. Louis, in Gainseville, and now in Rogers Park...but than I must return to the home that I am burdened with to do life on my own...the American dream way...because God is not ready to loosen our bonds yet.
In my sadness I did something I do not usually do. As I opened my Bible I asked God to allow me to land somewhere spontaneously that would be an encouragement to me. I opened to Isaiah 40:31:
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
I am a in a season of waiting, but He is clearly waiting with me and He cares enough about me to personally speak into my life...that alone is encouraging and will sustain me.
"I say to you: Blessed is he who exposes himself to an existence never brought under mastery; who does not transcend but rather abandons himself to my ever transcending grace. Blessed are not the enlightened who's every question has been answered and who are delighted with their own sublime insight; the mature and ripe ones who's one remaining action is to fall from the tree. Blessed rather are the chaste, the harassed who must daily stand before my enigmas and cannot solve them. Blessed are the poor in spirit - those who lack a spirit of cleverness. Whoa to the rich and whoa to the doubly rich in spirit, although nothing is impossible with God, it is difficult for the Spirit to move their fat hearts. The poor are willing and easy to direct; like little puppies they do not take their eyes from the Master's hand to see if perhaps He may throw them a little morsel from His plate. So carefully do the poor follow my promptings that they listen to the wind which blows where it pleases even when it changes. From the sky they can read the weather and interpret the signs of the times. My grace is unpretentious, but the poor are satisfied with little gifts." ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar ~
* Quoted in "The Furious Longing of God" of Brennan Manning
"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
I am a strung out next best thing junkie. God has stripped me of anything tangible to place my hope in. I stand here filled with the knowledge that I do not know how to put my hope in Him. He is not the source of my joy; the next best thing is. He has made me painfully aware that without the next best thing to hope in I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning. He has finally brought me to the painful realization that He is in fact not what I live for...I have hit rock bottom...again.
A little over a year and a half ago I hit rock bottom for the first time. I had squeezed the last drop of pleasure out of every single addiction I had and they became nothing but an evil presence stealing life from me. I was living for my next fix...my next high...and it was in that wretched state that God came and rescued me; He lovingly stripped me of every single addiction I had, and He taught me how to live without them. He was my source of strength and comfort when, without my addictions, I dealt with why I was an addict. He made walking through the pain almost enjoyable as I got to soak in His presence as He made everything beautiful and worthwhile.
but that is not the end of my story.
I am on a long and hard journey with plenty of gigantic hurdles. Jesus has offered me a lot of healing but He has also been a sharp shooter; He has not hesitated to show me where I continue cycles of pain and hurt many people as I have been hurt. Owning up to the part I play instead of playing the victim has been especially painful with no vice to turn to...or so I thought.
This year and a half has been a period of cleansing but it has also been a period of emptying. Healing comes in layers, and after taking away the obvious more socially inappropriate addictions He has begun His work on the addictions that don't look so bad to the naked eye.
I like things to happen...I like excitement. I do not like hitting brick walls. I do not like to be still and wait. If the house were to sell that would be something to put my energies into. It would take up all of my time and the future would be something I could put my hope in. Our house is not selling...no one will even come and look at it. If we had people in the market to buy coming over to walk through our home every now and then that would be promising...it would be a next best thing...something to look forward to...something to put my hope in...
For the last two weeks I have been on a juice fast of sorts. Nothing but freshly pressed vegetable juice all day and a plant based meal at night. The first week was easy, but this last week has forced me into a depression as I have nothing to look forward to...nothing at all. It is as if sugar, and salt, and caffeine were my last bastions of tangible hope, and without them I might as well be giving up alcohol for the first time all over again.
A clean house is how I have always kept a firm grip on my reality. If my house was in order than I was too. Lately I have lost all of the energy I need to keep my house in good shape; it is all I can do to keep the sink clear of dishes. As I watch things pile up I feel hopeless but powerless. I have never understood, in the past, how people could just give into depression and quit fighting, but from where I am standing right now it doesn't seem so much like me giving in as much as it is taking over and I am powerless to stop it.
So here I sit at Rock bottom...again...with all my addictions stripped from me. There is no exciting future right around the corner to hope in...there are no potential buyers to hope in...there are no socially acceptable stimulants to get me through this funk and there is no ability to clean a house and so there is no place of order to retreat to and find my sanity...
I have finally arrived at the place I have unwittingly been avoiding for as long as I can remember. I have no where to run and nothing to hide in. God has stripped me of everything I have used to prolong this moment...both the acceptable and the unacceptable things. It is just me and a whole lot of pain and nothing tangible to soothe it and bury it in. I am learning the hard way how to hope in Him because I have nothing left to hope in but His promises. So I will sit here waiting and hoping in His healing presence because He does not give to me as the world gives...He does not want to gloss over the pain or bury it until the next time...He wants to truly heal and remove that ever present nagging ache in my soul that I am forced to face whenever it chooses to rear its ugly head...and that is worth the setting down of all that is tangible.
He is not coming fast for me as He did last time because He is teaching me to hope in Him.
"Speak to me in the light of the dawn Mercy comes with the morning I will sigh and with all creation groan as I wait for hope to come for me"
"my comfort would prefer for me to be numb. And avoid the impending birth of who I was born to become"
I have dabbled in the discipline of fasting, and there have been times when I have completed a fast and there have been times when I have not. Because God is a God of grace I have learned from both.
When I fail to complete a fast I learn that food is not the only thing I need. I am hungry and weak and miserable while I abstain from nutrients and yet once I give in to my flesh I find that the joy obtained from eating is fleeting. Instead I have robbed myself from a deeper and more meaningful experience. The food which I believed to be the only thing needed now becomes the bane of my existence as I am awakened to the fact that my body is not the only part of me that suffers; my spirit does as well and when I am feeding one the other goes without.
I have learned something quite different when I have been disciplined enough, with the help of Christ, to finish a fast. I recently finished a work week fast during Holy week and when I ate my first meal it was not what I thought it would be. I had stopped feeling the severe hunger pains of the first few days, but I was still hungry every now and then. Instead of soothing my stomach like sustenance usually does, it turned it sour and I was in a small amount of discomfort for quite a while. There were more long lasting effects as well: For a week and maybe a little more I was content with much less and for even longer than that I was easily able to maintain a pretty raw diet.
As I find myself coming up on the one month anniversary of my first five day fast I find myself longing to do it again. I don't like the food cravings that have once again returned to haunt me. I don't like desiring more food than what I need. I don't like fighting myself off. I am anxious to return to the week after my fast when it was easy, but I am not anxious for the week of fasting because that was hard.
I see this fasting scenario as a metaphor for my life.
These days I find that there is a part of me, no matter what I choose, that is always at odds with the decisions I make. If I choose to act out in rage when I am angry then my flesh gets fed, but my spirit goes hungry. If I choose to suffer my spirit is fed but my flesh starves. When I remain disciplined in any area of my life I see spiritual fruit, but my flesh rages against the discipline; at times I am worn down by constantly fighting my flesh and when I choose to give into it, I once again find that choosing to feed my flesh over my spirit brings no real joy. The real joy is in the denial of myself and the fleeting pleasure that I do derive from giving in only serves to mock me and so I find it to be no pleasure at all, only humiliation. Still, in the moment before my flesh wins out I can never seem to recall the misery of past experience. My flesh is a strong and cunning enemy.
Today I had to stare down the foreboding darkness of depression. It was coming for me and I could feel it with every bone in my body. Everything was slipping away. I could find no pleasure in anything and it was all I could do to stay awake. I have been on a pretty strict juicing diet for two weeks now and have also been making some pretty intentional flesh denying decisions. We are pursuing communal living and making intentional decisions towards that goal. As of yet our house has not sold. It is hard on my flesh to learn to live sustainably and simplistically without the support of an intentional community.
I asked God why I was feeling this way and I pleaded for His help. His reassuring answer was that my flesh was fighting dying to self. That made sense to me and I can always fight something better when I understand it. Dying is not something that our bodies relish; even Jesus did not die the instant He was hung on the cross...His body fought to live and so He hung there suffering for hours. My body is going to fight having Jesus formed in it with everything its got because it instinctively knows that Jesus' life is death for it. I now know that much like the first few days of a fast when I refuse to give in to my flesh it will threaten me with shutting down however I also know that with continual denial the threats stop and life goes on. Tinges of fleshly discomfort will no doubt persist but just like the Nike t-shirt in the store front window my motto will be:
