On Veiled Beauty and Golden Eggs April 28, 2008

Have you ever been the one who gets to hide the Easter eggs?  I have.  I filled the plastic pastel colored ovoids with little trinkets and hid most of them in obvious places.  I saved a few to hide in trickier places, places that take more effort and creativity to uncover.  Those are great fun!  But then there are the golden eggs.  I always bought one or two big golden eggs.  I put REAL treasure in those.  Now obviously I want my girls to find these eggs, right?  I mean that’s why I went to all the trouble.  So why, oh why did I decide to hide the golden eggs in impossible places?  Why not just stick them on the floor in the middle of the room?  Of course I couldn’t!  So during the whole hunt while the girls were running around giggling and squealing with discovery I was laughing at them but screaming on the inside, but the golden eggs, the GOLDEN EGGS!!!! 

 

Life is God’s Easter egg hunt.  When I think about the Beauty God built into the universe I realize that humans have been diligently unveiling His Beauty for millenia and have barely scratched the surface.  How that must delight and torture Him!  What great fun for us to hunt for it and how tragic to Him when we give up the search!

 

I was thinking something else.  Just as the greatest form of giving is anonymous, I think the greatest form of beauty ‘creation’ is the hidden kind.  How tough I find it to make something truly beautiful and not push for others to see it and applaud.  It reminds me of an Old Testament drink offering poured out on the ground.  Not wasted, but Offered to a Higher thirst.

 

One more thing.  If we are God’s little plastic eggs, I want to be a golden one.  I hope my Beauty is not the kind that runs out in front of me, but the kind that takes a little effort to unveil.  And I hope the effort is worth it.

A Romantic Interlude April 23, 2008

I have a long commute to work.  It’s become my favorite time of the day.  I drive with God.  We often play music or listen to the Scriptures.  Sometimes I talk to Him and sometimes I just ride quietly and listen.  This morning I asked Him ‘do you love me?’  It just kind of spilled out and I immediately regretted it.  How would I feel if He didn’t answer?  I quickly packed the question away and before long I had been swept up in the music again.

I pulled into my parking spot and lingered a minute or two to hear the end of the song.  Yeah, it was one of those mornings.  I just couldn’t pull myself away.  I reluctantly turned the key and got out and shut the door.  This has been an amazing Spring.  At this moment Spring is at its peak.  I can just barely see the colors of the leaves still packed away tightly in their buds.  Their intensity is tantalizing.  Maybe it was the colors leaking through the cracks or maybe it was the aroma of newness that made me so acutely aware of my surroundings as I walked in to the building from my car.  A quartet of birds sang a chorus to me in an intricately woven countermelody.  The rays of the sun enfolded me like a golden blanket and the wind fell playfully upon my face in what felt like tender kisses.  By the time I passed through the door and swiped my badge I had a grin on my face that wouldn’t quit for hours.  I realized that my question had been answered. 

A big black hole April 19, 2008

I have a big black hole inside me where my parents should go.  I’m starting to realize just how deep it goes.  God has blessed me with wonderful relationships.  He has placed me in an extended family called the church and that family thrills and satisfies me and more than heals all wounds from the family I was born into.  With one exception.  The problem is with me.  I haven’t been able to sustain an intimate relationship with older men or women who look out for me the way moms and dads are supposed to look out for their kids.  I haven’t been able to trust or share my heart with anyone I sense wants that kind of relationship with me.  It’s not like I have a lot of offers anyway.  I appear so confident and competent.  I don’t seem to ‘need’ it but that confidence covers a deep unmet need I haven’t been able to show.  So how do you do it?  Has anyone reading this ever been able to find a mom or dad substitute who really cared, who fought for you, who called you out?  Have you been able to sustain a relationship that set things right and healed old wounds?  How?

A Brewing Storm Unleashed April 15, 2008

I’m giving you a heads up that this next story is not only a difficult one to share but it may be difficult to read. It is one that I’ve not shared with many people. It happened when I was 15.

 Let me share a bit of background first. We lived on a farm that was close to town, so we would often walk to and from school. My friends would often walk uptown after school and hang out at the local café. I so badly wanted to go with them, sit and have a coke and just hang, but I was never allowed too. Being farm kids we were always expected to go straight home after school, since there were always farm chores to do.

 One day while walking home from school I took a different route than I usually did, and walked with some friends uptown, but then headed for home when they got to the café. As I was walking, another girlfriend who was driving around with her boyfriend in his car, stopped on the side of the street to chat with me. They offered to give me a lift home, I agreed, thinking it was no big deal.  And so they drove me home, dropped me off and left promptly.

 

No one else was home at the time so I went into the kitchen to fix myself a snack before I headed outside to begin my chores.  It wasn’t long before my uncle came driving into the yard and parked his truck in his usual spot. I could see him walking towards the house and thought perhaps he was going to grab a bite too, before he went out to resume his work.

But when he walked into the house I could see in his face a storm brewing, and I knew what that meant. Someone was in trouble. Was it me? I couldn’t think of what I had done. So I assumed it was someone else that caused his anger to flare again. Perhaps someone in town had said or done something to upset him.

 

He began questioning me as to whose vehicle had been in the yard. He had this uncanny ability to pick out tire tracks in our gravel driveway that were new or strange, tire tracks that didn’t belong to our vehicles, or to vehicles he knew.

Too late I realized my mistake. With fear and quivering I explained that my girl friend, and her boyfriend, gave me a ride home after school, dropped me off and left right away.

 

To this day I don’t know what set him off and frankly I have given up trying to figure it out. I don’t think he really needed much of an excuse to blow up and fly into a rage.

Yet once again he went ballistic before my eyes, but this time something different happened. He began to undo his leather belt and I knew what was coming….he took off his belt and in a rage he began to beat me with it.

 

 I remember cowering in a corner on the floor trying to protect my face from the lashes of the belt. I don’t know  how long this went on but as a young teenager it felt like forever. Lash after lash the belt striking my back and legs. With each blow, words of venom spewed from his mouth directed at my young heart. With each crushing strike, not only was my body was wracked in pain, but my self-esteem and my heart took a beating too.

Humiliation and shame descended upon me as each blow of the belt and each utterance of degrading words met its mark.

 

When his rage was finally spent, I picked myself up and slowly made my way up the stairs to my bedroom. I had no time to cry, as I was expected to get outside to the barn and do my chores. I quickly, and gingerly, changed into my work clothes, and with my head down, trying to get my tears under control I headed out to the barn. With each step my bruised body was beginning to feel the throbbing pain as welts and bruises began to appear.

 

I don’t know if my aunt ever knew what happened to me that day. I never told her and I never told anyone, not even my friends. I could wear clothes that hid the bruises and welts. And I could cover up the stiffness and soreness that I walked with, by simply saying I fell off a horse. No one would ever know.

 

I didn’t tell anyone because I truthfully didn’t think anyone would care….and if they did what could they do about it. Besides, I knew that if I told anyone, I could expect another beating and the next one could be worse.

 

What does a 15 year old do with this kind of thing? All measure of self-esteem was gone, shame hung on me like a tattered and torn cape. The wounds were not only the physical marks left on my back and legs, but the internal wounding went much deeper. They seared the core of who I was. With each blow of the belt I felt my soul deaden. With each breath, darkness seemed to come in, suffocate me and replace life. When I climbed the stairs that day to my bedroom, any passion I had for life left me. It was the final straw that broke the camels back so to speak.

 

Years of abuse and rage left my wounded and bloodied soul in a deadened state. Darkness came in full force, and I felt myself falling into the deep well of depression. Only this time I didn’t care. It felt safer there, comforting even. Life was too painful, living was too painful. Feeling was terrifying; I shut down all sense of hope and passion.

 

The wounds on my body would eventually heal, but it would take years for the internal wounding to heal. It would take a supernatural encounter with the Living God to heal and soothe the heart of a girl who grew up to became a walking, wounded woman. It would take the power of my Heavenly Father to replace the deadness of my soul with the life giving breath of His love.

 

I will share how the Lord did that in part two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blame Game April 13, 2008

When I write down my stories and read them back to myself, they sound bad. If a different person somewhere in the world had stories exactly like mine and one day told her stories to me, I would feel sorry for her. I would understand if that person were sad or angry or had problems dealing with her life. But I don’t feel that way about myself. When I think of something that happened to me, something that still hurts and affects me, I tell myself impatiently, “it wasn’t that bad.”

My parents had a bad fight when I was nine. My brother and I snuck in to watch. They were in the living room. She was lying on the floor. He was sitting on her. His hands were around her neck, pushing down hard. The memory is fuzzy right after that. Maybe my dad noticed we were watching and decided to let her go. My mom got up and ran out. It was dark. It was raining. It was muddy outside. I felt guilty for being warm and dry when my mom was cold and wet, so I grabbed her coat and ran to her. I walked around in the rain for a long time trying to find her. When I found her, I gave her the coat and walked away. Taking her a coat was all I could do to fix it.

My mom and I had a bad fight years later. Before I knew what was happening, I was lying on the floor. She was sitting on me. Her hands were moving toward my neck and I thought back to that rainy night. This is what that must have felt like, I thought. She put her hands not around my neck, but a few inches higher. Her hands went around my chin and pushed down hard. My dad had given her something she didn’t know what to do with. She couldn’t keep it forever and she didn’t know how to get rid of it, so she tried to give it to me. The look in her eyes and the fury in her screams told me that more than anything at that moment; she wished she could kill me. If she could kill me she could be better; she could be happy and free. I felt guilty for being happy and free when my mom was burdened with so much pain. I didn’t want to die, but at that moment I wished the consequences would be removed from her so she could do it. So I took her pain and wrapped it up. I pushed it down deep inside myself and kept it for her. I still have it. Taking her pain was all I could do to fix it.

When you start keeping pain that belongs to other people, it’s hard to stop. When something goes wrong, I take the blame. It’s the game I play. I’ve gotten so used to it, that the pain almost feels good. At least it feels familiar. Blame feels like a burning on the skin of my arms and chest. It feels like a punch in the stomach. Not taking the blame feels scary and unpredictable. Taking the blame feels safe.

Now God wants me to stop playing the Blame game. He is asking too much of me. I don’t know how, and to be honest I’m not sure I want to. I don’t believe I can do it. It’s more than I have to give. I’m terrified of the pain inside of me. I want it safely wrapped away; pushed down where it can’t hurt anyone but me. I can handle it. I’m used to it. It’s no big deal. It’s not that bad.

The Divine Embrace April 9, 2008

For several months I’ve understood that I have an assignment from God and that assignment is to grow in compassion. To understand His great love for me and to accept it. Partly due to the assignment itself I have fallen back into a relapse of self-injury and the obsession and humiliation that goes along with it. I think coming face to face with the compassion void in my life brought me right to the heart of the painful wound I have suffered since before I can remember.  I’m posting that story here a little bit at a time (I’m about half way through) in the category called ‘A Farewell to Shame’.

So the painful truth is that no one cared about what I suffered. No one rescued me. No one brought justice. Not my family, not my school, not my doctors, and not even my church. I’ve been working for a while now trying to understand better what I need to do and to ask God to make clear the path that I can follow to Him.

Last Thursday night in the middle of the night I woke up suddenly. Throughout most of my life I’ve struggled with nightmares/flashbacks of trauma that interfere with my sleep. I woke up and felt a sense of warfare and the need to pray.  At that time I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life. An encounter with God. I suddenly felt His presence in the room. As I was lying there in my bed on my side with my hands in front of me I felt God’s presence come along beside me. He put his arms over my arms and held me — surrounded and embraced me. Now I’m an old married woman and in the 16 years I’ve been married I’ve received literally thousands of hugs but no human embrace has ever soothed and satisfied my soul the way this experience did. In my pain/suffering/trauma I always feel the pain focused in the pit of my stomach. The feeling of a raw open wound deep in the center of my abdomen, located there but not physically there. While I was lying in my bed with God’s arms around me I felt a warm explosion exactly at that spot inside me. A feeling of peace and healing washed over me and I felt fully at rest. But that wasn’t all, next I felt a strong heaviness and warmth on the backs of my hands. They felt so warm and heavy that I couldn’t lift them if I tried but I didn’t want to move but just lie there and feel it.

Since that night I’ve been given a way out of the obsession of self-injury. When I’m pulled and drawn to raise my hand to injure myself I turn my hand over and with the back of my hand I use the Father’s touch to stroke and soothe my face. I think about His compassion for me and how He suffered with me in what I suffered just as I suffer with Him in what He suffered on the cross. It’s so raw and so personal and so childlike that it’s hard for me to write these words but I want to share and spread hope because I know what it feels like to struggle and I know I’m not the only one.

There’s one more thing. I have ‘quit’ many times. More times than I can count. Each time I strongly resolve never to go near this sin again. I remind myself that I’ve been healed and cured and that there’s no need to ever fail again. Then each time I’ve been tempted and each time I’ve stumbled and relapsed I’ve felt such intense shame. I doubted that what deliverance God brought was real and I’ve felt that His efforts were wasted on me because I so quickly forgot His help. I’ve even been angry that He didn’t stop me from falling again so quickly into sin. That if there was a way out I didn’t see it and didn’t take it so either God was blowing it or I was blowing it and either way I was lost.

This time is so different. I have made no pledge, no promise, no threat to myself that I will never hurt myself again. God has shown me that He will LET me do it again — He will not stop me or distract me or control me. And that’s not to say that He doesn’t care what I do — He cares very deeply about everything I do. But I have a choice. I can choose to sin. Each time I want to sin I can use it as a chance to experience His compassion and be reminded of His love. He won’t take away that desire, it will always be a part of me. But if I fail He won’t turn His face away from me. He’ll give me another chance — as many as I need.

So thank you for reading this long post. I hope someone understands what I’m trying to say and I hope someone here finds the courage to walk another day in the light of God’s love.

Is God Sovereign? April 6, 2008

What does it mean to me when I say God is sovereign in my life?

Have you ever thought about this question for yourself?

 Genesis 35: 16-18, “Leaving Bethel, Jacob and his clan moved on toward Ephrath. But Rachel went into labor while they were still some distance away. Her labor pains were intense.  After a very hard delivery, the midwife finally exclaimed, “Don’t be afraid—you have another son!”  Rachel was about to die, but with her last breath she named the baby Ben-oni (which means “son of my sorrow”)The baby’s father, however, called him Benjamin (which means “son of my right hand”).”

Every time I read this story I think of my mom.  I, like Benjamin, was the child left behind. Like Rachel, my mother’s death was totally unexpected and I can’t help but wonder what her thoughts were as she took her last breath. Were they of her children she was leaving behind, were they of her husband?

Isn’t it when extreme tragedy steps into our lives, leaving heartache in its path that we ask ourselves if God is truly sovereign? This is when we question if God is truly our ruler in the good times and the bad? Is it not in these times that our faith is tested?

 It’s easy to say God is the sovereign ruler of my life when all is going well, when everything is just peachy. Its then I can sing or proclaim that “My God Reigns” because He’s got everything under control.

Yet it’s when tragedy, disappointments or heartaches strikes that I am faced with the tough questions. Will I question His sovereignty in the midst of calamity? Can I trust Him? Is He still the sovereign King in my life?

It’s often at these times I find myself thinking, “If I just tried harder, if I was just a better person, then maybe bad things wouldn’t happen.” Do you ever get stuck in the pit of-if I do better then bad things won’t happen?

Yet when I read the story of Job I begin to get a different picture. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13: 15). 

 That’s trust in God’s sovereign rulership even in the worst of times.

 

 If good works keep us out of trouble then when I read the countless stories of people today or people in the bible I should see people who lived lives of smooth sailing but instead when I read biographies, I find stories filled with traumatic experiences, appalling events and major disappointments.  Yet they testify as to the sovereignty of the God they love.

 

I don’t know what you are facing today…but I do know that our sovereign God has a plan for you. A sovereign God overruled the hardships life threw at me, because God had a plan – God ruled!

 The same God that was watching over Rachel when she whispered the name of her boy as she died is the same God who watched over my mother and her children when she took her last breath. That is simply amazing to me.

As we read the story of Joseph, Rachel’s first child we find that he ended up saving millions in Egypt from famine and her child Benjamin is where we find out about God’s sovereign rule in his life. Paul, in Philippians 3:5 writes that he was from the tribe of Benjamin. Here was the apostle to the gentiles, the apostle whose writings have continually upheld Christians to this very day was from the lineage of a baby boy left orphaned at birth…..but a sovereign God held this baby in the palm of His hand…just like He holds you and me…wow…our God rules!

 

I like this quote by Dave Brown- “We often don’t always know why things happen to us and others in a given situation or circumstance but we know why we trust God who does know why.”

 

“Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to His love, and the future to His providence.”

St. Augustine

 

God’s Masterpiece April 2, 2008

 

C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain wrote: 

 

We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the ‘intolerable compliment’. Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life—the work which he loves, though in a fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child—he will take endless trouble—and would, doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and recommenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed us for a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.                                                                                                                                                              How this gem of truth has resonated with me, bringing peace and healing deep within.  To give God my blessing to do His good work in me according to His glorious design.  To be whole and wholly His.  To experience His tender and passionate love — His pains-taking labor on the canvas of my soul.                                                                                               Thank you Father!