They Have Eyes but Cannot See August 30, 2008

Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans, 
   so full of themselves, so full of hot air! 
   Can’t you see there’s nothing to them?  (Isaiah 2:22 – The Message)

A few years ago I began to set boundaries between my parents and me.  It started with reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament, most especially Isaiah.  Isaiah hits idolatry hard.  One day while reading about the futility and madness of trying to pacify and seek rescue from gods of our own making, God put a crack in my armor around my relationship with my parents.  With the smallest whisper of doubt I asked myself, ‘am I an idolator?’

That moment a light switch was turned on inside me.  I realized my parents had taken a place in my heart where only God belonged.  It felt like someone had punched me hard in the stomach.  I almost threw up.  

I often wonder about the people in history who turned their back on paganism to worship the living God.  Old roots grow deep and don’t pull up easily.  I imagine a new believer walking by his former temple on the way to worship.  He saw the bright colors, heard the chanting and instruments, smelled the incense and burning sacrifices.  These sensory experiences were tied to deep hooks pulling the worshiper back.  By classical conditioning he must have felt guilt and the fear of his neglected god’s wrath as if on cue.

 

I sometimes feel idolatrous hooks tugging on my own throat.  A certain part of me still longs to win the elusive prize of parental approval and acceptance.  Never mind that that strategy hasn’t turned out so well for me in the past.  I’d be better off hitting myself with a hammer so I could feel relief when I stop.  Only the grace of God can set me free from this compulsion.  A good friend recently reminded me that God paid a high price for my freedom.

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. (Galatians 5:1 – The Message)

May God give us the strength and grace today to live up to our freedom!

What is Spiritual Abuse? August 25, 2008

“Johnson & VanVonderen use the following 7 criteria to identify the abusive system.  These criteria can be used in a wide range of systems, from families and groups to organizations, to see if they are abusive:

• Power-Posturing
• Performance Preoccupation 
• Unspoken Rules 
• Lack of Balance 
• Paranoia
• Misplaced Loyalty
• Secretive

Spiritual (religious) abuse occurs when a leader uses his or her spiritual (religious) position to control or dominate another person.”        http://www.crescentlife.com/spirituality/spiritual_abuse.htm

Spiritual abuse can exist in families.  When a parent uses his or her spiritual authority to spiritually dominate a son or daughter, that is spiritual abuse.  Parents are given authority to guide and point their children to God, not to themselves. 

1 Timothy 2:5
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

Galatians 5:1
[ Freedom in Christ ] It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

2 Corinthians 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

James 2:12
Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom,

2 Peter 2:19
They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

Life Outside the Box August 21, 2008

As a young child, the truth that my parents abused me was too much for me to handle.  In my heart I put that truth inside a big cardboard box and taped it up tight.  I covered the box with a blanket of lies.  ”My parents are great.”  ”They love me very much.”  ”I am lucky to have good Christian parents like them.”  Part of my heart, my young self got trapped inside, under the cardboard, packing tape, and blanket.  That part of me was hurt and angry about being called a liar.

As I became an adult and put physical and symbolic distance between myself and my past I learned to function very well, but from time to time I came to trip over the big old box in my heart that held the truth about my past.  ”What’s this old thing?”  ”I thought I threw that out years ago!” “I wonder what I packed away in there?”  As the box got old and worn, the truth started to make its way out.  The first thing that came out was anger.  Big scary gobs of anger that neither the packing tape nor my grown up self could hold down came pushing their way to the surface of my heart.  Following the angry trail in patience led me back to the truth about my parents and what had happened to me.

Since then I’ve opened up that box and seen (I think) most of what’s inside it.  It’s no happy place.  If I linger there too long it’s easy to get stuck.  In order to function I’ve set the box of truths aside and gone on with my life.  When I do that it’s too easy to fall back into old patterns of denial.  When it comes to my parents, especially my mother, I am driven by an overwhelming and barely resistible urge to try and please her.  There’s this arrogant part of me who still believes I can make her happy with me if I just give it one more try.

So goes life for me outside the box.  Bouncing back and forth between pain and denial.  What I need to do, what God wants me to do, is to embrace my past.  To love and parent my wounded self.  To enclose and protect and incorporate the truth into the grown and capable me.

Finding my voice… August 17, 2008

Just this past week God has been peeling back another layer in my journey of healing…although it may seem like a small thing; it was a wound I hadn’t realized was so deeply-rooted.

It all started when someone commented on my voice. My first reaction was to do what I usually do when someone comments on my voice and that is to disregard the comment/compliment, not because of rudeness but because that has been my pattern for so long. A pattern of disengaging.

 

I am learning to hear the quiet whisper of my Heavenly Father when He says, daughter I want you to look at this.

 

My voice has always been an area of wounding for me. But I didn’t realize just how much until recently or just how insecure and timid I felt about my voice.

As a child I was quiet and spoke softly. When I would answer a question my uncle had posed I never seemed to answer him loud enough to his satisfaction. He would begin to shout at me and criticize me; berate me and the fact that my voice didn’t project well because I was so soft spoken. And of course the more he yelled the quieter I got and the smaller I felt. I grew to dread speaking up, to feel apprehensive if asked a question in front of others. I especially got nervous around elderly people who were hard of hearing. If I had to speak louder I felt as if I was yelling and it felt unnatural.

Throughout the years I’ve had friends and acquaintances comment on my voice, but I never allowed their words to penetrate my heart….until now.

This past Sunday in church during the worship time I closed my eyes and just listened to the voices around me singing. The Lord quietly spoke to me and asked me if I had ever thanked Him for my voice? Tears welled up immediately and I had to confess I never had…….and though I wanted to, I could not bring myself to thank Him.

During my walk a couple of days later….the Holy Spirit brought some things to mind regarding my voice. I had never realized I had made so many agreements with the enemy regarding my voice. Although I have spoken at conferences in front of hundreds of women sharing my testimony, I always began by admitting that I’m not a speaker. Apologizing really.

I’ve always felt much like Moses who told the Lord he was not eloquent in speech. Writing comes much easier. I’ve always believed that I can articulate better writing than speaking. I made agreements based on what I’d been told as a child and the way I was belittled regarding my voice by my family.

And so this time when someone commented on my voice and I took the time to listen I knew God was up to something.

And so while walking this week I began to thank the Lord for the voice He has given me. I knew that I was thanking Him more with my head then my heart but that was all I could give Him at the time. But the tears so hidden were threatening to fall.

 

Then when I got home there was a message on my answering machine from my 3 year old granddaughter. She said, “Hi grandma” and then her little voice wavered….I knew what had happened. She had called and when the answering machine picked up she right away thought it was me answering, but instead it was grandpa on the answering machine. Then her little voice trembled, she was close to tears because grandma wasn’t there, and she sweetly said, “I love you grandma” and she hung up. I quickly called her back.

But as I write this the tears are falling. My voice does matter. To those who love me, and most of all to my Father.

 

My voice….your voice has been uniquely crafted and intentionally designed by God. Just as we know our Heavenly Father’s voice, we too are known by our voices. Just like my little granddaughter knows my voice. God has given every voice a specific style, sound and characteristic; He tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And bit by bit as the Holy Spirit brings to mind agreements made, I repent, and the healing balm flows….a little at a time…and ever so slowly I am thanking Him with more then my head but with my heart.

 

 

 

High Anxiety August 15, 2008

Can you tell a difference in your own life between anxiety and worry?  I worry about specific known dangers.  When I’m worried I’m focused on one bad thing and I feel upset because I believe that if that thing happens my life will be miserable.  Worry is an obvious response to a temporary danger.  When the danger passes I feel grateful and move on with my life.  When I’m not in danger I can strip worry off and leave it behind me like a pile of filthy clothes.

Anxiety is an enemy that strikes like a monster in the dark.  Anxiety shifts and morphs and reappears as if from nowhere. There are times when I can feel the monster breathing on the back of my neck but when I spin around to see its face it slips away into the shadows.  Anxiety hides deep inside, afraid of the light of day.  I don’t think my way into it, and I have to believe my way out of it.  Each anxious day unfolds like a wrestling match where I battle an enemy faster and more powerful than I am.  Thank God, I don’t fight alone.

The best thing I can do to turn the tide against the anxiety beast is to remember who God is and what He has done for me.  I must remember that God is good; that He rescues the perishing; that He breathes life into death; that He opens the eyes of the blind; that He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.  Meditating on these truths builds a force field around me that keeps the anxiety monster at bay.  Inside I find my peace.

Let me close with this and remember the blessing:  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (I Peter 5:7)

Self-Contempt meets Surrender and Grace August 11, 2008

Self-contempt, if you have read the chapter in The Wounded Heart by Dr. Dan B. Allender on Deflection; The Clash with Contempt, then you will know that contempt is very complex and often poorly understood. If you haven’t read it yet I would highly recommend it….reading that chapter was a major turning point for me years ago. I wish I could say that I have arrived but I can’t…but I can say that I am not where I once was regarding self-contempt and other-contempt.

 

How did I deal with it? I don’t want to give simplified or pat answers…truthfully, there really is no such thing when we desire true inner healing.

Two words, surrender and grace were key to my healing. And these words that I write today are just as much for me….as another layer is being peeled away in my own life.

 

Surrender-inviting God into the process. Surrender is not passivity, and neither is it resignation. As Dan Allender says, contempt hinders the work of God. For me personally, it is often easier to hang on to contempt rather than trust God to be personally involved with me. Surrender is not something I do once and then it is done. Because of abuse there was a great deal of shame in my life and the surrendering process can take a long time.

 

Change is always a process. Often victims of abuse feel that the process of change takes too long, we mistakenly think that if God is involved then the process will be brief and not to messy.

I have found personally that deep healing and supernatural change takes years….again as Dan Allender say: “years of struggle, trial and error learning, and growing in strength to make the next significant move of faith.”

 

God does not require perfect growth overnight and growth never allows pretending. There is much more I could say about self-contempt but I encourage you  if you have the book, The Wounded Heart…chew on each chapter, allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth, one step at a time….

 

Grace is divine; it is a gift from our Father because He offers each of us new life based on nothing we have to offer. Personally, when I find I’ve fallen back into the old patterns of self-contempt which masquerades itself as shame, deadening my soul or control and I find myself despising something I’ve done or said, or something about myself, I know that I have turned my face away from my Lord, not accepting His amazing gift of grace.

When I finally see my self-sufficiency and self-contempt for what it is I am left with a choice…do I turn back to my Father and recognize my need for grace and repent of my perceived source of life or do I continue on with my self-protective means of avoiding hurt which keeps me from real, authentic living ….repentance is embracing a sorrow that leads to life.

 

Friends, be patient with yourself, cut yourself some slack when you need to, be gentle with yourself, don’t rush the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit (these words are just as much for myself)….and remember that God is in the business of restoring lives…all throughout Scripture we read about the women God restored, Ruth, Hannah, Rahab, Esther and others.

 

As we surrender the healing process to Him, He takes our lives, removes the cloaks of contempt and restores those things which have been stolen from us. One layer at a time.

 

I am reminded of the movie The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom hid in an underground cellar of Paris and did not allow the world to hear and enjoy his beautiful music. In the same way, our contempt can also be viewed as a masked apparition that is causing us to hide our beauty from the world.

We have much to hope for…He has promised us in Psalm 3:3, “But you are a shield around me, O Lord; You bestow glory on me and lift up my head.”

Target Fixation August 8, 2008

Last Sunday I took an advanced rider safety course on my motorcycle.  The bad part was I was the only girl. The good part was that my bike was the prettiest color.  The instructor bore a striking resemblance to my old (ancient) high school gym teacher, but eerily enough he was the same age as me.  After two hours it started to rain, thunder, and lightening.  In twenty minutes I felt like I had jumped in the pool with all my gear on.  I was cold, wet, and ready to go home but still had over three hours of training to go.  After that point I just have some long vague memory of rain, thunder and my high school gym teacher’s red-faced look-alike blowing his whistle, waving his arms and yelling out, ‘LOOK UP!’

You see, although most of us had optimistically signed up for the so-called advanced class which was cheaper and shorter than the beginner version, we kept making the rookie mistake of perpetually staring down at the road in front of us.  It’s a pretty common mistake in motorcycle riding.  In fact there’s a name for it:  target fixation.  If you’re riding along at a fairly nice clip and hit a road hazard you can easily dump your bike.  The typical human reaction in that case is to try to avoid the hazard by staring straight at it while thinking about how bad it would be to hit it.  But the way the physics of riding works out is that you go where you are looking and drive right in to the hazard.  Instead, you are supposed to do the more psychologically difficult thing:  look up away from the hazard and look out where you want to go.

Sometimes we make the same mistake in our life and walk with God.  It’s easy to fixate on the hazards flying toward us at 70 miles per hour.  But worrying about not doing something is often the best way to ensure that you do it.  It takes courage to look up, look away from the negative, and look out to where you want to go.

I like the way the Hebrew writer puts it.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 11:2-3)

On a final note, I somehow managed to pass the test, in spite of crossing multiple lines of the impossibly small blue rectangle that I was bewilderingly expected to be able to do a figure 8 inside.  I didn’t get struck by lightening and my license is in the mail.

Two Streams August 3, 2008

Two streams cut through the landscape of my life.  Two disparate paths in the fabric of time.  They begin in my infancy, intersect in my childhood, and push forward into my future.  The first stream is the sum of all my positive influences.  Every life lesson, every purposeful moment, and every encouraging word I received is recorded here.  This stream is my life as God intended me to live it.  

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11

But I was prematurely expelled from this stream, having been cut off by an alternate timeline.  The place they cross is the nexus of my shame.  It’s the day in elementary school when my private problems first spilled out into my public life, forming a wet smelly puddle on the floor next to my desk.  That day I became an alien living among human beings. 

The bad stream, continuing unbounded, flows into the bowels of hell itself.  In this river, if followed to its natural end, I see all humanity as a seething mass of deformity, masked by a pathetic shell of hypocrisy.  I hate them all for hating me and teaching me to hate myself.  And in the end I will become exactly what I most despise.

For me, reality is somewhere in between.  Day by day, I strive to get back to the beautiful river.  I often spend time running in the green grass growing on its banks, its glories just beyond my grasp.  I occasionally fall in and enjoy the ride.  The sun shining on my face, I float along on my back like God’s favorite child.  In this timeline I know who I am and I know why I’m here. I’m not alone.  I’m surrounded by companions I meet and greet along the way.  I hail their courage because I recognize that they have two streams too.

My respite doesn’t last forever.  It’s never long before a sound, a smell, a circumstance that smacks too familiar sucks me as a vortex all the way back to the other place.  Falling into the malevolent torrent is not my fault.  It’s more physiology than philosophy.  But after a while, I come up for air.  The fog clears a little and I realize I am not where I belong.  God wants Better for me.  I’m faced with a choice.  I can sit back, give up and allow the current to push me along where I do not want to go, or I can choose to fight.  I can claw my way out and pull myself back toward the life I was created to live. 

My life is a war.  And my future is not the only thing that hangs in the balance.  Just as bits and pieces of a thousand souls fighting on both sides have propelled me along the ebb and flow of the tide of my struggle, so too my fate will affect others in ways I cannot predict or imagine.  The truth is I matter.  The truth is we all do. 

 I am not in this fight alone.  Thus far I have come by the help of the Lord, and on this day and in this place, I stand and raise my sword to the captain of the guard.  I choose to fight!  I have come to believe in the future.  I believe in Hope.  I believe in Living.  I believe the sun has not yet risen on the noblest day.  I believe the most glorious battle has yet to be fought.  I believe the most beautiful song has yet to be sung.