Reboot: Telling my story again

It has been such a long time since I posted on this blog….3 years to be exact.  It has been a busy three years while I obtained my Bachelors of Nursing degree.  I have taken a long break, but I feel like it is time to start telling stories again.  Looking back over the last few weeks, I can see that I have been being prepared to crack open the past and start sharing these stories again.  The final push for me was listening to a Brene Brown TED talk yesterday about vulnerability.  She said two things that really resonated with me.  1.  She defined courage as the ability to tell your story with your whole heart and having the courage to be imperfect.  2. She talked about authenticity as the ability to let go of who you think you should be to be who you are.  I know see that this talk was the final preparation to push me back to writing to share the stories who make me who I am.

This morning, sitting in the bath tub enjoying some time of quietness and solitude, I noticed the scars on my arms and really took a moment to look at them and see how extensive they are.  This moment of really being present to experience those scars led me to think about the circumstances the led me to put those scars on my arms.

I was 17 the night I did this two my arms.  The scars have faded over the last 26 years.  Some of them are covered with tattoos, but if you look closely you can still see them underneath the tattoos.  I got 90 stitches the next morning to close everything up.  When my mom picked me up to go to the hospital, I was covered head to toe in blood and the subcutaneous tissue (the fat below the skin) was hanging out of the gashes.  I had literally gone on a rampage up and down both sides of both arms with a razor blade.

I was so angry and so hopeless; I felt so worthless and full of hatred.  I just didn't know what to do, so I just took it out on my flesh.  It is just the grace of God that I didn't have the means or access to get drugs or pills because I honestly think I would have taken them and never woken up.

I was in a drug treatment program called Straight at the time.  To say this program was abusive is a huge understatement.  The premise of the program was to break you down by humiliating, degrading and verbally abusing you while reinforcing the idea that you were nothing and would be totally alone forever if you did not complete the program.  We would then, be build back up and be clean, sober, rehabilitated, useful members of society.  This was on top of being raised in an spiritually, emotionally mentally, sexually abusive home.  I had never been taught to have any type of dignity or safety.  I was not taught that my body belonged to me or that it was worth anything.  I was taught that my body belonged to others who could do with it as they chose.  I was taught that I had not value and would never amount to anything.

After months of being in the Straight program and being told that I was a worthless drug addict who would never amount to anything if I didn't graduate the program and that I would be disowned and have not family if I dropped out,  I made it to level 2 (where i would have more freedom) and ran away in the middle of the night.  I really had no idea where to go, but I knew I wanted out.  I went to the house of someone I thought was a friend.   When I was told I had to "pay for the stay", I didn't think I had any other options.  As spoke about earlier, I wasn't ever taught that I was worthy or had any right to say no when someone wanted to use my body for their purposes.  I had no idea what having a sense of dignity even meant.  I didn't have anywhere else to go.  After I had "payed the price" of staying, I was then told I had to leave and couldn't stay.

I remember feeling so used and dirty and worthless.  I remember feeling totally alone and totally hopeless that my life meant anything or that it would ever be anything more than pain and being used and rejected over and over again.  I remember it was chilly and I had on a pair of boxers, a sweat shirt and an old pair of keds.  I walked into a grocery store and stole a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of white out, and a package of straight razors.  My stomach ached and my heart ached.  I walked behind a 7-11 corner store and started smoking.  I opened the white out and tried huffing it.  It didn't do anything for the ache in my heart.  I then opened the razors, raised my sleeves and started to cut.  As I saw the blood and thought about how alone I was, rage started to bubble up in me.  I went into a self rage.  I felt overwhelmed with self-hatred, a sense that life was unfair and I was never going to feel anything but rejected and alone.  I just began to slash myself over and over.  I pressed the razor deeper and deeper into my flesh.  When I had reached exhaustion I pulled my sleeves down over my arms, lay down on the concreted and fell asleep.  I hoped that I just wouldn't wake up.

I did wake up the next morning.  I was freezing, covered in blood and my arms felt like a steam roller had rolled over them.  I ached physically at that point as bad as I ached emotionally.  I had one quarter on me.  I knew I couldn't go walking around in the light covered in blood like I was.  It was all over my clothes and all over my legs.  I used the quarter to call the treatment center b/c I knew I had no where else to go and that I wouldn't have anywhere else to go unless I went back and finished the program.  They picked me up and took me to wait for my mother to pick me up and take me to the ER to get stitched up.  When we got to the ER, my sleeves were glued to my arms by all the blood I had shed.  They cut the sweat shirt off of me and proceeded to scrub my arms with plastic brushes, so they could get all the sweat shirt fuzz out of the gashes.  It was excruciating.  The stitches took forever to be finished and I felt them all because the cuts were too extensive to allow novocaine for numbing.

As I looked back on this night, sitting in the bath this morning, I remembered what I felt like to be that girls.  She often just seems like a dream.  It is hard to imagine that I was ever her.  It is hard to imagine feeling so much self-hatred and unworthiness.  It is hard to imagine feeling so powerless and lost.  That girl is a part of who  I am today, but she would never have believed she could ever become who she is today.

I had no idea what the Lord was up to when He rescued that broken little girl.  I had no idea how far He had in mind to bring me.  He has given me a sense of dignity and worth.  He has given me strength like I never dreamed I would have: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  I know now that I am loved.  I am loved by Him most importantly, but I am also loved by many.  I am loved by my husband, my children, my mother and brother, my friends.  I am often overwhelmed with gratitude and feeling so loved.  I am loved and I am worth loving.  I am so worth loving that the Creator of the Universe sent His only Son, Jesus, to live perfectly, die perfectly and rise again, so I could be reconciled to Him and become who I am today.

As I looked at these scars that mark me, I remembered what it was like to be the girl who felt like she had no choice but to be used and to abuse her flesh to deal with her pain.  I am reminded that I was rescued and called out of the darkness that He might send me back into the darkness to tell others that they are loved and that they are worth loving.  I have been given a beautiful story to tell and I only pray that I have the courage to tell it with my whole heart, fully vulnerable when I am given the chance to tell.

Five Minute Friday: Story

We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that I post here at 1 minute past midnight EST every Friday. And we connect on Twitter with the hashtag #FMFParty (short for Five Minute Friday party). In fact, starting at around 10pm EST on Thursday you’ll find a lot of writers hanging out and chatting on Twitter with this hashtag.

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

- See more at: http://lisajobaker.com/2013/08/five-minute-friday-story/#comment-114442


Start:

Story is a funny thing; for me, everything has a story.  Every situation is a narrative.  I love to hear people's stories.  I love to hear where they have come from; what makes them tick.  I love to pick into peoples lives and put together the puzzles which explains why they are how they are.

I think often times that is what is missing in so much of todays society.  No body seems to want to stop and understand one another.  No one seems to want to investigate the mystery of who those we encounter are.

Sometimes it takes work.  Sometimes people don't want to let you in.  You have to creep about like a little spider outside the house of who they are and find a crack.  You ask questions, talk about safe things, push buttons until you find the one that lights up their eyes.  Once the light goes on in the house, then it takes just a little more effort to get them to open the door.

It's like a game to me.  I like to see how long it takes to get someone to open up and let me inside.  My husband says he loves to watch me go to work, picking and poking, joking and commenting until I get the door open.  Someone may not want to let me inside, but it is a gift the Lord has given me to be able to untangle the barbed wire that keeps everyone else out and get inside.

Everyone has a story to tell, and each of them are unique and beautiful and gives us another piece of the puzzle of who God is and what He is about on this earth and how He is bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.

Everyone has a story to tell.  Will you stop and listen?  Will you be intentional and genuine and interested to get to the story even if it takes some effort, or will you stay consumed with yourself and miss the story God wants to tell you through the people you encounter today.

Five Minute Friday: Broken

I abandoned this blog (according to my farewell post) 1 year and 12 days ago.  I started a new blog, wrote on it for a while, then stopped blogging at all.  School got nuts and I stopped allocating time to write.  I went searching for some old posts on this blog last week and was struck by how much history I had here, so I am back.  I don't know how often I will post on it, but maybe I can at least try and do Five minute Friday every week.

So here is what it is..... on Fridays we set a timer and write for 5 minutes no thinking, editing, no censorship of self.  Lisa-Jo Baker gives us a prompt and we write and link back to her blog.

Broken

Start:

Broken is a word that describes where I have found myself again.  I have walked with the Lord for 21 years.  He has been so faithful and loving.  He has never left me and always pushes me further.  He has healed me and changed me.  I am so grateful for His love and grace.  I am so amazed when I look back and take note of who I was and who He has made me become.  I never would have dreamed that that broken, homeless, pregnant, angry drug addict would become who I have become, do the things I have done or have so much abundant blessing in my life.  He is good....

But lately, as I get quiet and still with Him and ask for Him to make me more like Himself and help me be willing and available for His use, I am struck by how broken I still am.  Or at least parts of me are.  I am still so insecure.   I am still so guarded.  I hold back so much.  I am still afraid to be rejected or fail.  I walk down the stairs to me interior basement and I find there are still small broken little girls inside of me.  I am still that little girl who is not good enough and is so afraid.  She is still down there shivering, alone, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees and face buried.  Then I think, will I ever be whole.  Am I one of the ones that was so devastated by abuse, that I will never be totally put back together.   Then I am reminded of the hope I cling to.  There will be a day where the brokenness is no more.  Where there is no more pain and no more tears.  Even if the little girls stays broken in the basement for the rest of my life.  On the other side of heaven she will be whole.

The world is broken and we are broken, but we have this hope as an anchor to the soul.  He is our hope.  By His grace all the broken pieces of me are held together in His hands and in Him I am complete.

New Blog: Jaggedgracecreations.wordpress.com

I have started a new blog.  You can find it here http://jaggedgracecreations.wordpress.com/.  The explanation for the move is on the new one.  I just wanted to make sure anyone looking for me could find the new blog which I hope to be more faithful to write in.

Five Minute Friday: See

So, here’s the skinny: I’ve been thinking about writing and how often our perfectionism gets in the way of our words. And I figured, why not take 5 minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing.

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation. Just painting with words. Finger-painting even.

So now on Fridays over here a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Your words. This shared feast.

A Five Minute Writing Challenge <—click to tweet this!

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on:

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See…

Start

See

What do I see?

Well, I guess it depends on what spectacles I choose to put on today.

Does my vision depend on what my eyes see or what my heart sees?  Do I walk by faith or by sight?

Do I see through the lenses of what the world values and tells me how to interpret, or do I see through the lenses of eternity?  Do I see from God's perspective?  or at least try and see what He wants me to see?

I can look at the situations I encounter each day as road blocks, or opportunities to take a path I would not have otherwise chosen.

I can look at the people I encounter as annoyances or as people the Lord has sent me to love and serve. I can choose to make this moment about me or learn to forget about me.

I love the part of the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: 

Lord grant that I might seek to comfort rather than be comforted, to love than to be loved, to understand than to be understood.

Stop

Five Minute Friday: Perspective

On Fridays over here a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Your words. This shared feast.

If you have five minutes, we double dog dare you to spend it writing here <—click to tweet this!

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.

OK, are you ready? The Gypsy Mama Facebook late night crew is my new muse come 10pm Thursday night, so please give me your best five minutes on their choice:

Perspective…

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Start:


I just had a discussion with my brother yesterday about perspective.  How funny.  We spent such a lovely day together enjoying one another's company and reveling in the glory of God's redemption.  Where there was once so much hatred, anger and angst, there begins now to grow beauty, forgiveness, restoration.  As we walk this complicated pathway of unraveling decades of confusion and tangled mess that began with years of abuse at the hands of our family, as we look to the future, there is hope.  It won't always be so tangled.  We won't always struggle with the past so much.  It won't always be awkward to try and be real and close.

We find freedom.  We find a new perspective.  We are not victims.  We are not just survivors.  We are thrivers.  We are heirs to God's beautiful grace and redemption.  What once seemed hopelessly broken is beginning to look different.  It is beginning to look beautiful.  As God puts the pieces together and combs out the ragged mess of tangles, the beauty of how big He is begins to be clear.... much clearer, I think than if we had not been so badly broken.

The most beautiful and powerful stories of redemption being with places of deep, dark, hopeless brokenness.

Deep in a well; In a forgotten land.  As my friend Ramsie would say about Joseph.  Deep in a well, where there seems to be no light, no hope, no way.  His hand reaches down and rescues.  And as we walk, the muck and the mire, the filth and shame, slowly washes away in the showers of His loving grace.

Stop

Five Minute Friday: Together

Around here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We write because we love words and the relief it is to just write them without worrying if they’re just right or not. So we take five minutes on Friday and write like we used to run when we were kids.

On Fridays we write with gusto, unselfconscious and flat out.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

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Together…

Together was not a word that I grew up feeling good connotations about. For the most part, I generally felt pretty alone. Even in a room full of people I felt alone. I felt like I was different. No no one liked me; I did not fit in. In my family together was not a good word. It was an opportunity for someone to abuse me.

The feeling of being alone and different followed me many years into my walk with the Lord. It was different, but still alone. I knew He was always with me. I knew He loved me no matter what.

But I did not feel like His people loved me that way. I did not feel like I had deep friendships. I pretty much kept everyone at a disposable connection level.

About 5 years ago, God began to unearth some really painful really dark secrets that kept me feeling alone. He showed me that I felt alone, not because people did not want to be with me; I felt alone b/c I was hiding. I was afraid people could not love me if they knew some of the struggles I carried and could not get free from.

When God took me to celebrate recovery to deal with my alcoholism, He began to dismantle the walls that I thought protected me. Those walls kept me alone and isolated. As I began to come clean about the things that I thought I could entrust to no one but God, an amazing thing happened. I wasn't alone anymore. I was truly together. As I dealt with the fact that years of sexual abuse and child pornography had distorted my sexuality and let others come into my pain and distortion and pray for me, walk with me through it all, I wasn't carrying it alone anymore. The secrets no longer had to power to keep me from experiencing together. I told and people loved me anyway.

Then an amazing thing happened; people began to have courage to tell their secrets and the chains that held them began to fall off.

Stop....... times up

But I can't leave this hanging. Today, I help women walk through the process of recovery. Today I get to help others come out of alone and shadows to walk in together and light. So many years I spent alone in a crowd trying to manage my sin and beg God to take it out of me. His way is together, not alone. He only set me free as I opened up the basement and allowed people to come and shine light and love on the little girl hiding in the darkness. He set me free as I allowed people to love me and hold me and remind me that I am not defined or limited by the past. I will always bear scars, but today the scars are beautiful; they are an opportunity to tell His story of redemption in my life. Today I am not hiding and ashamed. I can tell about my pain b/c my pain helps others find the way to open the door so we can go into the dark basement and hug the broken scared little people and bring them into the light to find freedom and grace, hope and peace, redemption and restoration.

Five Minute Friday: Light

Linking to Five minute Friday with Gypsy Mama.

My life is so blessed. It is light and love and grace. I find sometimes I feel guilty for the abundant grace and blessing that encompasses my life.

I ask why me? Why are things so hard and so dark for others when everyday my life is filled with light.

Why are my two musicians friends, who are so filled with beautiful talent, lost in a dark desperate place. Why has reality fled them, and yet He brought me back from the darkness of a lost reality? Why do some get so lost in addiction that they can't find their way out; when He delivered me and took away the chains that bound me to repeat the addictive pattern.

Why do I get to have 3 beautiful children in spite of that fact the my reproductive organs are so scarred that they are supposed to be incapable of conceiving; when so many I know who did not make choices that lead to damaged reproduction cannot conceive.

Why do I look at my beautiful children perfectly healthy and growing in grace each and every day and another looks into the eyes of a child who dies of a disease that mother passed to child. I should have that disease. Dirty needles and loose living should have sentenced me to death and with it's death sentence on me an identical sentence to my children.

Yet, His grace.

Why in all my attempts to take life from my body, always He kept the breath of life in me? When all around me people fight to live and die none the less.

I am so grateful for the light. His light has led me from a place of such darkness, such hopelessness, such loss, chains that cut into my skin, chains that held my mind.

In His light, all the chains fell away, all the darkness fled, all that was lost has been returned with more than I could have ever dreamed. The girl lost in the darkness has become the woman of light and love and hope.

But there is always the why in the back of my mind. Thank you Lord, but why? What about the others?

Five Minute Friday: Loud

Around here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We finger paint with words. We try to remember what it was like to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.

Want to play Five Minute Friday? It’s easy peasy! (<–-Tweet this!)

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking 2. Link back here and invite others to join in. 3. Meet & encourage someone who linked up before you.

OK, are you ready? Give us your best five minutes on:

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Loud…

Sometimes the voice of the critic inside of me is so loud. Sometimes it is so loud that it drowns out my ability to create. It taunts me and mocks me; it undermines my belief that I am an artist. Sometimes the beauty of the Lord fills me with such awe and such a stirring to allow Him to create, express something beautiful through me. Then the taunting voice of the critic drowns out the beauty that is stirring in me. I stand in my studio and lose the faith to create. I avoid trying and allow the voice of the critic to drown out the voice of beauty and grace.

Slowly but surely though, some days I am able to ignore the voice of the critic and show up in the studio to meet the Lord anyway. I meet Him and refuse the let the critic taunt me into turning away. I stay and wait and the Lord is so faithful. He meets me there. He create beauty and worship through me and I am amazed and so grateful.

I am noticing the more I go into the space and wait refusing to leave. The louder the voice of the Lord encouraging me and stirring me becomes and the less power the critic has in me to taunt and stifle.

Five Minute Friday: Ache

On Fridays I try to participate in Five Minute Friday. Here is the rules and here is my post.

Around here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We write because we love words and the relief it is to just write them without worrying if they’re just right or not. So we take five minutes on Friday and write like we used to finger paint. For joy in the process. No matter how messy the result.

Got five minutes? Come and write with us, we promise to tell you we loved it! (<—Tweet this!)

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.

Start:

My ache goes back to my oldest daughter being little. You see I had her when I was 20 years old. I had just met the Lord 3 months earlier, was fresh off of drugs and trying to finally deal with the unbearable pain of an unmentionably abusive child hood.

I am so grateful for Ally. God used her to save my life. God taught me about His mercy and grace by lending her to me. I had done drugs through most of my pregnancy, so I call her my miracle baby, b/c she came out healthy and unscathed from my selfish and destructive decisions.

The ache is me is that I couldn't have been more whole when I began the journey of raising her. I know God redeems all; I know He knew and sent her anyway and I know that He will work all things for her good and will get the glory.

I just missed so much about what an amazing child she was because I was incapable of unconditional love and acceptance at the time. I expected her to be perfect and make me look like a good mom. I was so broken that I seldom took time to listen to her amazing songs or watch her amazing dances. I didn't really take in all that she was.

I am present and so much more healed now. I do appreciate and listen and accept and love now. But now she it 19 and what I would give to be able to go back and hold 2 year old Ally and listen to every song she wanted to sing to me and watch every single dance she wanted to show me and allow her to just be a beautiful, amazing, precocious, creative little girl. Oh how I ache.

Stop

Five Minute Friday: Real

I am linking this post to Gypsy Mama's five minute Fridays.

Here are the rules:

round here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We write because we want to, not because we have to. We write for fun, for joy, for discovery.

We just write without worrying if it’s just write or not.

Won’t you join us?

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

Real

Start:

Real. I am beginning to realize some real things about my mother. We have not always been close. There were, in fact, times in my life that I just wanted to get as far away from her as I could. I wanted to nothing to do with her. I just wanted to start over in a place where she couldn't get to me. She was not the perfect mother. As a matter of fact she made a lot of mistakes and allowed some really horrible things to happen to us.

I am so glad, though, that God didn't allow me to run away and start over without her. He has healed so dramatically and restored so beautifully. We have forgiven and loved and seen the most unbelievable and miraculous healing and change in our relationship. My mother lives with me. She has for about 6 years now. It has not always been easy. Sometimes it has been downright hard. But it has been beautiful and healing and great. I am so grateful that she lives with us now. I love her with all of my heart. I am so grateful that she lives right down the hall from me. I am so grateful that her grandchildren get to see her every day. I am so grateful for God's amazing and healing grace.

I would not trade the time I have had her in my house for anything. It is a treasure to me.

I am realizing now, though, that she is frail and fragile. The woman that I have sometimes been angry at and sometimes found exhausting and frustratingly childlike. The woman that I started to raise and parent from an early age. She has been strength in my life. She is where the intense strength that those who know me say I posses comes from. She has been a rock in my life. She has carried so much and she is a survivor. She has survived more than I have time to tell. Some of what she has survived is unspeakable. I am a survivor because she is a survivor.

She is getting old, though. As she recovers from a simple knee surgery that became much more complex, I realize that the strength is fading. She is not as strong as she once was. She will not always be here. She is fragile and frail. She will lean on me soon and I will be her strength. I will help carry the one who once carried me. As I realized yesterday she was becoming less strong, I selfishly asked God to keep her strong. "I am not ready for her strength to fade, Lord. I still want her to be the strong one. Please don't let her get weaker, yet. I never realized how much I took her strength for granted."

She is real. She is not superman. She is human and human strength fades. As the flower fades....

I cheated. It was more than 5 minutes. Please forgive me. I was not done and I needed to say it all.

The Scent of water

I was meditating on Ephesians 2:10 a couple of mornings ago.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

I was pondering that fact that we are God's workmanship and what that means. Just as an artist creates a piece of art and it is an expression of His heart, so God created each of us as an expression of His heart. He created us as His handiwork exactly how he intended. He wove us together in the womb and placed us in the exact family and environment that would bring about exactly what He intends for each of us. He has sent, sends, and is sending that which we need when we need it to lead us to where He wants us to go. The path is just as important as the destination.

He created me as an artist from the beginning. He also allowed the intense creativity and artistic nature in me to be crushed. So destroyed was the artist in me that I would never have dreamed saying I was creative 10 years ago, much less call myself an artist. It was so crushed anyone looking would have called it dead, but slowly over the last 5 to 7 years God has been busy resurrecting that which seemed impossibly desolate and demolished.

I have had the desire to draw for my whole life. I don't mean wow it would be pretty cool to be able to draw. I mean a passionate burning desire to be able to visually express what I see in my head. It has been such a unfulfilled, yet desperate desire in my heart. I have struggled and struggled trying to learn to draw. Then when the time was right...

I found a class online. Actually, several from a web site called willowing.org.
I am actually learning how to draw. I have drawn faces. I have NEVER been able to draw faces. They might not look like a particular person, yet, but I can draw a face that looks like a face. I have had enough success that I am thinking about a drawing class in school. This has been such a huge desire and I really thought it was impossible. If you have an inkling toward wanting to paint and draw, but find it a bit challenging go check out Tam at Willowing.

It has been such a journey. There has been so much struggle and frustration and so many tears. There has been doubt and spiritual war over this art thing. I have such harsh critics and an old mean operating system that runs in the background of my mind all the time.

Every part of this journey has been so important. It was important for the artist to be crushed. He created the artist and He allowed the destruction of the artist. When the time was right He resurrected the artist. Every part of this journey has been intentional, hand written by my creator; it was important for what He has for me to do that the artist be crushed seemingly beyond repair. As He resurrects it, and there is no doubt He is resurrecting her, the beauty of the struggle brings Him so much more glory than if I had just been born an artist and walked in it my whole life. The end is far greater than the beginning. What He has resurrected out of the ashes of devastation is so much more beautiful and so much grander. I have no doubt that He has great plans for the resurrected artist. I just need to continue to seek Him and grow. I need to be diligent to learn and allow myself to explore. I have to learn not focus on the end result of the art, but delight and rejoice in the creative process. He is setting me freer and freer every day and giving me more and more confidence to create art.

He has sent me so many resources and so much inspiration. He is allowing me to take so many different expressions of creativity and combine them into even more creative types of art. I am drawing, painting, collaging, Art Journaling, quilting, doing fabric and texture art. There are so many beautiful expression that He has brought into my life to combine and work with.

I am an artist. I am no longer afraid to call myself an artist. I am no longer to intimidated to make art. The enemy does not like it and the critic in my head tries to hold me back, but I have gotten free enough to silence the critic most of the time. I recognize the voice is not the voice of my Father and turn to my Father to hear what He has to say. His affirming voice is becoming louder than the critic and the enemy. Art is such a huge part of my life now and I am well aware of the tremendous healing power it has. I have a sneaking suspicion the reason He allowed so much brokenness and struggle was so I could take that struggle, make something beautiful out of it and use it as rocket fuel to power the work He wants me to do bringing healing and art to other broken people.

I read a beautiful book on suffering called The Scent of Water and the author pointed out a scripture I have never seen before, but it speaks so loudly to me especially in the area of art.

Job 14:7-9 "For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease. Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant."

That is such a beautiful picture of what I just wrote about. Though the tree was cut down and seemed dead beyond resurrection, at the scent of His water, the shoot began to grow. That is how it has been over the last 7 years. Sometimes the art development seriously seemed to be standing still. I doubted the resurrection of the artist was possible at times. I told myself this whole thing was ridiculous at times. But the shoots have been steady growing sometimes slower sometimes faster. Now as I look at the stump it is no longer a stump. It is tree. It has a trunk and branches and leaves. It can weather the storms that enemy sends and the criticism that comes. I can even handle making art that I don't like. It doesn't send me into a fit of self doubt and fear. I can look at it and say, "Well that experiment didn't go well. Guess I will try it another way." I used to be paralyzed by fear of failing or making something ugly. I would get stuck and not even try because I didn't want to "waste supplies". Now I just play and create. I can always get more supplies. Usually even if I don't like what I have created I can change directions and end up with something different that I do like.

The smell of His water woke me up and the constant shower of His grace has grown the dead stump into a pretty stout tree which is getting stronger by the day. Hopefully, I can be shade to other broken people so they can have a safe place to smell His water and be resurrected into trees as well.

Processing through the trip

I am just going to say that the next few weeks or months may be the busiest this blog has been in quite a long time. For some reason I just could not express what was going on inside of me via email. I did update, but is was pretty much just dry recounting of the activities of the days. Now that I am home, I see that there is a lot to process and talk about. I just couldn't get myself in the place to do that until I got home. Sitting here now at my desk, on my computer, with my music in my ears and the time to write I can see there is a lot to say. I am not going to be chronological about what I write or even try to totally make sense of it all. There may be a lot sometimes and very little other times. I plan to write about what bubbles to the surface as it churns up. There was so much going on the the secret place of my heart while I was in Ethiopia; I will try to share what I find along the way. Hopefully it will be a blessing to a few who may choose to read. I know it will be a blessing to me to let the words come out of my soul.

So here is what is bubbling this morning. The last couple days in Ethiopia I came across a book called Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire For God, not Food by Lysa Turkherst. It was on my mom's nook and I had already read the two books I put on the Nook for my trip. I began to read it and God began to really unearth some stuff in me. I have known that I have food issues for a long time, but I have not really been able to get the the true root of the problem. Nor have I ever been able to feel like I have been given the weapons and tools I needed to be able to find victory, by His grace, in the food battle.

I really need to back up a few steps and say that I think that the timing for beginning to read this book could not have been more perfect. I had just finished read the book Forever by Paul David Tripp ( I cannot even go into that book; it will have to be another post). I also read The Scent of Water by Naomi Zacharias (another one that maybe will bubble to the surface as I write about this trip). I had also finished reading The Invisible Hand by RC Sproul right before the trip. These three books all seemed to prepare me for the message God had for me about food through Lysa.

The trip did not end being exactly what we had all planned. One of the main organizations I had gone to serve with in Ethiopia was still hung up in the licensing stage when I arrived. None of us dreamed that things would still be hung up when we planned this trip 4 months ago. Because I had read the Invisible Hand before I left and had spent a lot of time meditating on the providence of God and how He is in, among and behind everything that goes on in our lives, I was not really concerned or disrupted by anything that was going on. I knew that God had arranged every detail of this trip from the suitcases that did not arrive with me, the disrupted water in the house, and the slow license process. I was able to really, for the most part, rest in His hand and take what He had in mind for the trip. I had a lot of time to read and pray and rest. The first couple days were very relaxed and slow. Since I tend to run 90 to nothing all the time, I felt pretty sure that God wanted me to have some slow days. My mind even goes while I sleep. I think that is why I am such a light sleeper, because I am constantly taking in and interpreting the details around me even while I sleep. The rest and time to read and slow down was really good for me. I knew that since God was totally in control of the my life and the universe that some time was exactly what He thought I needed. I really thought that I was going to Ethiopia to serve people and love on children. I have come to realize that I went to Ethiopia to be changed. This trip was more about what God wanted to do in me than what He wanted me to do for Him. I had no idea that God was taking me around to world to do a quiet, gentle, steady reworking of my heart. Each day He would wake me up, place me on His potters wheel and gently form me, remove junk in preparation to return me to my family, community and church a vessel prepared to love in a way completely different than I had ever been able to love. He asked me to go and I said yes, I just had no idea that He was sending me across the globe to do some really deep healing in me. He took me away from my responsibilities, my distractions, the things that keep me wound so tight so that He could unwind the tightness in me.

I am a morning person to the tee. It can be obnoxious how early my body decides to wake up with no alarm just naturally roll over and have no more sleep in my eyes. This gave me many hours to be still, pray, read, and journal while I waited for the normal people to wake up. I really do not mind that at all; it is, in fact, my very favorite time of the day. If I wake up later, I usually feel pretty disappointed about missing out on my quiet dark morning. I don't think I really had any idea while I was in Ethiopia the depth of what God was doing in the secret places inside of me.

I still don't know if I can totally define the changes inside of me. I felt God speaking, untangling, and removing stuff. I had bought a pretty thick journal to take on trip so I would have something kind of special to keep track of the trip. I pretty much filled up like 3/4 of it in two weeks; that is crazy. As I journaled and prayed I felt a recurring desire and prayer come out of me that I would go back distinctly changed by my trip and that I would carry back the beauty and gentleness I felt God stirring in me.

So this morning I was so struck by some distinct differences I see more clearly now that I am back in my normal environment. First, as I did Pilate's this morning, I realized for the first time in my life I did not feel hatred for my body. I struggled with body image and a very distinct hatred for the shape my body takes. I never remember a time in my life when I felt content about my weight or shape. I have felt fat my whole life. Even at times in my life when I have been a good weight and been in shape, I was never happy. I have always felt completely disgusted in my body. There was a chapter in the Made to Crave book that talked about beauty and finding beauty in beauty God gave us. It really began to sink in and remove some really strong lies I have believed for as long as I remember. It started to remove some unrealistic expectations in me. I realize the utter arrogance that it takes to call what God creates flawed. I have spent my whole life telling God that He should have done better when he made me. I have bought into the idea that I did not measure up to some impossible standard. Then one day riding in the van I realized that if God wanted us all to be the same shape, size and build, He would have made us that way. The beauty is in the amazing diversity He placed in all of us. We are beautiful b/c we are different. We are beautiful because some of us are tall and thin, some of us are short and stocky; we are all different sizes and shapes because He thinks that is beautiful. Who am I to tall my creator that what He made is not good enough? He is the artist? He chooses what is beautiful. So I started asking Him to help me see the beauty in how He uniquely and individually made me. Knowing that I cannot change my heart, only He can, I began to ask Him to change my heart and to help me see myself the way He saw me.

Then there were several things in the book that really stood out to me. Lysa said that the number on the scale tells me how much my body weighs, but it does not tell me my value. In another part of the book she talks about a friend of hers and how God helped her see that she could not measure success in a week by the number on the scale. The measure of success is a few questions: did I overeat this week, did I exercise more this week, did I eat in secret or out of anger or frustration, did I at any time choose food over God, before I hopped on the scale did I feel like it was a successful week? Questions like that look at the heart which is really the most important factor. These two passages really took that food out of the physical realm and into the heart realm for the first time for me.

Is my body at it most optimum weight, right now? Probably not. I could be in better shape definitely. Now, though, my focus doesn't feel so much about a number on the scale or a clothing size. My focus can be on seeking God and measuring where I am at by my heart. The weight is a symptom of a sinful relationship with food. Going on some crazy restrictive diet and exercise program will never be the answer. I have done that over and over. I have been a yo-yo. I have lost and gained that way without ever dealing with the heart of the matter. I realize in Ethiopia that food is the oldest addiction I have. It goes back farther than I can remember. It by far supersedes the drugs or alcohol. Sugar was the first drug I indulged in. I have often talked about how my alcoholism can definitely continues in the way I eat sugar. The thought had never occurred to me that the alcohol is a continuation of the sugar addiction from very early childhood. Talk about having things reversed. Sugar was the earliest comfort I can remember. I remember being very very young and binging on candy and cookies.

Having been shown so many things and dealing with the roots of the tree as well as being given tools to deal with this problem led me to this huge breakthrough this morning. I am not where I would like to be, but I know what I need to do to get there. I can measure progress not by numbers on a scale, but by where my heart has been for the day or week.

As I did my Pilate's this morning, I realized that I did not hate my body. I was content. My value for the first time in my life was not tied to how I looked. I could see the beauty in the way God made me. I was able to delight in the amazing way that my muscles move and respond to the exercises I was doing. When I got out of the shower across from the floor to ceiling mirrored closet doors, I did not look at my hips with absolute disgust and disdain. I looked and it was okay. I was beautiful exactly how I was. I am not perfect, but the imperfection is the beauty. I cannot ever remember looking in the mirror and being happy with what I saw. I cannot even put into words how huge this is for me. Only God could unravel that huge mess that has been wrapped around me for my entire life.

I feel like I have come home from Ethiopia more whole and free. I feel this contentment and rest in my soul that I have never felt. It's like God removed the knob inside of me that kept everything wound so tight. I feel loose, at peace; the intensity tightness is gone. I don't feel like there is such a tightness in my chest. There is an ease about the way I feel, walk, think, and react. I feel so at peace and rest.

I guess that is all there is to bubble for now.

So I told story. I am doing another update. I will probably have to add in a lot of details about things I have seen and done here when I get home and have time to process. I have so much to say about today. I will just say that today I got to realize a dream that has been in my heart for years. I got to go and tour the Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa. It was started in 1959 by Dr. Hamlin. The grounds are so beautiful and the wards are so peaceful. There were so many girls there. It was amazing that so many were being helped, but so sad that so many needed to be helped. It was very beautiful to be there, but also very hard to see. There were so many really really young girls. I can't really put all the details in right now. I promise a longer post about the hospital once I get home and get to process and take time to write in the comfort of my space. At one point we went into the physiotherapy room and got to see them doing some physical therapy. These are the girls who have had Fistulas for 5 to 7 or even more years. They were thought of as sick and sent to die in a hut in the back of a relatives house. They basically sit cross legged in a tiny structure, refuse to eat and wait to die. It took all the strength I could must not to fall apart. I did cry, but I managed to keep some sort of control. I wanted to run up to them, hug them, and tell them how beautiful they are. They have to do months of physical therapy and highly nutritious food to even be strong enough to have surgery to fix the fistula. It was really really hard to see. I feel like I want to do something more to help make things better for them. I know that most of them are having their lives dramatically changed by being treated at the Fistula hospital, but I wish I could do something more for them. At the end we got to go in and buy things the girls had made while they recover. Really amazing beautiful things that I bought a ton of. The money for the crafts goes directly to the girls when they leave the hospital. Like I said, there is so much more to post, but it will be later. It was a beautiful and emotional day. It was the realization of another dream I had in my heart. I got to buy some super cool shoes here called Soul Rebels. They are awesome and made in country here. They are really unique and WAY better than Toms which I refuse to wear b/c everyone wears them now. Only a few more days til I come home.

There is not too much to report. I got to go to an international church yesterday. It was very African. I had a pretty laid back day the rest of the day. I took the first nap I have taken since I got here and ended up regretting it b/c I could not sleep. Sunday night I watched the Benkerts children so they could have a night out. It was nice. We made puppets out of pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, pom poms and googly eyes. The kids had a blast. It was fun to see how creative they were with different kinds of creatures. We had vegetable soup for dinner.

Today (Monday) we went the market. It was really neat. I bought some stuff bring home so I can cook a little Injira food. I love all the food here and could eat like this every day. I think I could give up most of the western diet. I understood a little better what was going on in the market today. I took a few pictures. I got a lot of attention in the market. I had pants and a long sleeves on when I went into the market the first day. Today I had capris and a short sleeve shirt. People kept stopping and commenting on my tattoos using the Amharic word for beautiful. The market is really really neat. I had a great time walking around. This week I am going to Debre Zeit to do some art with an art class that one of Jessie's friend teaches. Later in the week I am going to tour the Addis Ababa Fistula hospital and I am also going to go and take pictures of the kids at the Embracing Hope for Ethiopia program to give as gifts to the moms.

I am definitely missing my family. I am kind of ready to get back to the normal routine.

sorry this is so short. Nothing to exciting to report.

Hopefully, I can get further today. I was pretty upset when I realized on the way over to the EHE project that I couldn't do the pictures for the kids and the moms b/c my suitcases were somewhere in never land. They were telling Larry and mom that they did not know where they were and Ethiopia was telling me that they were in Dallas. I was trying to keep my cool, but I was not very excited. I came to the point that morning over to the project I started to think that the suitcases were not going to come to me and that I just needed to let go and be okay with that.

I went to the project and got to spend a lot of time visiting with Jerry and Christy Shannon. It was so great to hear how things started out and how much the moms had been impacted. I got to meet the little girl that I sponsor and take her picture. She is usually really shy about new people, but she was all smiles with me and crawled all over me. I took pictures of all of the kids and played a lot. They were so happy and cute. Some of the older ones (they are all 3 and under) kept talking to me in Amharic, but I could not understand them. They love to get pictures made and look at themselves on the camera after. I sad down and worked on some ideas on jewelry for the beads that had been made.

At the end of the day they were doing distribution of goods to the moms. They get Teff and oil every 3 months, plus they got clothing distribution and sanitation distribution b/c it was Ethiopian Christmas this weekend. It is such a great project and it is so good to see how much the little that EHE is able to do is impacting the families. I am blown away to think that these childrens' whole trajectory of life has been shifted b/c of what the Shannons are doing. Some of these babies were very sick and on the brink of death when they were enrolled in the program. To see them walking and smiling and growing is amazing. Many of the moms were not from Addis Ababa, but had come here either looking for a better life or with husbands that have since abandoned them. They have no family and no one here. One of the amazing and great things that has happened due to being in EHE is that the moms have developed community together. They aren't alone anymore. Last week the Shannon's got approved to expand from 31 children to 60, so they will begin this week hiring new staff and interviewing applicants to expand. I am so blessed to be able to be here and see such an amazing program impacting so many people. I feel like the ripples of these type of programs are going to go so much further than we can imagine. If you are looking for a really great and impactful place to give consider this program. At the end of the day I was able to meet Hannah's mom (the little girl our family sponsors). It was so amazing. She told me through the translator thank you and that it was beautiful what I was doing to help. I took a picture with them. It was so great. I am going to print one for her to keep as well.

At the end of the day, Jerry got a text from Levi that the airline called and asked why we hadn't come to get my bags yet. Levi had called just a couple hours earlier and was told that they were still in Dallas. Needless to say, we were very excited. I ate dinner with the Shannon's then Levi picked me up and we headed to the airport. Getting out of the airport the bags have to be run through the xray machine again. They thought my sidewalk chalk was medicine, but when I showed it to them, they let me through. All in all it was a good day. The Bring love In project got an approval letter too, so they are one step closer to being open. Lot's of good news.

At this point it was Wednesday and I had still not been able to take a hot shower, or any shower for that matter.

Thursday we left in the morning and headed north outside of Addis Ababa to the Portuguese bridge. It is an area about two hours north out in the country. It was beautiful. I got some really great pictures. It was super super super cold. I thought I was going to freeze to death. I just thought that the Benkerts house was cold. I did get to take a hot shower. That was really exciting. It was my first hot shower since leaving Dallas on Saturday. We had a great time. In the cabin, though, I had trouble getting to sleep. I was seriously freezing. Even with two wool blankets on the bed my feet were frozen. And the bed was made out of concrete with a thin pad on it. As I dozed in and out trying to sleep, I just kept thinking, "oh man, there are people sleeping in this cold on hard floors and that is just the life they have. I get to go back to the states and have a soft bed, warm shower, and heat. I feel so sad for those who have no other options.

We got up and had another relaxing day at the bridge watching the kids have fun then we headed back. Since the next day was Melkam Gena (Ethiopian Christmas) we passed a market that was swarming with people preparing. I got some really great pictures as we drove. I hope to be able to post them when I get back to the states.

We got back into Addis late last night and we were all totally warn out. I was also burnt to a crisp. We are closer to the sun and closer to the equator. When I got up this morning, this was the first day I really really missed my family. I can't wait to hug their necks. Two weeks was a lot longer than I thought it would be. Jessie Benkert and I went to the movie and lunch today (Saturday). It was really nice. I am going to church with the Shannon's tomorrow. I will try and update next chance I get.

I have been out of internet contact the last day and a half, so I just keep getting further and further behind on my updates.

On my last update I forgot to talk about the bucket bath. The water here has not been working right; it started a few weeks before I got here. That has made things pretty interesting. I really don't mind it at all. It does make things a little more complicated, but I feel like it gives me a more realistic view of life here. I am glad that things are somewhat challenging so that I get the real missionary experience, not a watered down version of it. I have been brushing my teeth and washing my hands with cups of water. We haul water upstairs to fill the tanks in the toilet for flushing. On the first day here, after the day and a half of flying, I felt pretty dirty. I got to take a bucket bath. We boiled a couple of kettles of water, mixed it with some cold water and I used that to wash my hair and body off. It was FREEZING!!!! Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like to be cold. I think I mentioned in my last update that though it gets warm outside each day the nights are cool and the house stays really cold because it does not get hot enough to warm the concrete. I know Larry would love it. I could go out and get warm and he could stay in the cold house. I had a pretty good attitude about the bucket bath, but it was not my favorite. I opted out of taking a bucket bath for the next couple days. I just put in extra deodorant and put my hair in a pony tail. I understand that is just kind of how it goes here.

The second day I was here, my first full day, we got up and had a pretty laid back day. We had planned to go early to the Shannons house and look at the project they run, Embracing Hope Ethiopia, but ended up hanging around the house due to some other things that needed to be taken care of. The way things go, plans are pretty loose around here. Nothing ever really goes as planned or in the timing planned. I did wake up at my usual time about 430. I guess that is really where I left off the last one. I got to read a bit and journal and just relax. That must have been what God knew that I needed. After all the other stuff was taken care of we headed off to the Shannons'. I got to meet Christy first and just as I knew I would totally loved her. We got to visit a bit. After a little bit of visiting, we headed back out to come home. I got to drive by the project and see it in passing. My heart just felt so drawn to it. I was so sad that we could not stop. I really felt such a connection to that part of town. There is a visible change as you head to the part of town where Embracing Hope is. It is in the Korah village which is connected to the land fill. You can see the poverty in the buildings and in the way the people dress. I felt such a draw toward the people. I could not wait til the next day when we could go back and spend some real time at the project.

Levi and I left about 830 am the next morning so I could be dropped off to spend the day at EHE (Embracing Hope Ethiopia). I had packed up the photo printer prepared to take pictures of the kids so we could print them and give them to the mom. On the way over, I realized that I did not have the picture paper to print the pictures on because it was in my suitcases. That morning was the first morning that I was really kind of bothered by the fact the I didn't have my suitcases.

I have to end here b/c the battery is about to die on the computer and everyone has gone to bed. I will pick up more tomorrow.