The Ugly Side of Grace

I haven't written in so long that I am not sure that anyone will even read this. I have been writing a lot in my journal which I think has lead to me not blogging at all. I need to find some kind of balance between the two, or I need to learn to pick out of the journal and blog about some of it. Today, though, I need to pour out some junk. I just feel like putting on the paper is not enough.

There is a great deal of angst inside of me. This angst has been rolling around in me for months, every since I found out that my brother had relapsed. So, I have plugged Seether into my ears and I am going to type until I feel like I have let it all out. I don't know how long it will be or what all I have to say. Hopefully, there is a bigger reason for me to type this than just to purge it out.

Just a little back ground. My brother has battled a crack addiction for the last 10 years. He has had good seasons and really bad seasons. Things have gotten really dark at times and at other times things were going so good that we thought the dark seasons were over. He ended up in jail a few years back which led to a long stretch of good with a couple minor relapses. He had a really great couple of years. There were some small rough spots, but the general direction was forward and up. He had a really great job that he absolutely loved; he had unbelievable favor with the bosses. He had his own apartment and was paying his bills, saving and giving a lot. He had really built up a great library of books and bible study tools, and was studying and learning a lot. He had even began to take responsibility for a lot of past mistakes, even making amends financially to people he had stolen from. He was beginning to admit the truth about a long list of lies he had lived by. During this last year we had really began to get close and be like a brother and sister instead of enemies. I spoke to him almost daily on the phone. He was at my house weekly. We shared what we were studying and struggling with. We had really moved into having a close relationship. I wasn't distant or annoyed by him anymore.

About 2 and half months ago, things came unraveled. They started to unravel slightly, but I just kept praying for him and believed that things were going to head back in the right direction. To my horror things did not go back; they continued to unravel very quickly and deeply. I had no idea that things were going to completely come unraveled. I was totally caught off guard b/c I really thought that we had gotten far enough down the road of recovery and restoration that he wouldn't turn back. The savings went, then the job went; slowly he sold all of his belongings off; then the apartment went. He stole from my mom out of my house; he totaled his girl's car; he was held captive and beaten by drug dealers. He is now homeless and had lost everything. He is sleeping in bus stations and behind grocery stores. I even found a rehab for him, which he left after just a couple days.

I have gone through all kinds of different stages during the last couple months. At first, I was just very angry. I felt angry that he would choose this path again. I felt totally shocked; I really can't understand why he went back to that. I have been hopeful, believing that he would grab a hold of the sides of the pit and stop the descent. I have been overwhelmed with fear that he would die. I have grieved the loss of our close friendship and despaired that it would be once again close. And I have cried and cried and cried. This has hurt so much worse this time than it ever has before. In the past, I could just write him off and feel nothing toward his stupid decisions. We weren't close. Now, I cannot do that. My heart is ripped in half. Sometimes, I walk around with a lump in my throat for days and it feels like the grief and fear are going to choke me. Then someone strikes the right nerve and the tears come hard and deep and cleansing. Sometimes I feel like my guts are hanging out dragging behind me. I literally have a stomach ache b/c the grief is too much for me to take.

He showed up at my house yesterday. My first gut response was anger. I was angry that he was at my door like that and I knew that he had no where to go and would be asking for money. I also knew that I couldn't let him in b/c then he wouldn't leave and would probably steal from my mother; he always steals from her if given the chance (when he is on crack that is). I didn't speak to him or go out. I sent my husband out to deal with him. I just felt angry and couldn't go talk to him. I didn't realize until this morning that the anger was only a cover for what I was really feeling. It is how I protect myself from the torrent that is really inside of me. He ended up going to Starbucks where there are many people who know and love him. They talked to him and fed him and did what they could for him. As I pulled into my Starbucks this morning to get my coffee and saw those who had seen him the day before, the torrent was released. I had seen a glimpse of him through the slit in the blinds that I looked through to see who was at the door. I cannot get the image out of my mind. My precious D, my beloved brother, emaciated, all his belongings on his back, defeated, overwhelmed, hot, tired, feeling completely alone and hopeless. This morning, as I pulled up and saw my fellow barista and lover of D, the look on her face broke me. The grief bubbled up out of me threatening to break into a tsunami totally out of control. I choked in back, though. " I can't talk about him, right now," I said moving passed them. I walked in to see my boss, also one who loves D fiercely; the cracks in the dam holding back the flood began to leak; the tears began to spill, but with some control. Then the next face, lover of D, approached knowing the my heart was broken and threatening to give way; the sweet friend who had spent the day before at the Starbucks with D, feeding him, trying to reason with him. As she hugged me, the dam broke; I gave way to the sobs and lost control. My heart split open lying on the floor for all to see. We had to walk out of the store b/c the dam had given way and control was no longer possible.

I feel so sad and so confused. Why go back? Why won't you do something, Lord? I know what you did for me. I didn't want to quit drinking. I told you that you were going to have to change my heart and make me want to stop- that I would keep drinking until you took it away. And then one day, you took it. One day, you made me want to be free and I took you hand; you have led me down this path of sobriety from alcohol for the last 2 years. You have kept me from falling when I was tempted and given me the desire to let you change my heart. It has nothing to do with me. You did that for me, Lord. Why won't you do that for D? Why won't you take it away and make him want you more than he wants the crack. When will it end? Surely, you won't let him die this way. I have cried and prayed and cried some more.

I know you are good, Lord. I know you love him immeasurable more than I could ever love him. I know that you are in control of the universe and that you have a plan. I know that none of this is a surprise to you.

Grace looks so pretty in my life. It is an easy thing for me to hold to your sovereignty and delight in your grace. Trusting you is easy for me, b/c my life has been far more blessed than I ever imagined it could be. You have poured grace upon grace upon grace in my life. I have not suffered loss. My children are healthy and well adjusted. My husband adores me and provides for me. My house has electricity and running water. We have two cars and far more food than we can eat in our house. Grace is easy for me. Being thankful is easy for me. But what about grace in the lives of others? What about mothers who have to bury their children or care for desperately ill ones? What about the widows who don't have food to eat? What about D? I don't like the way grace is packaged for him. I don't see beautiful grace in his life. I see devastation and suffering. I see a hurt, hopeless little boy who grew up without a dad and just wants someone to show him how to be a man, to hug him and tell him that he is loved and that they believe in him. Forgive me, Lord; I don't see it. I don't like it. I am eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, labeling things with no true knowledge of the whole picture. I know that I see such a limited view and you see the whole thing beginning to end. I want to stand in the place of creator and judge deciding what is grace and what is not grace.

Kisses from Katie says it so much better, this idea of eating from the tree. Read about it here.
http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-am-so-old.html

I have grieved and struggled and all I know to do is to keep preaching the gospel truth to my self. We serve a loving God who knows all and can only give grace to us. We don't always like the package that grace comes in, but it is always a gift from God and it is good. He loves D and knew this was coming; it did not catch him by surprise. He knows how this all ends as well.

He used Elizabeth Elliot to say to me, "When it's finished, you'll see." We can't see the whole picture so we don't understand, but when it's finished, we will see.

I was singing in church this morning, "Savior, He can move the mountains, our God is mighty to save, mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave." As I sang, I heard Him, gently say to me, "I am writing his story. I am still writing his story." So no matter how the grace is packaged and no matter how much I dislike what it looks like. It is not my story to write. I am not writing this story. God is writing D's story. God is writing the story of Jesus in D.

And somehow, in His amazing faithfulness and providence, God is sanctifying me and changing me to make me more like Jesus through D's struggle and my struggle to walk through it. My loving Father is writing my story and D's story and weaving it together into a beautiful tapestry of grace. I can't see it with my eyes, but I choose to see it with my faith. The grief and pain are signs that He is healing me and causing me to be able to feel. The pain is a sign of life and growth and love. Being open to love means being open to pain and somehow that is also beautiful and it is grace.

July 18th, 2011

A little addition thanks to my great friend Sean who encouraged me by pointing out grace in my brother's life right now via text message.

"Grace is that, unlike several other addicts, he falls in direct sight of a Christian community that loves him. Grace is that he knows people that pray for him. Grace is that he is alive."

What comfort from a brother in Christ. It was just what I needed. Straight from the mouth of God to my ear through the mouth of a beloved brother- answer to the questions I prayed aloud in my blog.

Update : Dec 26th. God has moved in D's life. He has 4 months sober, a job, and lives at the 24 hour AA club downtown. He is on the mend, moving forward, pressing into God. He spent the first overnight at our house since the unraveling on Christmas Eve. Our relationship is on the mend. God is healing and showing us how His grace was and is woven into the whole situation.

Confession time

I have never thought that I could be addicted to pain pills. I am not saying that I judge those who are or have been addicted to them. I am an addict of a different kind. I am an alcoholic and and a speed freak. That is why I have never really been able to see myself with a pain pill problem. When I have surgery or some reason to need them, I get the prescription filled, take what I need and them leave the remainder in a bottle somewhere in my house. I just don't like the way they make me feel. I have spent so much of my life feeling tired and groggy that I don't like that feeling that vicodin gives me... usually. I like to feel speedy and get lots of things done. Most of the people who know me know that I hate to sleep and resent the fact that I am required to eat or sleep.

Well I had major dental work done on Tuesday. I was in a lot of pain; I took my pills and went to sleep. I got up and took some ibuprofen the next morning. After being awake a couple hours I took a pain pill and went to work. This is the first time I have had to take pain pills and work. Usually I take them and go to sleep; by the time I have to function normally, I am usually done taking them. In order to combat the grogginess I drank one of my extra stout white mocha drinks. When the ibuprofen wore off and the pain started again, I took another pain pill (not realizing that really the ibuprofen is what made the pain stop). It was at that point I started to feel really good. It was somewhat reminiscent of my speed ball days (heroin and cocaine together), only not quite as intense. I was so relaxed, but wired from the coffee. Wow!!! I thought. I came home and later made the connection that is was the ibuprofen actually made my mouth stop hurting. It seems to me the vicodin doesn't take the pain away; it just makes you not care about it. The ibuprofen actually eased the discomfort. That night (Wednesday)I told myself that I didn't need to take anymore of those pills; I just needed to take my ibuprofen. The problem was when I got up Thursday I wanted to take the vicodin even though I had taken ibuprofen and knew it would take away the discomfort. I wanted to take a couple and go drink coffee so I could feel relaxed and wired at the same time. "Alarms starting going off all over my head." I am so grateful for the grace of God that sent the Holy Spirit to live inside of me and lead me and speak to me. I am so grateful for the grace of God that gives me a willing heart to hear His voice and deep desire to obey and fear losing the walk He has given me each day. I now see how easy it would be for me to fall into that addiction. I gave the pills to my husband and asked him to hide them.

I am so grateful for the glimpse into how susceptible I still am to falling into a new addiction and now much my flesh still yearns for an escape. I am so grateful that God is bigger than my addictive personality and that He loves me enough to warn me and give me the ability to catch it before it gets out of hand. I am grateful that its okay to be tempted and to struggle; and I am grateful that He allows me this platform to share and hopefully impact others.

In the beginning part 4b

Okay, new house, hopefully new rhythm of writing several times a week. I have received so much positive feedback the last couple weeks about my blog that I am feeling very encouraged.

I decided to write part 4b b/c I feel like I skipped through the California time too fast and missed some details. I wrote about all the big stuff, but I didn't really talk about the day to day things of California squatter years. California was such a strange environment for me. Even though, I wasn't a Christian, I had been raised in the Bible belt and so I had a bible belt set of morals and standards that I wasn't even really aware of. I would imagine many of the people I know who were raised in Texas probably take for granted the things that we think. Amongst our group of squatters, which was a pretty big group, there were a couple of the guys who were pimps to girls who were prostitutes. I remember, even in my state of little or no morals, thinking that it was really strange that everyone treated that like is was normal. I had never really hung out with any prostitutes. In Texas there was just kind of a stigma and taboo about the profession. Now I am not saying what I did, which was trade favors for drugs or just not value my body enough to be dignified, was any better, but the overt way it was promoted just struck me as odd. The girls would go out and do there thing and come back with money; everyone just treated it as normal. I even remember them sending the girls out so we could get money for drugs for us. It was just not something I was used to seeing. Some of the girls also seemed a little developmentally delayed which I also found odd. They were either developmentally delayed or had done so many drugs that they had become delayed. Not sure why I felt to write about that except that the sense of weirdness about the whole things still strikes me as strange.

I was also struck by the vast numbers of homeless teens in Hollywood from all over the place. I met people from all over the US. Alexandra's dad was from Utah, for example. We knew of about 20 squatters in Dallas (Young, punk squatters that is). In Hollywood there were probably close to 500 to 700 spread out all over. They arrived fresh daily.

We found a squat with about 10 others off of Melrose Ave. I am not sure why all these houses were abandoned. Up on the Blvd there were tons of kids staying in abandoned warehouses. I do remember having to sneak in after dark and get back out as soon as we could in the morning. I remember we used the bathrooms in spite of no water. The tub and pot were full of human waste. (Sorry, I know that is gross.) It smelled horrible. We used to steal toilet paper from the restaurants on Melrose. There was this food stand where we would all go get food called Okey Dogs. They had the biggest burritos. I think they were like 2 dollars and would totally fill us up. We would go out and start pan handling to get enough change for a burrito and some cigarettes. Then later in the day we would start pan handling for money to drink. I remember exactly what I would say; I said it over and over so it stayed with me. "Hey, you got any change you can spare? quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" When they would ask me why, I would say b/c I want to get high, and believe it or not, that worked for me. People would give me money. Then we would start drinking or tripping or whatever we decided we wanted to do that day. That was before I met the guys with the meth. The meth changed things a lot. I have always been a speed freak. Well, once I started doing drugs. I have spent most of my life feeling like I wanted to sleep. For whatever reason, I ended up with way more drive than energy. In recent years that is much better do to change in food choices, exercise and life changes. But b/c I always felt like sleeping, I did not want to do downers; I wanted speed and a lot of it. I really never gave much thought to doing too much or overdosing. I took all I could get my hands on and as fast as I could get it in. Funny I have always been a person of excess. I guess one might see excess in my running 10 to 12 miles a day, but I choose to call it discipline. Anyway, when it came to drinking or doing drugs, I did it hard and fast. When I was drinking, I could out drink most of the people I knew, including my husband. I didn't wait for it to hit me; I just hammered it down as fast as I could pour it. What used to worry my husband was how much I could put away and still walk and talk normally.

So, on one of the last nights I was in Hollywood is the night that the whole Sunset Strip was tripping on LSD. On the weekends we would all go up to the strip and hang out all night. We weren't in clubs, just on the streets/ side walks hanging out. Sometimes the strangest things seemed to go on. One night we were all sitting and this whole bunch of our punk friends were walking in a line down one side of the street, across and up our side of the street. They were walking in this big square for a really long time. I don't know why, but I can remember thinking it was really strange and not having any idea why they were doing it. I guess that's what we did when we were really high. So, I was panhandling for money to get some LSD. I was using my standard panhandling method. "You got any spare change, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" These guys asked what I was panhandling to get and I told them LSD. (For those who aren't familiar with drugs, LSD is a hallucinogen. Depending on how strong it is, it can take you quite far from reality. You never know what you are going to see.) These guys asked how much I had; I said $4.32 (something pretty close to that-I know you probably are shocked that I can remember the amount. That would by why my husband likes to call me rain man. Because I can remember the strangest details about stuff.) They said give us what you have and put out your hand. I did and they poured a hand full of liquid LSD into my hand. (Liquid is really strong and hits you really fast. It usually only takes a couple drops and I got a LOT!!!) That night these guys had come down to the strip to distribute a lot of LSD. They were following the Grateful Dead on tour. They weren't really looking to make money b/c they were pretty much giving it away. Several people ended up tripping who did not necessarily want to be tripping. I heard that dozens of people were tripping on the strip that night and there were people running up and down the strip naked. It was like something that happens in a movie. I don't remember much of anything from that night at all. There are a couple fuzzy moments, but most of it is a complete black out. I believe I left Hollywood the next day. My best friend, Star, stayed behind. I left in a white stolen jeep Cherokee. It was driven by Pilot and contained me, Crabs (Ally's biological dad), and a girl called Chaos Pony. Yes, we all had really strange street names. Mine was Spider. If you have ever wondered why I have all those stupid spider tattoos even thought I am petrified of spiders, that would be why.

So we took off for Dallas. The clutch went out right outside of California. Of course no one had the money to get it fixed. This is where I learned to power shift. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is how you shift a car that is a standard without a clutch. Yes, you can drive a standard without a clutch. It is not good for it and probably not very safe, but we got all the way back to Dallas that way. We would stop and panhandle for money for gas; we may have done a couple of gas runs too. You start out in 2nd gear and chug a lug to get the car going then you shift with the rpms. The hardest part is getting it going. I remember that Nirvana had just gotten really big at the time. We listened to Smells like Teen Spirit all the way back to Dallas. It was on all the radio stations, so we heard it a lot as we went from station to station across the US. At some point a long the road I called my mom to tell her I was on the way back. She let us come and stay. We didn't tell her we were driving a stolen car. It is so funny that we managed to get all the way from California to Dallas, Texas in a stolen car that we were having to power shift to drive. I think it was pretty close to Christmas, too. I am not sure, but there seems to be some kind of remembrance in me that says it was. I am pretty sure we were in Cali for Thanksgiving. Mom, let us all stay with her a couple days in her apt. We smelled super ripe. She tells me that she had to throw the blankets we used away when like 3 washings did not get our stench out. I am not exaggerating. We were nasty. I personally had 1 set of clothes I wore. Every once in a while I would go into a gas station and wash out my underwear then wear them around wet. Man, I cannot even imagine that now. I don't ever go a day without a shower.

We ended up in Deep Ellum drinking and eventually left Dallas. Crabs got put in jail for fighting while he was drunk. When he got out, we went to Austin for some reason. On the way back from Austin we did a dye and dash (we went into a Sally's and ran out with a bunch of hair color. Man, we were idiots.) Then about Waco we did a dine and dash. Right outside of Hillsboro we got stopped by a state trooper. He actually took us in for having an open container. It was a bottle of vodka with literally 1 gulp in it, but it was enough. They arrested the 4 of us and impounded the car. The next day 3 of us got out, but the girl who owned to car stayed in for warrants, I think. We were stuck in Hillsboro, though. We all had mohawks and were wearing leather jackets, combats boots, etc. The folks in Hillsboro did not like us at all. There was one place that could take wire transfers in the town. We were trying to get someone to wire us money to get the car out of impound. The police got us kicked out of the only place where we could have money wired to us. They kept telling us to get out of town, though. I am not sure what they wanted us to do. I remember being really scared that once it got dark they were going to make us disappear. We finally convinced someone to drive down and get us; we left the other girl and her car. We just wanted to get out before we woke up buried alive or something. We got back to Dallas. We went to party at some really big ritzy house, stole a bunch of stuff and took off for Minneapolis. We had convinced these two girls to drive us. We also convinced them to do all of our dirty work b/c they looked normal and we didn't. They used to credit cards we had stolen to gas up and buy all kinds of stuff. We had them pawn a ring for us too. That happened later in Columbia, Missouri. We all took off in a Sunbird (tiny with a hatch back). I am pretty sure there were like7 of us in it. I was laying on top of the three people sitting in the back seat. To make the trip go by fast I took 2 xanax (which I had stolen) drank a bottle of nyquil and drank a couple beers. I am lucky I woke back up. We ended up stopping in Columbia for a few days; I am not sure why. We met some people some how and stayed at their house on the floor. Crabs and I had strep throat really bad. We were so so sick, running fever and all. They ended up leaving us in Columbia b/c we all knew we were probably going to be squatting in Minneapolis and were afraid Crabs and I would end up dead b/c we were so sick. Eventually Crabs and I took off hitch hiking. We ended up stuck on the side a a highway. No one would pick us up. The midwest is a really bad place to hitch hike. They don't like to pick people up. We even had hats on. I remember we kept going back to this truck stop and couldn't get any help. My toes were frozen to my wool socks in my boots. It was so miserable. This is where my absolute hatred for cold was really solidified. Finally someone picked us up and drove us into Kansas City, Kansas. We went to a shelter in Kansas who helped us get to Travelers aid. All they did was put us on a bus that took us into Kansas City, Missouri. At the bus station we called a shelter. They picked us up and took us to the Hospital where we got treatment for our horrible strep. Then they took us to the shelters. We had to be in separate shelters which we didn't like at all. We left on foot after like 1 day. We asked around and found the place where all the punks hung out. We met some folks and found a place to stay. I think we were in Kansas city for a couple months. It was here I realized I was pregnant. I got tired of Crabs. He was a jerk for the most part. I called a friend from Dallas and he drove up and rescued me. He actually lived in Norman, Ok so I stayed with him for a bit. Finally, I ended up back in downtown Dallas. I hooked up with one of my old friends ?? (I decided to remove his name, due to possible incrimination of him- that is not my place to expose) and moved in with him and his room mate.

Now we are coming up to the part where you get to hear how I met Jesus, but alas, I must go pick up Chloe so this part of the story will wait for another day.

In the beginning part 4

Okay. I am posting less and less often. I am moving this week and have been packing on top of everything else I have to do, so I hope that getting moved will help me get back to posting more often.

A friend asked me the other day about the term "gutter punk" stating she was afraid to find out what that meant. Gutter punks are punk rockers that are homeless. They don't shower, brush teeth, change clothes, etc. Those behaviors are not really uncommon to the homeless; the difference is that "gutter punks" are really quite proud of being dirty. He who stinketh the most wins.

As I said in the last post, I got married to a guy named Squid. We broke up and I went to a few different places to stay after that. I ended up moving in with my friend Star (who would later become my best friend of 20 years). She had an apartment that her mother paid for while she was finishing up high school. We didn't stay there too long before we decided we would skip town. Our friend Mark had moved to California to live with his mother, so we thought we would hitch out to see him. Star and I packed up a couple bags worth of stuff; we had maybe $50. I can't remember for sure. Our friend drove us out to 35 and left us with our thumbs out. One guy picked us up and drove us back to the bus station where he said he was going to buy us tickets so we wouldn't have to hitch to California. He left us there which really made us mad. I guess he thought that if he left us back in Dallas we wouldn't hitch. We got another friend to drive us out to Mesquite to the truck stop so we could find a trucker going to Cali.

Not to confuse my readers, but I just remembered something. As a teenager at 16 or so, I was staying down town on the streets and one night I slept on the JFK monument. It doesn't fit into the time line here, but I thought it would be interesting to add it since I forgot it. The JFK monument is a flat marble square about 3 feet off the ground it is about 5 ft by 5 ft. It is really, really uncomfortable to sleep on. It is really hard. The reason I slept on it, though, is that it is surrounded on all four sides by these tall stone pieces like walls. You get in trouble for just sleeping on the side walk or in a park, but they can't see you in the monument. Funny, huh?

We found a trucker who was going to Cali; he said he would take us all the way there. He was kind of scary. He looked like Abraham Lincoln meets Charles Manson. When he would stop to sleep I had to lay beside him b/c he wouldn't keep his hands off of Star. He would literally try to crawl over me to get at her. It was great fun, but we tried to just endure so we could get to Cali. We did finally make it out there. It took a few days, but we were so glad to make it. We called Mark and found out that the trucker had left us like right down the street from his apartment. We stayed with him for a couple days, then the three of us got on a bus and headed for Hollywood Blvd. I forgot to mention that he lived in Los Angeles. He helped us find some folks to hang with and then headed back home. The time on the Blvd is kind of blurry. We drank a lot. It is a really weird atmosphere and culture. It was very different from Texas. We ended up hanging with some people who were squatting on Melrose avenue. Like I said, very blurry. I did a lot of LSD there. We could not trust anyone. Everyone tried to scam everyone else. We all slept in our Doc Martins and used our leather jackets as pillows so no one could steal them from us. Eventually I worked my way into hanging out with some people with a lot of Meth. I was doing lots of Meth and LSD. I actually walked away and left Star stranded b/c I wanted to do more speed and the people with the speed did not want her to come. I abandoned my best friend for speed. After being awake on speed for like 120 hours straight and I started to lose it. It had been a few days since leaving Star stranded and I didn't really have anyone I could trust.

I should interject here that I am naturally a very paranoid person. Okay, maybe I should not say naturally, but I tend toward paranoia. Even to this very day I tend toward paranoia. The difference now is that I am able to talk myself down out of paranoia now. I can look logically at the situation and tell myself that what I am thinking is tainted by paranoia and center myself. I do firmly believe in a lot of conspiracy. My husband loves to say that it is just b/c I am crazy.

Take that tendency toward paranoia and add the other factors in (1. not knowing the Lord yet and not being healed at all, 2. a lot of drugs going into my body and mixing of drugs, and 3. no sleep for over 100 hours) and you have a really big mess. The mess was big enough that I cannot tell you today what really happened. I have had a lot of hallucinations in my days, but usually once I came down I could see what really was going on during my drug induced hallucinations. The events that went on this day have no base in reality for me to say what happened.
First, as I sat in an apartment, I kept seeing this shadow on the wall. It looked like a man holding a butcher knife. I would get up and walk over to where it was and look around and look in the bathroom and no one would be there. Then I would go sit back down. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. I was too paranoid to tell them what I was seeing. I started to think the man must be crawling up into the ceiling when I would go look for him. One of the guys was moving back to Dallas so we took a several boxes of his stuff to the post office so he could mail them back. For some reason, they kept all leaving me in the line at the post office with the box. I think they were outside smoking cigarettes, but it really kept freaking me out. I really and truly thought that they were plotting to blow up the post office and let me be blamed for it. I thought for sure that the box must have explosives in it. I kept walking off and leaving the box in the line by itself b/c i didn't want to be alone with it. Then I thought I saw one of them drop a box in the mails slot and knew that it had to be a bomb. I don't know what was really going on, but I was convinced that the bomb was going to go off and I would be blamed for it. We finally got done at the post office and went back to the guys apartment where the girl I had been hanging out with was. She had stayed behind b/c she was starting to crash and wanted to sleep. As we approached the door to the apartment I had a flash in my head and I just knew that my friend was going to be dead inside. Someone had murdered her and I was going to take the fall, or so I thought. I could see how the blood would look all over the walls. I was thinking that the man with the butcher knife was going to kill her and then crawl into the ceiling and somehow I would get blamed. We opened the door and she was fine. There was no blood and no dead person. At this point I was really starting to lose my grip on reality. Me and the girl left the guys and went back down to the blvd. We had some meth left and I had a big knife that I kept in my boot. Somehow I got the idea that one of the people around was going to narc on me so I started plotting how to get rid of the stuff. I ended up dumping my knife in a trash can. Then I dropped the baggy with the last of the meth right behind a cop. I thought that if I dropped it behind him I would be safer. We wandered around more; we ran into a friend of mine who, I would have sworn dropped something into my boot. I just knew that he was trying to frame me for stealing something. I must have taken my boot off a dozen times looking for whatever I thought he dropped into my boot. I never found anything. At this point I was really losing ground. Just when I thought I might really freak out, we ran into my friend Mark (the one I knew from Dallas). I begged him and his girl to let me hang with them. I needed to be with someone I had known before and could trust. I also asked him to help me find Star. She was the only one I knew I could trust and could count on. I had left her stranded, though, so I wasn't sure if she would have me back again. I proceeded to tell Mark about all the weird stuff that had taken place that day. I just wanted to come down and go to sleep so I could find reality again. We were driving around with one of the other punks, I think in a stolen car. I kept seeing shadow people come out of the pavement and mail boxes. It was not a fun night. We hung out and that night they helped me find my way back to the squat on Melrose. I met up with Star; she was still pretty mad, but she let me come into squat to stay and threatened to kick my ass if I didn't got to sleep so I would stop being crazy. She convinced one of the guys who was driving around in a stolen car to drive me back to Dallas.

Before we left for Dallas, there was a really crazy night that everyone on Sunset strip ended up tripping on LSD. I will pick up there next time. It is late and I am sleepy.

Walking with God--New Years Reflections

Psalm 116:1-19

I love the Lord, because He has heard

My voice and my supplications.

Because He has inclined His ear to me,

Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me,

And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;

I found trouble and sorrow.

Then I called upon the name of the Lord:

"O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!"

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;

Yes, our God is merciful.

The Lord preserves the simple;

I was brought low, and He saved me.

Return to your rest, O my soul,

For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For you have delivered my soul from death.

My eyes from tears, and my feet from falling;

I will walk before the Lord

In the Land of the living.

I believed, therefore I spoke,

"I am greatly afflicted."

I said in my haste,

"All men are liars."

What shall I render to the Lord

For all His benefits toward me?

I will take up the cup of salvation,

And call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord

Now in the presence of all His people.

Precious in the sight of the Lord

Is the death of His saints.

O lord, truly I am Your servant;

I am Your servant, the son of Your maid servant;

You have loosed my bonds.

I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

And will call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord

Now in the presence of all His people,

In the courts of the Lord's house,

In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord.

This was the scripture in my devotional and it went along so well with what God was rolling around in my heart this morning. I don't know why, but it still surprises me when God set things up so the devotion, bible reading, or even sermon seems to line up directly with what He is speaking to me. I know He is God and can handle these little details, but it still evokes in me a sense of awe, when He does it. And He does it all the time. Why does it still surprise me? I have devotion I go through every year and I just keep going through it every year. I reach the end and just go back to the beginning. Maybe some day I will feel led to change to a new devotion book, but for the time being I keep going back to the beginning every Jan 1. This has been going on for years. I have probably gone through it 7 or 8 times. Every once in a while I read one that I recognize, but for the most part it always seems new to me. Amazing, huh? It always blows my mind that he can take this little book and somehow it is in the exact order the confirm and support what He is doing or speaking to me that day or in that season. Amazing to me. Maybe some day it will stop surprising me. I hope not though, b/c I love that sense of awe when I realize He has done it again. I hope He never stops surprising me. I think that is why I love life so much and why I wake up excited every day to have another day to walk with Him. I never want to get used to Him or let my walk with Him become stale. Lord, keep surprising me. It is so much fun. I feel almost like every day is Christmas for me. Strange, naive, crazy, immature, maybe, but I don't care. "Unless we come to him like a little child...." Let me continue to become more like a child and less like an adult. We lose the magic and zest of life when we grow "old". And as a matter of fact, Lord let me infect everyone around me with this disease of immaturity, naivety, and insane love for God and delight for each day He gives us. May we begin to believe in magic again (not real magic mind you); may we begin to be giddy, silly and amazed with anticipation of what our Father has in store for us each day. May we be willing, as David was, to dance with all of our might and be a fool for Jesus. May we get so lost in Him that we just don't care what anybody thinks about us and our love for our Savior. If people can act stupid for a football team, which has no eternal significance whatsoever, then they can act stupid for Jesus, who created us, loves us, died for us, calls us and equips us to do great things for him. Let's strip off of us the garments of "properness" and really express what He deserves for what He did for us. Can we please bring to church our football behavior? I think God would be delighted and be most honored by this behavior.

Well, that was an unexpected little rabbit trail.

My post yesterday about Larry and my story brought about a discussion with a friend. It seems that my post ripped open some wounds inside her that she didn't realize were even still there. We had gone to church together. I am sad that she is in pain, but I am glad that God showed her the wounds were there and ripped open the scabs. This is a great place to be; it is a painful place, but after the bleeding comes the healing. We discussed my perspective on the subject and how I am able to forgive and not be angry. I tried to share my heart with her and I hope that I was able to bring her closer to allowing God to heal her.

As I prayed for me friend this morning, this post began to roll around in my mind. When I read the devotion for the day, it confirmed to me what I needed to write about today. It is so hard to try to put into words the journey I have been on and how I have arrived here at this place. It is hard to express what has happened and what happens on my treadmill that has so dramatically changed and continues to change who I am. I would liken my treadmill to going into a closet and shutting the door to pray. From the outside one would probably just see someone running. You can't really tell that I am praying at all, unless you know me well and you just know, if I am running I am praying b/c that is just what I do. As I prayed, I tried to think about how I pray and how that impacts me. I was trying to describe it to my friend last night.

I have to say that sometimes I write with trepidation because I don't want to be taken the wrong way. I never want to come across like I think I have all the answers, or that I think I am just so spiritual, or that I think my way of praying is the only way. I hope and pray with all my heart that what comes across is an honest, authentic and sincere account of a desperately broken person who is desperately clinging to the only person she has hope in. I hope that you see someone who is so in Love with Jesus and so convinced that she has nothing without Him that all she can do is cling to him. I also hope you see someone who just wants to share her heart hoping that God would be gracious enough to use it to impact and help people.

I have reached a place in my walk where I have really ceased striving. I cannot do anything on my own. I don't even try. I need Him for everything, including even the desire to pray or seek Him. The desire and willingness is a gift He gives to me. If I see a struggle or an area that seems out of whack in my life, I don't try and change it. I bring it to Him. I don't try to use will power to solve my struggles. That is useless. I will always fail in my own power. I cannot do any good without Him. This also means that I cannot be proud of progress; I cannot seek glory for myself b/c I haven't done anything. I cannot find my significance or identity in any of the things I do or don't do. When people complement me or God uses me to speak truth and life into someones life, I must turn around and give it to Him. I cannot boast or think I am better than anyone else. You may struggle with food; I do not. I struggle with alcohol, and pride, and lust; I am not better than anyone else. You struggle; I struggle; we all struggle. No struggle is less or more than any other. They just are what they are. So, I cannot boast in any of my "strengths" b/c I have many weaknesses and the strengths I may have are a gift from God. How can I boast in a gift? So because I realize that everything I have is a gift and that I have nothing that He did not give me, I can cease striving. If He gave me these gifts, then He can give me strength in the midst of my weakness and struggle.

How do I pray? This is how I pray. I am not saying my way is the only way, but maybe someone somewhere will get something they need from reading about my prayer. First I spend a lot of time praying for myself. I have very long conversations with God about me and I don't think there is anything wrong with it. We need to pray for ourselves. What an asinine idea that we should pray for others and not ourselves. In that time of praying for myself, I pray, I listen and cry out and before I know it prayers are uttered out of myself that I know are no longer me; they are prayers of the Holy Spirit. He causes me to pray things that are scary to my flesh. He gives me to courage to trust God to know what is best for me. I find myself uttering things like, "if your Spirit goes not with me, I don't want to go. I don't want anything that you don't want me to have. I don't want to be anywhere that you aren't leading me. Lord, I will go where ever you want me to go as long as you go with me. I will go to Antarctica (that is a huge thing for me to say, there is no place I would rather not go than somewhere really cold; I am a cold natured person; I hate to be cold; Hell would be cold to me not hot). I will go to Africa; I will go live in a dump in Indonesia; I will live in a cardboard box under a bridge as long as you go with me. I don't want to be anywhere with out you. Take my family, just don't take your presence from me. I desperately need you and I am desperately in love with you. I know that where ever He would call me, would be where I would be most fulfilled, most at peace and where His presence would be. There is no where on Earth that I could be happier than where He would call me. B/c happiness is not external, it is totally internal. You have to admit those are pretty scary things to pray, but His Spirit prays them through me. When I am unable to pray, His Spirit prays for me, and through me. I am also free to not walk in fear b/c I am able to hold everything with an open palm. I trust Him so I can surrender everything to Him.

I find myself just praying for him to make me willing to do whatever He would ask of me, to go wherever He would ask me to go, to say whatever He would ask me to say, to be who He has made me to be, nothing more, nothing less. I pray for him to take out of me everything that stands in the way of me knowing Him and making Him known. I pray that if there is anything that I am unwilling to do, or anywhere I am unwilling to go, or unwilling to let go of, or unwilling to look at and deal with that He would make me willing. I ask him to help me to love Him with all of my heart, mind, soul, and spirit and to love my neighbor as myself. I pray break me, bring me to the end of myself so that I could lose my life and find it in You, so that it would no longer be I who live, but Christ in me. I pray that God would give me to courage and willingness to dig as deep in me as necessary so I could be free of all the infection, corruption, and contaminates inside of me. Free me from denial and deception, distraction and distortion, all the filters, wounds, arrows, and the voice of the enemy so that the enemy would not have ownership of any of the land in my soul.

When I was struggling with my alcoholism and the denial associated with it I just cried out to God to help me. My heart wanted to stop drinking, but my flesh did not. I did not say, "Okay, Lord, I won't do it anymore," when that was not really what it felt. I told Him, "I know that you don't want me to keep doing this, Lord, but I want to keep drinking, I like drinking, so I ask You to makes me willing to give it up, help me to not want to do this anymore." There was no point in me trying to get control (for those who are familiar with recovery, that would be the first and second steps). I didn't even want to control it. He knew that was the case so I didn't try and pretend that I felt any different than I felt. I did know, though, that He could change my heart and make me want what He wanted for me. I loved Him and wanted to obey what He was telling me, but I didn't have it inside me to do it. So, I brought it to Him and asked for Him to change me. And guess what, He did it; He changed me. I don't want to drink anymore. I know that there will probably come a day that I am tempted; the Word says, "let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall." I pray for that day when I am tempted, but today and for the past few months, He has taken the desire away from me. He did that for me. The first couple months had some pretty tough days, but He was so faithful to always give me not only a way of escape, but the desire to take it. So you see, I have ceased striving, I don't even try anymore. I just give it to Him, cry out to Him and ask for His help in all the ways I need it. My will power is not even relevant anymore; it isn't me doing it; it is Him.

Another example of the phenomena happened when we first really started going back to church and I started to trying to draw close to Him and let go of the things that were weighing me down. I would go to church and we would sing songs; they felt so inauthentic to me. I sang, "Lord, you're my all and all, I love you more than anything else," etc. While I was singing, I would be apologizing to Him b/c that is not how I felt and it really bothered me to be inauthentic in praising Him. I knew there had been a time in my walk that those words were sincere and I believed that I would come back to a sincere worship. I did the only thing I knew to do; I prayed every day that He would change my heart and help me fall back in love with Him. I prayed that He would make those words authentic and sincere in my life so that I could sing them and mean them with all of my heart. Over the next couple months He answered those prayers and He started transforming me and restoring me and healing me. Then one day I realized that I was once again singing from my heart and I really meant the words that were coming out. I could not work that up or make it happen; I just went to the source of everything I have and asked for His help. He helped me. He has brought me back to that place I walked when I first met Him, only with more wisdom, experience and root. We just have to be real, come to him with what we have and ask for His help. He will meet us right there. "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you." "Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart" Sometimes He will withdraws from us, when we are half hearted in seeking Him so that we will really get desperate and search for Him with all our hearts. He doesn't want our pretense, our half hearted devotion; He doesn't want us to come to him with a mask of perfection on. He wants us to come as we are, with all of our hearts and allow him to meet us there, even if there is a sewer. Sewers are His specialty.

I love Jeremiah 29:11-14

"For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thought of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive."

He has great plans for us and He loves us. He wants to put it in our hearts to seek Him with our whole being. He wants to bring us close to Him. He wants to bring us back from captivity. He will allow our sin, whatever it is, to take us away in captivity until we are sick enough of it that we will cry out to Him with all of our hearts. He will let us gorge ourselves until we are so full that it becomes sour in our stomachs and we vomit it up. He will let us have our fill and allow us to be dragged away into captivity, b/c He loves us and when the captivity is bad enough, we will cry out to Him with all our hearts b/c we want Him more than that things that holds us captive. He lets things get as bad as it takes. Then when we have had enough; we will cry out to Him. We will desperately cry out for Him and search for Him; we will try to figure out where it is we left Him, lost Him; then we will realize He is right there and He will rescue us.

God is good and He loves us more than we could ever possibly understand or love ourselves. For that I am grateful. He never afflicts without reason; He afflicts to bring us back to Him. He won't let us go. Man, is that good news.

More on Mom.

This morning as I ran, I began to ponder my mother again. As bad as things were when we were growing up, it could have been so much worse. She really tried to love us. She just didn't know how. She had never been loved, therefore she did not love herself so she was incapable of really loving herself. The word says, "Love you neighbor as yourself." If we don't love ourselves, we can't really love others. If we hate ourselves, and we love our neighbor as ourselves then we hate our neighbor. Anyway, my mom never set out to be mean to us or hurt us. It was never in her heart to cause any kind of harm to us. She would have given anything to see us grow up happy and whole and to go further than she did.

What really sparked these thoughts was hearing a friend talk about her mother. The circumstances surrounding her conception were very unhappy and complicated. It involved some really bad situations. Her mother felt the need to tell her about those shameful circumstances her whole life. Her mother hated her, and wished ill to her her whole life. Her mother blamed her for something that she had no control over. It is not as if this girl chose to be conceived when she was conceived. Her mother has hated her for her whole life for something she had not control over and could not ever change. She treated her bad and called her stupid, and used the conception problem as an excuse. Instead of seeing God's grace in giving her a child and embracing it as a blessing, she has treated this wonderful, amazing woman as a curse for her entire life. How horrible that would have to be, to grow up like that. I have found myself praying diligently for this friend over the last couple days. My heart is so broken for her. I feel such a deep agonizing ache in my heart for her. I have found myself praying for God to restore her sense of destiny, redeem the years the enemy has stolen from her and turn what the enemy has used to harm her for her whole life around to smack him right in the face with it. I want God to comfort and let His truth sink deep into the deepest parts of her soul. GOD DOES NOT MAKE MISTAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every person conceived and born was created by Him and for Him. "He knit us together within our mothers womb. He has numbered our days and the very hairs upon our heads. I pray that every person who has ever felt like a mistake finds and reads this blog and that God illuminates the truth to their hearts. He created each of us. "God is not a man that He should lie, nor is he the son of man that He should repent." "His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts." He knows, and allows and plans. Receive the truth in your heart, you are not and have never been a mistake. My oldest daughter and my son know the circumstances surrounding their conceptions. They were not "conventional" by any means. I mean, I was a drug addict when Ally was conceived and my husband and I were not married when Stephen was conceived and wouldn't be married until Stephen was 2 or 3. Neither one of those children was a mistake. God sent them to me. They were both instrumental in bringing growth and healing in my life to different areas. (Another story I need to write about.) Ally saved my life and God used Stephen to put me and Larry back together as a family.

It makes me so sad when I hear about people growing up in some of there terrible situations. I cannot imagine ever making one of my children feel like they were a mistake. As a matter of fact, these children are my life. They are second only to my love for Jesus. Every decision I make has them at the center of it; I way everything next to them. They are my treasure; they are some of the greatest blessings in my life. I see it as a great privilege and responsibility to be their mother. I am so sorry for those who have grown up feeling less than that. Little girls are meant to be princesses and little boys are meant to be handsome knights in shining armor. God has used my children to teach me so many amazing lessons and to heal so many horrible wounds inside me.

Back to my point. No, I was not a little princess. My mother, though, never ever meant any ill will toward me. She would have never set out to intentionally hurt one of us. She might have been neglectful, but never intentionally hurtful. Had she realized the things that were going on, I don't think she would have hesitated to shoot some people in the head and worry about it later. She is fiercely protective of her children and grandchildren. I have no doubt she would step into the path of a bullet, car, train or any object threatening one of us including my husband. If someone were to do real harm to one of us, right or wrong, I believe she would do something about it even if it meant jail. I was just struck this morning again as I prayed for my friend how blessed I am to have my mother and how things were really not so bad. I truly believe that my mother never ever meant harm to us and really only ever wanted good things for us. She just wasn't capable of giving the good things and love that her heart wanted to give us. So things could have been so much worse. She has never ever made me feel like I was a mistake, even when I stole from her, verbally abused her, and became the iceberg of cold indifference I was for the first few years I walked with God. She just prayed and tried to love me anyway she could; she has striven for the last 20 years to make up for the harm that was done.

No more striving!!! "It is finished" so declared the Creator and Savior of the universe. He has made ALL THINGS Right.

I love the part of the Serenity Prayer that says, "Trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to His will."

I don't deny that things were bad, but they could have been so much worse. And I have a Redeemer who makes all things right, so I don't have to worry or fret, nothing is wasted and all will be as it is supposed to be.

Mother--This starts painful, but finish it, the ending is great

Beautiful Redemption

My relationship with my mother, though wonderful now,did not start out very good and was rocky for a very, very long time. When I was a child, she was clinically depressed. She slept for what seems like most of my child hood. We grew up in a house that was indescribably messy and often times filthy. My Mom has said that CPS probably would have taken us out of the home if they had ever come in and looked. She allowed a lot of really terrible things to happen to me and my brother. We were very angry as we grew up. I can say for myself, I wasn't even aware of what I was angry about. I just knew that I despised her. She was not one to hold us, hug us or anything until we were much older. As she tells it, she used to leave me in my crib with a bowl of cereal and sippy cup. I think my aversion to physical contact is tied to that. I read one time that babies and toddlers are developing nerve endings and if they don't get stimulated in certain ways the nerves relating to that stimulation don't develop properly. That would explain why sometimes being touched is painful to me and why I have a definite bubble. I have been known to react in a pretty unreasonable way to violation of the bubble. Needless to say, I think I was probably pretty justified in being angry. I started doing drugs, cutting myself and attempting suicide by the age of 13.

In her defense, she really did the very best she could with the equipment she had. She had been terribly abused and neglected as a child. The only way she knew to deal with the pain of her childhood was denial to the point of actually dividing herself into different people. The unfortunate side effect of her denial was that she could not see that her abuser and others were victimizing her children. Those years were dark to us all.

On the other hand, all of my childhood memories of her are not bad. I have some pretty distinct good memories. I remember one Christmas she made all this Barbie jewelry for me by stringing beads. This was not an easy feat b/c she is blind as a bat. I remember hunting for Easter Eggs. I remember her buying us an Atari. I remember her buying us doughnuts for breakfast on Friday mornings. There were these giant chocolate doughnuts as big as my head (as I remember it). I also remember her being told that my brother was a hopeless case and a sociopath (one without a conscience). They told her to just sign him over to the state b/c he would spend his whole life in prison. She refused to do that. Today we are all grateful b/c he is okay, and such would not be the case had she abandoned him. Believe me, it would have been easier. He was totally out of control. Burning things down, turning the car off while we drove down the highway, terrorizing the whole neighborhood. It took a lot for her to keep us together. We were both pretty horrible children at different times.

She also gave me some really great traits. She raised me to be very independent and to take care of myself. Now my independence has had to be tempered and still needs more tempering. Thankfully, God is busy working on that. But I am not someone who is easy to knock down; I am not a whiner, nor am I really needy. That is something she helped develop in me. I have seen my mother move a couch up a flight of stairs by herself. She kept clear of relationships when she realized that she was not capable of attracting healthy men. We may have grown up without father figures, but we also grew up without added abusers and pain inflicted from boyfriends and step dads coming and going.

Our family was incomprehensibly broken and devastated when we met Jesus. My mother was the first one to come to Jesus. After being in hospital after hospital, we finally came to one that had the insight that if they got my mother put back together then it would be easier to put me and my brother back together. After she got onto the path of healing, she would endure a few more years of dealing with us before we would come in. She prayed for us faithfully.

My mother told me in a recent conversation that her biggest fear used to be that I would just leave and never talk to her again. I have to say there was a time when I wanted nothing more than that. There was years even after I got saved that I felt so much hatred for her and wanted to just separate myself from her and my brother.

Thankfully, God did not allow that to happen. It has been a long, slow process, but God has done an amazing, miraculous work in our family.

My mother has lived with us for the last 5 years; for that I am grateful. There has been so much healing, restoration and redemption. We are so much closer than we used to be. I am not saying that things don't get a little ugly every once in a while. We scream sometimes, but there is less screaming and much more communication. We have learned to talk about things and be gracious to one another. We have learned to accept one another for who each of us is and where each of us happens to be.

God has redeemed so much of what my mother lost through my family. Before my husband and I were married, me and my two older children lived with my mother. She allowed me to be a stay at home mom and raise my children in a way that she was never able to do for me and my brother. There was even a point that she worked full time and went to school full time while I stayed home with the kids. God allowed her to give to her grandchildren what she was not able to give to us. She is also responsible, along with God, for allowing me to give birth to the first generation in our family of Christians. My children were born into a home what worshiped God rather than Satan (literally). She has been so so so good to us in the years since Jesus arrested her heart. There is nothing she would not do for me, my brother, my children and my husband. She would give her life for us; she would give her hands and feet if she thought it would make our lives better. God has healed her heart so much by watching my children grow up. She adores my husband and he adores her. She has been known to work 12 or even 14 hours a day to make money to help with bills are to have money for some one's birthday. She adores her grandchildren and they adore her. No one in our family could ever imagine her not living with us. And we really never intend on letting her move out. What an amazing blessing it is that my children only have to walk upstairs to hug their grandma. I cannot imagine not seeing my mother every day. I know that being close and seeing each other every day will make losing her so much harder. I know that the day will come the Jesus will call her home, so I have to treasure each moment we have. We lost a lot of moments early in live so we try to make up for that now. Man have we made some great memories. We have laughed together; we have cried together. My mother is my biggest fan. She is the loudest cheerleader I have. She supports everything I do and tells every one who will listen about the things I do and how proud of me she is. I was listening to a friend talk recently about losing her mother. She said she had no idea how hard it would be and there had not been tons of communication b/c her mother had had alzhiemers. That is when it hit me how blessed I have been with my relationship with my mother and how imaginably painful it will be when I had to lose her. I won't let the thought of that pain cause me to draw away from her though. I will continue to know her better and let God draw us closer. He will deal with the pain when and if that happens. I will NEVER run away and leave her now. She need not fear that. She is treasure to me. She is such an important part of our family. I love her with all my heart. She is amazing. I know that she does not have to make up for her past mistakes, but if we were comparing on a scale, the good so far outweighs the bad. She has made up for it all a million times over. As great as things are now, I know thatGod has only scratched the surface of what He wants to do.

Don't ever think that any person or any situation is beyond redemption. It is hard to describe so that you can understand, but our family was broken beyond any earthly hope of restoration. Think of us like a vase. Take the vase smash it, now roll over it with a bulldozer. Then take a tornado and blow on the dust that is left until is scatters to the four corners of the earth. There is more hope of you finding the pieces of that vase and putting it back together than there was hope for our family. The things we endured and the things that we did to each other cannot even be spoken of in most circles. But God is Good. He is able to do the impossible. He always has an amazing plan and it always involves turning what the enemy meant for our harm around for our good. We will be closer, stronger and filled with more love and dedication to one another than we ever would have been if we had "been normal".

I have news for you, too, mom; all that creativity, beauty and talent inside me came from you. So it is there in you. You just have to let God excavate it. My intelligence came from you too. You may have had your identity stolen from you so that it has been missing your whole life, but God is at work and He is bigger than any loss, and bigger than the enemy who stole who you are. He's giving it back to you. Keep fighting for your heart.

We have had some of the most amazing adventures. One of the funniest ones, I have to share. We have laughed and laughed over this. Anyone who went to the church I got saved in will find this extremely humorous b/c you have probably never heard this story. In the early years, I was on food stamps and medicaid with the children. My mom's money paid the bills and we ate on the food stamps. If I remember correctly our family of 4 survived on 288 dollars worth of food stamps and WIC. We ate meat, maybe one time a week. We lived on mac n cheese, ramen noodles, fish sticks, beans, and stuff like that; also it was always the off brands. The church was doing a food drive and we wanted to give to it. We cleaned the church on the weekends so we had a key to the church. We took half of our food stamps for the month and went shopping. We really thought about what we wanted to buy too. We went in with the mindset of "what do poor people never get to eat?" We bought real brands; we bought a bunch of meat; we had so much fun shopping for the poor people that we didn't even think about the fact that we weren't going to have much to eat for that month. We really didn't care. We were just so excited to give. We didn't want anyone to know what we had done,so we snuck in the church really late and put all the stuff in the box and put the meat in the freezer; we left a note in the box so they would know that there was also meat in the freezer. So Christmas Eve comes and we hear a knock on our door. They brought all the food to us. We were the poor people. Of course, we didn't tell them what we had done. We were actually pretty mad at God for a minute. "We gave that for the poor people." I guess we didn't see ourselves as the poor people. We were definitely pretty poor. After the initial irritation at God for giving our gift back to us, we were really grateful and we ate really, really good that month. Every year at Christmas we tell that story and laugh historically. We have come a long way. We do pretty well financially, now. We have that memory together, though. It's a great memory that makes us crack up every year even 14 or 15 years later. That is not only one. We have many many more. And we will makes many more.

DON'T FORGET; GOD IS GOOD; HE IS ALWAYS AT WORK; AND NO ONE AND NOTHING IS BEYOND HIS REACH AND HIS REDEMPTION.

Sickness and Alcoholic Continued

Sickness

I swear this writing thing has become an illness to me, an affliction. I feel like I am pregnant and God induced me into labor. The labor pains keep coming and I would like to back out and stop the labor (I remember saying with each one of my children, "I changed my mind; I am not ready to do this; I want to come back another day), but now the process has begun and I don't get to stop it. The box is opened and I can't close it. Every morning as I run, God brings to mind story after story and lesson after lesson to write about. I find myself saying, "Enough, please no more. I can't even focus. I don't see how I will ever have the time to get it all out on paper." It is seriously almost painful. I see how writing almost becomes a mental illness to the author. I guess I just get up every day (like I have heard it said), sit in front of the computer for as long as I have for that session and write what comes out. Maybe eventually, I will reach the end of the overflowing volcano. I know it is a good thing, b/c the overwhelming pressure I feel inside to write will keep me on track and definitely not let me procrastinate or shut the lid to the box again.

Alcoholic

So there is so much to say about my struggle with alcoholism. There are so many things I have learned and so many things that God has done in me through this struggle. As I said in the previous post, when I met Jesus, He took the desire to do drugs away almost immediately. I did not even drink for many years. Then I drank a little bit, really very moderately for many years. First, I have to say that I do not think drinking alcohol is wrong in and of itself. I think that there is medicinal qualities to alcohol. If a person can do it with reason and moderation, more power to them. My husband is one that can drink a couple drinks and that be enough. When I was drinking I have forced alcohol on him to the point that he would go into the bathroom and force himself to throw up b/c he does not like to be totally drunk. Unfortunately, as my spouse, he really does not get to drink much; he has been sentenced to a life of very little alcohol consumption. It is kind of sad for him b/c he actually enjoys the taste of a good beer. It is, however, part of being one flesh and bearing one an other's burdens. When I drank I would drink hard and fast, which is what would bring him to the point that he would want to get the alcohol out of his system. I would drink shot after shot of tequila, or actually it got to the point of glass after glass. The running joke among our friends was a "Dawn shot". They would say, "Do you mean a shot or a Dawn shot?" I didn't even give it time to hit me before I was pouring the next one. Any way, I don't have a problem with other people having a drink or even having a drink in front of me. I do try, however, to avoid parties and bars where there will be excessive drinking. There are two reasons for this. First, it is not a healthy environment for me to be in and second, drunk people are really irritating when you are sober. I would not usually ask friends or family members not to have a drink at dinner in front of me; that does not really bother or tempt me.

So back to my point. Drinking was not a problem to me, then suddenly about 2 or 3 years ago, it became a problem for me. I started drinking more and then in an effort to be "smarter" with our money, I decided that it would be cheaper to just buy bottles of Patron and keep them in the house. That way I could drink at home instead of paying $7 or $8 a shot. Well, that was the nail in the coffin. All that did was cause me to drink more frequently (like every single night), consume more per sitting (at the end I could drink a half gallon by myself in 3 days; that a half gallon not a fifth), and expose my children to a mom who drank every day. Only the people closest to me really knew this was going on. My mom was devastated watching it; my husband became increasingly concerned and disturbed (fortunately he knew talking to me would avail nothing, but he knew talking to God would avail all, God listens and answers and Larry knew that my passion for God would eventually break through the denial and addiction. So he quietly prayed for me.) When my mother-in-law reads this, she will probably be heartbroken and sad, b/c she had no idea at all. I am not in the business of hiding my skeletons. If you don't keep secrets then you don't have to worry about being exposed. Just dump it all out and we can sort it out together. So this went on for about 9 months (think). That is the keeping of alcohol in the house. At that point about March of last year I began to attend Celebrate Recovery. I still struggled for another 5 months while going to C R. Denial and addiction are a cunning adversary. They deceive so easily. I would have periods of sobriety followed by periods of drinking. I would tell myself, "I can control this. " I never spent grocery money on alcohol; I didn't drive drunk; I didn't get falling down drunk or hurt anyone. I never blacked out, passed out or acted out of control. Here is the kicker and the two excuses I used to feed my denial. I have a good friend, who I love with all my heart. We have been friends for about 15 years. We have been in and out of each others life, but always we find each other again. We are knit together in heart. She also happens to be my favorite drinking buddy. She is not a Christian and my family has prayed for her for many, many years. The only time we EVER talk about God is when we are drunk. She is not even open to approaching the subject when she is sober. So excuse number one is to have a chance to speak with my beloved friend about God. Excuse number two (this one involves a little history, so forgive my longwordedness) has to do with my heart. I have spent my entire life feeling like an observer to my life. I felt disconnected from my emotions and experiences. It is really so very difficult to explain. I am not sure someone who hasn't experienced life like this can even understand the concept. Its like I lived in this cage, far back inside myself totally disconnected from everything. There were these walls built up around me, rules to live by, a structure restricting me; This structure kept me from being able to feel connected to people, friends, my husband, children, and family on some levels; it kept me from really walking in creativity and being an artist. I am having trouble really describing this phenomenon. I was in this Plexiglas box a million miles below life and reality. I could hear, and see, interact and respond, but it wasn't real. So any way, when I would drink the door to the box would come open and I could tell people that I loved them and that they were special to me. I could feel the essence of the artist in me. I could let my husband into my soul. While I knew drinking wasn't healthy, I loved the feeling of being open, alive, available. So I would use these two things to justify my going back to the bottle. I was attending my meetings and trying to work the steps and even making progress, but would have periods of drinking. We did not keep it in the house, but I would go out and drink. During this process, my daughter was struggling with smoking pot. I kind of knew this was going on and it made me so sad; I did not, however, know how bad the problem was until really the end of the problem (I did ask her permission to expose this to the world). She got caught a couple times, but it was a daily and huge problem in her life. I came to the place in my struggle where I thought being brutally honest with her and asking her to do the same with me was the next place in our journey (I have always been honest with her about her conception, the circumstances surrounding it and my drug abuse while carrying her; it has paved the way for a lot of honesty between us. It always seemed like lying or covering up would be so much worse). I did have some people disagree and try to steer me away from making the honest agreement with Ally that I made. In retrospect, seeing how is now she living her life, I stand behind the decision I made. It was part of what brought her to the place she is now, which is such an amazing place. I walked into her room one day and said, "I realize that my drinking is no better than your smoking pot. They are both a problem and we both need help to stop. So I commit to you that I will be honest with you about my drinking if you will be honest with me about your pot smoking. I agree to tell you the truth if you ask me if I am drinking and you agree to tell me the truth if I ask you if you are smoking pot." She agreed. There were several times during the months that I was attending C R and still have periods of drinking that she would ask me if I was drinking again. I have made a practice not to lie to anyone, but especially not my children. Ally has made fun of me many times for my rigid stance on lying. She would ask and I would have to tell her the truth and I always felt ashamed. One day she said to me, "That is what I love about you, mom, you won't lie to me." I have to believe that has some kind of impact on all my children. Eventually this arrangement and honesty led my daughter to begin attending C R also and I am so grateful I have seen God do a miraculous work of grace in her.

The end of road came on Aug 16. I had already decided that that day would be my last day to drink. My friend was having a birthday party that day and I was going to finish the half bottle of Tequila I had and call it quits. It was a Sunday morning and as I sat in the bath reading my devotion and preparing for church God spoke so clearly to me (not audibly, I'm strange, not crazy). He said are you really in control. The previous two weeks I had been drunk every single night. My drinking buddy has found a place to drink where the bartender was sweet on her so he didn't charge us for our drinks (Patron, mind you). So we went out drinking every night. God said, "you think you are in control b/c you only spend what you can afford on your drinking. That control is a facade, don't you see? I took the money out of the equation and what did you do? You were drunk every night for two weeks. That certainly looks like control to me (like His sarcasm, yes he talks to me like that. He knows how we need for him to communicate with us)." Suddenly, I saw the truth, the scales fell off my proverbial eyes. I was not in control at all. My control was a farce. It was as weak as a particle board stage set. One swift kick and it fell. The next thing He said to me was so frightening, it has gripped my heart and continues to rattle around inside of me bouncing off of every part of me. He said to me, " I love you so much. You are my beloved child. I called you out of darkness and I want to bless you. My goodness can bring you to repentance, or if you choose, I love you enough to bring calamity upon you. Not judgment, or punishment, but to get your attention. I will do whatever it takes to get your attention and bring you where I want you to be. You choose." I don't like the way calamity sounds. Calamity could mean losing a lot, or everything, jail, killing someone in the car. It could mean a lot of things. Well, I chose the easy way over the hard way. I knew that He wanted me to stop drinking and that He would do whatever it took to cause that to happen. I did not want to risk calamity. I have not had a drink since that day. I drank that night, but woke up Monday knowing that was the end of the road. I spent a long time speaking with a very dear pastor and his wife that night. I was very obliterated, and they were so gracious to listen to my struggle and what God was telling me and how I wanted to be free. They were very key in the weeks after as they prayed for me and continually inquired about how my recovery was going. As of today I have 4 months and two weeks alcohol free. I am so grateful and I know it is by His grace. I ask for His help almost every day. I am currently struggling well in the battle to be sober, but I know that the next temptation to drink is always around the corner. I will always have to step cautiously. The Word says, "Let he who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." I take heed daily. I pray each day that I am strong that God will continue to be faithful and be there for the days that I am not strong and that I am tempted. When I am standing I feel like I should take the opportunity to pray for the days ahead that I may be weak instead of being over confident in the strength of that day.

The first few weeks was not easy. I wanted to go out and drink every single Friday. God was faithful to me, though, to send me distractions or people or whatever it took until I realized that it didn't feel as hard any more. There were a couple times that I was tempted and actually set plans into motion and wouldn't you know He was even faithful to keep me sober even in those times. I guess that would be those prayers prayed when I was strong. One time in particular, I woke up on Friday morning and started plotting to set things up so I could drink. I sent a text to my husband and asked him if we could go out and get dinner so we could spend some time together. Of course He said yes. I fully intended to have dinner with him at Chewy's and chug a few shots. I started school with Stephen eagerly anticipating dinner out. We had to write a paper that day which is always a very long, tedious process filled with much fighting. We struggled along all day working on it and spent literally the whole day on it. Larry got home and I informed him that I wanted to go to Chewy's, but I had to finish the paper with Stephen first. Larry knows me all too well and knew what I was up to with my "Chewy's plan". By the time the time the paper was done it was 5 and I still didn't have my face on. Well, I don't go anywhere without my face on. Larry did not want to wait for me to do my face, putting us at Chewy's about 7. This means we would be waiting for probably at least an hour for a table. He also suggested that I call my sponsor before dinner. I told him I would call her in the morning and tell her what I had done. We never made it out that night, b/c it got late and didn't want to put on makeup. Needless to say I didn't drink that night. I am really grateful for that. I would have regretted it. God used my stubborn son and my vanity to keep me from drinking. By the next day the temptation was over so He graciously brought me through it even when I wasn't trying. I believe in free will, but I also believe in God's intervention. When our hearts want to do whats right, but our flesh is weak He will send the circumstances we need to get us through the weakness. My husband also went out with me on Halloween, even though He we very sick, b/c he knew the only hope to keep me from drinking was him being there. Without him I would have caved and drank. I was grateful for that night too, b/c I would have regretted it the next morning.

I am grateful that God allowed me to really struggle with this problem and reach the place where I was out of control and knew I couldn't get free on my own. I am glad that I fell a lot in the process. When met Jesus, He really turned my life upside down and changed me quickly and radically. He has been so good to me and has handed me much of what I have with very little effort. He got me off of drugs immediately with no real struggle. He helped me quit smoking pretty miraculously (that is a story for another day). He real healed me and brought stability to me very quickly in my walk. All these things made is really easy to be very judgmental and proud. I was not good at being gracious or understanding that sometimes getting free is a tremendous struggle. I would just look at people and go, "I did it, why can't you?" This struggle with alcohol really humbled me and taught me to be gracious. I know what it is like to try and struggle and fall over and over. I am gentler and loving and more able to be willing to help people and not look down on them for the struggle they are in the midst of. I am so grateful that God let me walk here. I am in such a better place now and much more equipped to help and not judge.

That was a long one.
I would say I'm sorry, but i am not. I sit and write what is in my heart. God really pours it out. If someone wants to read, awesome. If not, no problem. This is not really about anyone else, but me and God. Anyone who wants to gaze in is welcome, but I can't let the pressure of worrying about what people think squeeze me into a box or mold. I have to get freer and freer. Hopefully, I can help others get freer and freer too, but that is not the point.