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.

My Lenten Journey

This year is the first year I have observed Lent. I have not really been in a church that observed it, nor have I even been taught anything about it. This year our church began following the Liturgical Calendar and observing the rhythms and days of the calendar. I have been so amazed at the focus and direction it has given my walk to think in terms of the seasons of remembrance in our faith as a opposed to just passing the days and months of the year. When we started this journey, our pastor, Mark taught a class on the Liturgical calendar, the meaning of the days, and what is significant about walking this calendar. I loved the idea of walking through the seasons of the life of Christ and how that can and will shape us into His image if we will allow. I love the idea that each year we can revisit remembering and re-walk the path, and as we revisit each year we will be changed and have a deeper understanding of who He is and how He walked. We will, in turn, have a deeper understanding of who we are in Him and be daily formed by Him into His likeness. I have been so excited to walk this path and have been so amazed at what He is doing in me as I seek to be in tune with the seasons and what He wants to teach me in all of them. The other part of this new journey I really enjoy is reading each day from the Book of Common Prayer. It really amazes me to think on the idea that brothers and sisters all over the world are reading the same verses and listening to what our Father has to say about them each day. There is something big, and grand and beautiful to me about the church of Christ unified in readings that cross ethnic, denominational, economic, and national boundaries. I have been so blessed to be able to discuss with my husband and other members in our church what we are reading and what He is teaching each of us as we read. It has been such a surprise how much I have enjoyed implementing these two practices into my life.

So onto Lent. As we were following the Church calendar and preparing , I had prayed for weeks about what the Lord wanted Lent to look like in my life this year. Observing Lent was a new idea and our pastor was so good to post links to sites we could read and research to understand what this journey of Lent is about and how people historically have observed it and people who are accustomed to observing Lent are doing so now. I began to seek the Lord and ask Him what He wanted me to do or give up. What I felt impressed to do was surprising and seemed pretty unorthodox. But, as I continued to press and seek Him, I continued to feel the same impression. What I felt I was to do was really press into finding the creative artist He created me to be. I felt Him tell me to bath it in prayer and be faithful to take time each day to express creativity or write something. I felt like He said we were going to walk through the darkness and shadows the have buried "the artist" in me, and deal with that fear, the insecurity, the doubt, the paralysis that sometimes keeps me from even feeling like I can try. I began to work through a book by Janice Elsheimer called The Creative Call. I am also taking an online creative Indie business class. I felt like He told me if I would work on these and seek Him everyday, we would walk through the shadows and doubt resulting in Him resurrecting "the artist" at the end of the journey on Easter. So I have undertaken His call to really push into who He made me to be and all that stands in the way of that. There have been times when I just felt like giving up in the last week. I hear the old familiar voice in my head telling me that "this is stupid", "who am I to think I am an artist", "I am not really an artist". Then I would hear Him whisper to me "don't give up, press in, how are you going to inspire the people I want you to inspire if you give up and don't find your freedom?" So I press on. I am supposed to write every day for my assignments in The Creative Call and I have failed many days to make time to do that, but I can and will keep pressing and seek to do better. I spent hours yesterday writing in my journal as I sat on the back porch in the sun. It was amazing. It was so amazing that it may be easier for me to consistently make and guard that space to write. I read His word and just wrote my heart out. It was liberating and beautiful. I also made a piece of art that He inspired me to make; I trusted Him and worked on it and finished it yesterday. And, I actually like it. The picture above is what I created yesterday. It was such a great day. I feel so free and inspired and motivated to keep pressing on. I see the progress and growth He is doing in me and I am so excited to keep going and see who I am in a few weeks after completing my commitment to undertake this journey and be disciplined about making space to do what I actually have such a deep desire to do anyway.

So this morning as I sat quietly before the Father resting and waiting to hear what He wanted to say to me, He showed me a beautiful and heartbreaking picture. I began to weep. He showed me that I buried my true self; the beautiful artist, the truest part of who I am. I buried her a long, long time ago b/c I wanted her to be safe. I put her away in a box buried in corner in the basement of my soul. She is the most beautiful, purest part of me. She has been buried and covered over with so many layers so that none of the pain, abuse and tragedy could get to her. I needed to protect her b/c it was not safe for her when I was growing up. Now, though, it is her hour; it is time for the me He intended when he thought me up to come forth. My Father is digging her up out of the dirt and introducing me to the beautiful artist that I have kept safely tucked away for so many years.

I am so glad that my Father challenged me to take this journey for Lent and that He gave me the courage to accept the challenge. What a beautiful dimension and sense of adventure I feel as I learn to let the Creator teach me to develop and cultivate the creator He has created, called and equipped me to be.

Reflections

This post took me a week to finish b/c things have been so crazy; it was written in 3 different sittings. Hopefully it is not too discombobulated.

As I celebrate and give thanks to God today for a full year without drinking, it has led me to think back to the place I was a year ago. Thinking on the last year causes me to take pause in awe of all that God has been so good to do for me. It seems like in the last 2 years He has grown me more than in the previous ten years. Probably the previous ten years were really building up to and laying groundwork for the seeds that have been germinating in my life to break forth in fruitfulness now.

In the months previous to finally getting sober, we had begun attending church after about a 2 year absence. I was a Christian and I definitely loved God during those two years, but I was in a desert for those two years. Things were so dry. I felt so isolated. It also seems like, looking back, I was in a sort of eclipse. The Light was shining on me, but it was veiled by darkness. I prayed and talked to God, but the vibrancy was not there. He was so distant to me. I think during those years the darkness inside of me that I had hidden and tried to clean up myself really began to bubble up inside of me. The parts of me that I was so ashamed of and the deep wounds inside of me began to hemorrhage. I began to bleed out internally. I think that darkness so overwhelmed me and the hemorrhaging reach a point that I was desperate to find freedom and wholeness. I realized that I could not fix it myself and that God was not going to just come in and fix it. You see, He has designed us to be in community. He has designed us to help one another to bear burdens, to pray for one another, to need accountability, and to bring healing to one another. For years I had cried out and asked for God to fix me and make everything right, but I wanted it my way. I wanted to be able to deal with it just Him and me. I didn't want to have to open up and show people the black rotting parts of my soul; I was afraid of what would happen if I really showed people the darkness inside of me that I struggled so intensely to defeat. I just knew I was the only one with so much ugliness and knew that I would be cast aside and rejected for it; so I pretended it wasn't there. I didn't hide it from God, but I hid it from everyone else. I wanted to have Him and not need anyone else. And He refused to do it that way. He had healed many things in me, but He would not let me get completely free and healed on my own. He let me bleed out until I was willing to allow others to help me along the journey. He let me get desperate enough that I would do whatever it took. At that point of bleeding out and desperation, we began to attend a church. I also began to attend Celebrate Recovery, a Christ centered 12 step program. I did a lot of crying out to God to help me and draw me back into His presence and His light. I knew what it was like to walk deeply with Jesus, and I knew that I had wondered far from that place. I desperately wanted to love Him more than anything else and I desperately wanted the deep intimacy that I had previously walked in. I knew that, if I cried out to Him, He would meet me in my desperation. I knew that He wanted to walk with me and envelop my being even more than I wanted it. I also knew that He would only answer sincere cries and not pretense. I also knew that sometimes He makes us keep crying out and waiting for Him before He comes to us, even though He desires to be close to us. And, as a matter of fact, He is always close to us, but we do not always feel Him. Sometimes He lets us feel distant from Him. I cried out every day, "Lord, please draw me near to you. Bring me back to the place where you are my best friend." I clung to the verse Jeremiah 29:12-14 "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 would pray I am seeking you with all my heart, Lord please help me to seek you with all my heart." I would go to church and sing the worship songs, but they felt so hollow to me. I do not like to be a hypocrite. I do not like to put on pretense. I try very hard to be real and not put on a show or a face. I didn't want to sing, "Lord I need you more than the air I breathe", or "I want you more than anything else," when it was not the truth inside of me. I don't like to lie to anyone, but I sure don't want to lie to the Lord b/c he knows it all anyway. So as I would sing, I would cry out to Him please make this the truth. And every day I would cry out to Him please draw me near to you and take me out of the dryness and make the words to the songs I sing really how I feel. I knew from years of walking with Him and seasons of dryness that if I kept crying out He would answer me. (We all go through dry periods and times when He pulls away so we won't take Him for granted to make us seek Him harder.) I had not been this far from Him or so dry since the day He introduced Himself to me, but I knew He would come. Then I realized a couple months later, that I really meant the words I was singing and that I had fallen back in love with my Lord. I was daily walking with Him as my best friend. I still struggled with drinking for about six more months. Most of the people who knew me would not have had any idea that I was struggling like I was or that I even had a problem. My family knew very well, though. My husband just prayed for me and asked God to help me find my way out of the darkness.

That was the beginning of coming out of the eclipse. It wasn't like full darkness; it was more like an eclipse. There was a huge battle to come to the realization that I really was powerless; the denial had a pretty tight grip on me. There was a part of me that knew that I was powerless over my drinking, but a stronger part of me tried to pretend like I was in control; I just didn't want to quit. (If you want to read more about why I drank and the lies I told myself about it, go to the post http://searchingforaplacetobelong.blogspot.com/2009/12/alcoholic.html http://searchingforaplacetobelong.blogspot.com/2009/12/sickness-and-alcoholic-continued.html I came out of the eclipse in so much a better place than I was before the time of eclipse. It was not wasted time. It was a very important part of my walk. I learned so much and had so much broken out of me; the Lord really taught me about mercy and grace. He really taught me compassion b/c the struggle was so intense. I really was powerless. I really and truly could not get free or even muster the desire to want to quit drinking. I am an extremely type A individual. I decide I am going to do something and I do it, or I decide I want to stop doing something and I just stop. Most of my close friends talk about how disciplined I am and how driven I can be if I have an end in mind. What that strength leads to, though, is that I can be a very proud, self sufficient, sometimes arrogant individual with very little compassion or mercy. Well, really, I am less of that, but it is still inside me. Thankfully, much of it has been broken out of me; judging by how much of it is still inside of me, there must have been tons of it. Becoming an alcoholic that was truly powerless to find freedom was so so so good for me. So much of that pride and self sufficiency was broken out of me and so much humility and compassion was worked into my soul. I can not take one iota of credit for my sobriety. I did not want to quit. I had to ask God to even give me the desire to quit. I know what it is like to really struggle so I do not put myself above those who would struggle and I can walk along beside them and love them now.

My walk is back to what it was when I first met Jesus, only better. I get to ponder His words and walk with him daily. I get to have Him as my closest friend, only I am more humble and wiser now. (Don't get me wrong I am not humble, just a little less proud). I also get to share this beautiful walk with a huge family. I have brothers and sisters all over the world and I have a close community who knows my struggles and my darkness and loves me through anyway. They challenge me and pray for me and question me when I need it.

I am so grateful that He is so good to me. I am so glad that He loves us enough to let the dryness into our lives so that we can deal with more of our baggage. I am so glad that He loves me enough to let me bleed out internally so that I can see that I need others in my life and I cannot handle it on my own. I am grateful that He does not love me the way I love my children. I want to shelter them from pain and keep all the bad away so they don't hurt, but that is not always the best thing. I would choose the easy path for them and thereby rob them of the blessing that the desert and the darkness and suffering would bring to them. I am also glad that He loves them better than me so that He won't let me protect them from the suffering that is good for them and that will bring about His plans for their lives.

Little Easter Revelation

God has been working on this for a couple of days, but this morning He really drove the point home.

Many of my friends know of the ongoing drama of the "drug house" that we moved into. We have had several visitors that were hoping to find the former tenants. To explain the latest piece of the puzzle, I have to rewind to right before we moved in. A new kid started at my daughter's place of work. Through the course of conversation they figured out that he had just moved out of the house we were living in. It was a strangest sort of "coincidence". Then it got complicated as his apparently mentally ill girl friend decided that Ally was trying to steal her boyfriend. Ridiculous! She began calling repeatedly and hanging up. She would do this for hours straight, literally call hang up and immediately call again. Ally ended up on the phone with her some time at the beginning of this; the girl had been screaming at her boyfriend and asked to speak with Ally. When the girl accused Ally, Ally just laughed, said "Don't flatter yourself, I have a boyfriend and I have no interest in your boyfriend," then hung up. The calling went on and on. When Ally would answer the girl would call her a bitch or worse. Finally, the place of employment fired the boy and pressed charges on the girl. I was not too concerned about the matter, until she showed up at our house. We realized that they knew where we lived b/c they lived here before us. They also know where Ally works and leave after 10 pm on most nights. By God's grace, the two showed up when Ally, my mother and I were gone. Only Larry (my husband), Chloe (my youngest) and Larry's brother were home. I have to be honest, I would have taken that girl out and asked Jesus to forgive me later. Call it fleshly instinct, mother's instinct, or whatever. I am a short somewhat tiny girl, but I am strong and I lived on the streets almost 20 years ago. In case you aren't aware, I am not someone you want to really tangle with. Thankfully, I am generally a peace loving hippie type. Anyone who knows me at all, knows I just want everyone to get along and love each other, but deep inside of me that homeless punk girl still lives. I would have shown her crazy like she has never seen. She probably would have been horizontal before she even realized that I have made a move toward her. My husband said,"If I would have thought about it, I would have told her that Ally's mom used to be homeless and she is crazy as a loon." With my rooster hair and my sleeve,I am sure she might have been a little intimidated when she saw me. I am not really what most people expect when you say mom. Needless to say, I was livid. I was ready to kick that girl into next week. I did not care about being a Christian, or living a crucified life at all. She talked smack to Larry, who refused to engage her. He just kept saying "I don't care what you have to say about her, you better leave my daughter alone; I don't play games." He just kept repeating it like a broken record, so they finally left. I am so glad that I was not home. I would have reacted and probably landed myself in jail in the process.
By the next morning God was already at work in my heart. As I ran, I realized that I could not hate the girl or be angry at her. I had to pray for her. She was me. I was crazy jealous like that. I was a nut case before Jesus turned me into a pecan pie. I would have totally gone to some poor girls house and yelled at her. I actually would have probably started beating on her. How sad, b/c Ally really didn't do anything. She really" loves" her boyfriend; whatever that means at 17. But she does care about him and has no interest in this other kid. But had I been the girl I wouldn't have been reasonable either; I would have beaten up an innocent girl b/c I was threatened by her. I started praying for her and the girl with the rotten teeth to come to the Kingdom. I prayed for the Spirit to go ahead and prepare the way and make their hearts open to the gospel and for God to send authentic Christians into their lives to love them and show them the way home, but I was still angry about her.

I prayed the next day for the whole crew, dad, mom, son (boyfriend), girl friend, and the girl with the rotten teeth.

Then this morning as I ran and prayed, and I prayed for them b/c I committed in my heart to pray for them something deeper happened. I saw the whole thing in light of the last day, when we stand before the Lord. I saw the situation outside of my small little story and say it in light of the much bigger story being told. The story that began before I was born and will still, probably, be being told when I am gone. The story that I am in for only a moment; our time here is like the flicker of a lightning bug. We forget that next to eternity and even history, our time here on earth is so fleeting. I saw a much bigger story that I am blessed to be able to have minute in. All this "coincidence" could not possibly just be coincidence. Seriously, what are the chances of the boy being hired at my daughters place of employment. Of all the places, of all the stores in a chain, with the girl who is moving into his house, a house where drugs were dealt. No chance in my mind that this was a coincidental chain of events. God was in the middle of the whole big mess. He orchestrated the whole thing. He chose this house for us. He decided that we would move into a former drug house. The former drug addict, in a house that will quite possibly see many former customers at it's door. The crazy girl friend deciding she hated Ally and stalking her. God has a plan. He knows my heart and He knows what I do when someone does something to me. I get angry for a minute, then I begin to pray. And when I say I am praying for someone it is not with pretense. I am not one of those who says they will pray then walks away and forgets. If I say I am praying, you can take it to the bank. Once you get on my list, you will be there for a while. As a matter of fact, I have a really hard time removing people once they are on. My list just keeps getting longer and longer. Call it a twitch. I feel very responsible for the people on my list of prayer. Not responsible to fix them or something, but responsible to lift them up every morning. I am a creature of rhythm and habit. I pray every day, like I breath and eat. I am not trying to say I am something special or spiritual, or whatever. I am just stating that prayer is as much a part of my life as eating is. It is something I spend a lot of time doing every day. God has given me a gift of being able to develop habits and rhythms very easily and in that He has made prayer a very rhythmic part of my life. So, He purposefully, brought this situation and these people into our lives b/c He has them in mind for the Kingdom. He wants them to come into the Family of God, so He has assigned me to them to seek His face for them. I don't know everything about prayer; as a matter of fact, I don't know much about prayer except that it works, it is a mystery and it is something that beats inside me like my heart. So, I have no doubt that these people are coming to know God b/c I have been assigned like a prayer marine to storm the gates of hell until the shackles fall off of their hands and feet and they are welcomed into the arms of the one who died for them.

There is no coincidence only Providence.

Then when I read my devotional for this morning, God drove it home for good measure. Luke 23:34 says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." Jesus prayed for all those around Him. He prayed for the religious leaders, the Romans, the disciples who abandoned Him; he prayed for all of humanity, including this family who used to live in this house. If He can pray, "Father, forgive them, in regards to the ones who nailed Him to the tree, how can I do anything less for the girl who just yelled at my daughter. Haven't we all done at least that, yelled at someone.

I am quite sure that God probably raised up stealth bombers to pray for me. There is no telling how many people prayed for me to come into the Kingdom. I am so grateful that He loves me enough to assign people to pray for me. What a beautiful day it was on earth and in eternity when those prayers found fulfillment. What an amazing day when the "the girl with the mohawk" came to Jesus. Who know someone may have prayed for me just like that, just like I pray for the girl with the rotten teeth. I stole from so many people and did so many terrible things, who knows, God may have directed my destructive behavior to one of His prayer warrior just b/c He know, like He knew with me, that they would pray for me. What a good and gracious God we serve.

I would like to ask for all of my friends and followers to pray diligently for these individuals. God has eyes for them. Jesus loves them and we have no idea what amazing works God has for them to do.
Ephesians 2:1-10
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just s the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED THROUGH FAITH, AND THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD, NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANYONE SHOULD BOAST. FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS FOR GOOD WORKS, WHICH GOD PREPARED BEFOREHAND THAT WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM.

Who knows what works He has for them to do. Pray for them. J and T (mom and dad), T and girlfriend, and girl with rotten teeth. I don't want to put their names out of respect for them. Please pray diligently for them. The enemy has them and wants to keep them, but we must pray for them and fight for their salvation. I don't want a pretense of prayer, but I pray that God puts passion and love in your heart for them and compassion for the suffering they are undergoing at the hand of a very cruel master.

I am praying for myself as well. I pray that God will break my heart and fill me with His Spirit, love and compassion so that if I am faced with them I will share my story and how Jesus changed my life in a way that is authentic and loving and impactful.

What a beautiful Resurrection gift. I am so glad that God does these things. He is so good to me and I love Him with all my heart.

In the beginning part 5

Ok, we are coming up on the best part of the whole story. Every one's eager anticipating of the great meeting has me motivated to try and plow through the last of the story.

So, I guess we stopped at moving in the guy. But wait, first. I just have to say, I love writing this blog and I love sharing my story. Sometimes, though, I feel so exposed. Sometimes it hits me that all my darkest secrets are on the World Wide Web for anyone to read. People that I see everyday and people I have never met know all my secrets. I mean, I love telling my story, sometimes, though, I just think, you are telling people things that any normal person would keep secret locked away in a vault. They say that you are only as sick as your secrets and that the power of a secret is in the fact that it is a secret. So, once they secrets are exposed to the light, it has no power any more. Don't make too much of this little rant. I don't regret sharing. I want to tell the whole world my story b/c it is such an amazing story of God's grace and redemption. I just sometimes have a moment where I think what an odd thing it is the my blackest deepest moments are in print for all the world to read.

I moved in with this guy. It was kind of an awkward situation b/c I was married to this Squid character (he wasn't dead yet); I was pregnant with Crab's baby, and I was living with this other guy. At the time, we were really into inhalants. We would frequently mix them with LSD. There was a lot of LSD floating around that place. I had just gotten back from Cali and the LSD was not very strong. I cannot really remember how long I have been staying there. I don't think it had been very long. We took like 6 hits of LSD (for Cali standard at the time, that wasn't much, normally that is quite a bit). It just so happened this was a point in time when there was really, really strong acid going around. So we took quite a roller coaster ride, all of us. The whole night was pretty insane. I was pretty out of touch. It wasn't the type of out of touch that I can't see what was really going on now, but at the time things were pretty weird. I can say, I am not sure why I took so much LSD when I was doing drugs b/c I have very few good trips. Most of the time, I was miserable. It caused me mind to be so paranoid and weird. Everyone used to think I was so cute when I was tripping b/c I would keep one hand in my mouth with a big smile on my face. I was really actually scared out of my mind most of the time. I usually thought that Satan was after me or that someone was trying to kill me. Now tell me, why would someone want to repeatedly put themselves in the position to be that scared, but I did it hundreds of times over my drug career. I couldn't tell you how many times I did it. So it was a pretty strange night. At one point, I kept hearing this strange noise in the living room; we were in the bedroom hanging out. I thought that my boyfriends room mate was cooking the cat in the microwave (what I really heard was the hippy beads hanging between the living room and dining room every time some one passed through them- of course I did not realize that until we had come down). At another point, I became convinced that my best friend and boyfriend thought I had stolen something from them, so I cleaned out my pockets and told them to take anything that belonged to them (of course they looked at me like I had two heads). Then while laughing I caught sight of one of the boyfriends knives laying beside the bed and was convinced that they were plotting to kill me. That really freaked me out. Of course, in my paranoid state I did not share what I was thinking b/c I didn't want them to know I knew what was going on.

I must share the religious views represented in the house that night to give you a framework of what was about to happen. I was a proclaimed Atheist (my mom had met Jesus a couple years before and I thought she was crazy). My best friend was an agnostic. The boyfriend and his roommate were proclaimed Satanists who like stealing tombstones from the graveyard (they were all over the house). The boyfriend had been raised a Christian in a Charismatic church and turned away. I have a sense that he wasn't shown a very authentic Christianity. Then there was this one guys who claimed to be a Christian.

We were trying to just chill and the Christian (who was tripping too, was our LSD dealer and was huffing carburetor cleaner) kept coming in bringing up God. He is the one who started us on the religious talk. We all ended up in the living room tripping and huffing every kind of huffable chemical you can imagine. At one point me and Star were on the porch huffing Glade and watching the "sun rise" only to be told it was 10 pm so whatever we were looking at was not possibly the sun rise. There was starting fluid we huffed a bit. Then the Freon came out. Now, lest you forget, I am about 5 months pregnant with Ally at this point. Thank God, for His grace and mercy, b/c she is perfectly normal, super smart and a tremendous blessing in my life.

We were all huffing stuff and arguing over religion. I was calling all of them idiots for believing in anything. I said, "You guys are stupid, there is no God, no Satan, no heaven, no hell. You are all going to rot in the ground and feel stupid for believing in all this non sense." Then I took a huge gulp of Freon. Now, this part of the story must be told in two different perspectives. The first perspective is mine. I heard a deep guttural voice come from out of the floor that said, "Go get her boys." Imagine the voice a movie would give a demon or Satan; that is the voice. Immediately, I fell through the floor and fell for a couple minutes. When my feel landed I was in Hell. I will do my best to describe what I saw, but I have trouble putting it into even verbal words. There were flames all around me, but they were sort of transparent. I felt this horrible feeling inside of me that I came to realize after I met Jesus was total separation from God. Then I realized that there were demons all around me pointing and laughing at me. I knew that they were mocking me as if to say, "ha!! we tricked you, we got you to not believe in us or God and now you are here and there is nothing you can do about it." I truly believe that every person that ends up in hell will experience this mockery as the hoards laugh in victory. Then came what I have called "the dooky monsters". I know that you probably LOL ed over that, but when I came out of the hallucination that is the only thing I could come up with to describe them. They looked like sleestaks from the old school Land of the Lost, only they had glowing grids on them like the old Tron game. The walked kind of like sleestaks too. As they got closer to me, they jumped at me and then I was inside of them. It was like I was inside thick gelatin. Then I sort of flashed from scene to scene in hell. I was retarded for a minute, then some other places I don't really remember. The next think I knew I was back in the trailer, one of the guys had a hold of my arms and the door to the trailer was knocked off the hinges.

Now, the perspective of the observers. I took my big hit if Freon, then suddenly I was screaming bloody murder, stomping on the guy that was laying on the ground beside where I was standing while I tried to get something off of my arms. The guys said that they had never heard anyone scream like I screamed before. It was blood curdling as they said. The guys had to grab me to keep me from stomping the other ones face in. And I was still going so crazy I knocked him into the door and knocked it off of its hinges.

As I came too, everyone was staring at me wide eyed like, "what the hell, just happened?" I was like, "wow, what the hell was that?" Then I said, "I don't know what just happened. I don't know where I just was, but I don't think I am an atheist anymore. I don't know what I believe, but I feel like if I ever end up in that place again, I will not be able to leave it. and...I don't want to go back." I was pretty flipped out the rest of the night. To this day, the group of friends that I hung out with at the time says that I had a bad trip and went religious.

So, the next day, I called my mom. I knew she would be able to help me understand what had happened b/c she was into this religious thing.

Now stop for a minute and really think about what you have read in the previous parts so you can really see the miracle here and really see the power of God. Forgive me for becoming an evangelist for a minute. This is the girl who used to kick in peoples wind shields. This is the gutter punk who stole and conned, manipulated and attacked people. This is the drug addict who just wanted to die in a numb overdose. Hopeless, angry, bitter, broken, and done with life. Who do you know, that is a hopeless case? Who have you just given up on? Who is the person that you have spoken over and over to only to have them reject or even laugh in your face? What is the situation that you despair has an end, an answer, a hope? Think about in a minute.

Don't cheat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop!!!!!!!!!!! Think!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Find it in your mind!!!!


Now, you can read on. That girl who wasn't even looking for God, that angry girl who would have stolen your wedding ring right off of you finger, and spit in your face while she did it, God reached from eternity and grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her, and said "here is what you are choosing for eternity, wouldn't you like to have something better?" There is NO HOPELESS SITUATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God is the God of Hope. He is the God of redemption! He is the only one who can change us. He is hope for the hopeless, healing for the bleeding, salve for the wounded, peace for the tormented, joy for the sorrowful. He loves, forgives, and restores.

Now back to my story. I called mom and I said,"mom, I know you don't approve of me doing drugs while I am pregnant, but something happened last night and I need to talk to you about it." I told her the story and asked her what I should do about it. I said, "I am not sure I believe in God, but I am afraid to take the chance on going back to that place. I don't want to spend eternity there." Her response was the wisdom if our loving Father in Heaven. I believe that He told her exactly what to say. She said, "This is what I would tell you to do. Pray and say, 'God if you are real show yourself to me.' If He is real, He will show you. If He is not, you haven't lost anything and no one ever even has to know that you prayed that prayer." So I started praying that day. I prayed it every night for a couple months. I broke up with the boy and the adoption agency I was talking to about having my baby adopted helped me get an apartment. I was working the night shift at Whataburger.

Then one night when I was about 7 months pregnant, I called me mom and said I want to go to church with you tonight. It was a Friday night (the church she went to had Friday night services). She was a little shocked, but said she would pick me up. I walked into that church that night 7 months pregnant (huge belly), in a tiny little mini dress, Doc Martins, leather jacket, bright red mohawk (standing straight up). They started doing Praise and Worship and as I looked around everyone seemed so happy and they seemed to be really into the God thing. Tears kept streaming out of my eyes. I kept wiping them away and I was so annoyed that they wouldn't stop. (I never cried, ever!!) I think the tears were b/c I could feel the presence of God around me. I have no idea what was preached that night. At the end of the service a man named David Fees stood me up and began to "prophesy" as they called it. He spoke right to my heart. It was like he cut through every layer of denial, hurt and fear I had and got right into my true heart. He said to me, "The Lord wants you to know that He loves you and that He has seen your tears." I still get tears in my eyes and chills every time I say or write that. I began to weep uncontrollably. No one had ever loved me. My mother and father didn't even love me. She does now and she really did when I was a child as well. She just didn't know how to love b/c she was so broken and devastated herself. I had never felt loved by anyone. I had never felt like anyone valued me at all. But then David spoke to me and told me that someone did love me and that someone loved me enough to die on a cross for me. Well, really he died on the cross for all of humanity, but that is a whole theological discussion for another day. David asked if I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart to be my savior and I did pray and I was never the same.

My transformation was immediate. It was like night and day. There was nothing gradual about any part of it. I did a 180 and hit the ground running. I even went to hang out with some of my old friends that night and began to tell them about this Jesus who loved me. I didn't really know anything at all about Him or the Bible or anything, but I knew that He loved me and I loved him. I knew that I prayed and I felt His presence. I had prayed and asked , "if you are real, show yourself to me" and He showed up and He showed himself to me. I knew I would never be the same. It didn't matter who believed me or who mocked me. No one could change my mind Jesus loved me and no one else really mattered to me anymore. I have never done drugs since that night. It was actually a few weeks before that night, but I count my drug sobriety date as that night b/c that is when I knew I never wanted drugs again. Jesus was so much better!!! That was July 17, 1992. At that point, I was intending to give the baby up for adoption and they had no idea about the drugs.

I am going to stop for now and pick up more on that later. But for all of you who have been eagerly awaiting this part of the story, there you go. Thanks for reading. I love to tell this story, it is so good, He is so good.

Really silly short post

It has been so long since I posted. I really hope that as we get settled here, in our new home, I can get into a rhythm of posting several times a week. I still have many parts of my story to tell and lots of great lessons to share.

So as we downsized, moving from 2022 sq ft to 1107 sq ft, we meticulously went through boxes. Some of these boxes have been packed for years. Some of them have been moved to at least 2 different houses still in boxes never gone through. We decided to crack these boxes and see what they contained and if it was even important to keep a lot of them.

Seriously!!!!

Some of it was ridiculous.

One of the most asinine things was several boxes/bags containing hangers. Funny thing is I remember when I became obsessed with hangers. Yes, I did just say obsessed with hangers. It is so funny the things we become obsessed with hording. Anyone who has any thing that they hoard can look closely and find the root if they want to. I have two things that I have, in the past, had a tendency to hoard. One of them, I truthfully still struggle a little with hoarding. Hangers and plastic ware are the things that I used to buy compulsively. For some reason growing up we never had enough of either. Even when Ally was younger, before I was married, I lived with mom and we didn't seem to have enough of either. We were extremely broke so we didn't really buy those two things. Now, I have to interject here that we spent a lot on fast food.

I don't really spend much of anything on fast food now (maybe once every 3 months we might go out to eat- there are really two reasons for that 1) my system is so sensitive that there are very few restaurants my body will tolerate; Chewy's veggie bean burrito is always a winner. 2) I am a little tight fisted with money; when I compare the cost of going out to eat next to the food budget- one meal equals 10 to 20% of two weeks worth of groceries, that rubs me the wrong way.)

What I was saying was that we were "broke", but we would spend money on eating fast food. Interesting. My theory on finances is (sorry if this steps on any toes), we can afford what is important to us (what we want to afford).

I got a big set of plastic ware for a wedding gift and loved it. I was so thrilled that I bought more and bought more and bought more. I don't really buy it any more, but I have trouble letting go of what I have, which is way, way too much. I have so many plastic dishes that they fill and whole cabinet and I cannot find what I want b/c the cabinet is so full. Maybe I need to get rid of some, huh?

Now, back to the hangers. I had boxes of hangers. These were not hanging in a closet where they could even be used. They were in a box in the garage. Just in case I might need them, I guess. Do you think I was, at this point, even aware they were there or could have found them if I had needed them? NO!! Ridiculous!!!

Pretty funny!! They say Lucille Ball hoarded pencils. They kept disappearing; they found a whole closet full of pencils in her office. She owned them all, but she still felt the need to hoard them away, just in case. She had been so poor growing up that she couldn't have pencils. She had more money than she needed, but was afraid she wouldn't have a pencil.

So when we are wounded and carry it around, it effects us. Many times we are not even aware of the baggage we are carrying around with us. We may do the strangest things and have no idea why. I would like to challenge my readers. What are you carrying around that you are not even aware of. What behaviors are you exhibiting that you need to let God reveal the roots of to you. What He reveals, He heals. Let Him have it. What do you hoard or hang onto so tightly that it turns your fingers white? Why? Let Him show you; let Him heal you. Liberty is so amazing. Freedom is so much better than the pain. It is worth the price. It is worth the discomfort. It's like having a baby. It does not feel good, but when you have the child in your hands, your realize it is so worth it. Give it to Him. We are only as strong as the weakest point of our armor. Jesus walks with us and protects us, but what we will not give to Him, He cannot heal and therefore has to let the weakness remain. The enemy points His arrows precisely at those places in our armor. He knows us well and tailors the attacks specifically to hit those places where we are weak. We don't have to heal ourselves. We just have to be willing to let Jesus have them. Once we give it over to Him, He transforms and heals. Remember His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If we are trying to carry it or fix it, it is really hard. He can fix is with one touch of His garment. It isn't hard when we let Him do the work. All He asks from us is to give it to Him. As one who has seen Him take some pretty devastated parts of me and totally transform them, I say it is worth it. He is so able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ask or think. There were wounds in my heart that I was sure He could never fix. There are parts of me that I have despaired over for all of my life and especially the last 17 years since meeting Him, that He has healed in the last 3 months. It is the most amazing feeling to be free from something that has been with you for as long as you can remember. I cannot even begin to describe. Sometimes things are with you for so long that they are woven into the fiber of your being and seem to be a part of you. Only the Lord can remove those things that grow in like that. If you have ever seen a tree that has barbed wire growing through it b/c it was there and it became a part of the tree, it is interesting to look at. You cannot remove it without destroying the tree. Some of us are like that, those things have grown into us and cannot be removed without destroying us, with one exception. Jesus can remove them without destroying and for that I am so grateful. To be free from something you despaired ever being free from is more beautiful than words can describe. Even saying thank you seems like such a small offering compared to the grace of healing.

Finally another post

Man, has it been hard to find the time to blog. I have gone from posting every single day to posting once a week or every ten days. And, believe me, it is not that I don't have anything to say. I am just drowning in things to do. It really drives me crazy and has been a matter of prayer for me. I really want to figure out a way to schedule a daily time to write. There are just so many things that need to be taken care of and I have to make certain things a high priority. That means that the things I would like to do, like write and sew sometimes never happen.

Today I was thinking about The Kingdom of God. Actually, I have been thinking about it for weeks, but I decided to write about it today. I think the Body of Christ today is really missing a lot about the Kingdom. I think the reason that we seem to be so impotent and powerless is that we are so far off the mark and distracted that we cannot tap into the power of the Kingdom. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom over and over while he was here on the earth. Sometimes we miss it, though, in our reading b/c we have the preconceived ideas about what the kingdom is. We think of the Kingdom as coming when Jesus comes back or as the preaching of the Gospel so we can go to heaven. When we take the Gospel and make it about this event when we die we miss the point and have the wrong focus. We are being taught a lot about this at the church we attend. The Gospel, however, is not about membership in a church, which church we attend or about going to heaven when we die.

The Gospel is about now. It is about living the Kingdom now in all that we say and do. It is how we are created to live. I could probably write for days on the Kingdom and still not plumb the depths of, but the Kingdom as a whole is not what has been rolling around in my mind today. What I have been thinking about is the scripture in Romans 12:2 which says, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God is." I really love the translations by JB Phillips, “Do not let the world squeeze you into its mould, but instead let yourself be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

What really strikes me this morning is that we unknowingly allow the world to squeeze us into its mold. I have always thought of this as me not doing "as the world does". I have seen it as sin. If I don't have sex outside of marriage, or beat people up, or treat people poorly, etc. then I am okay and am not letting myself be conformed to the world. The old don't do "sinful" things way of thinking. I have begun to see very clearly that this statement goes so much deeper. When I let my standards of success be dictated by "worldly" standards and not the Word of God, when I let the world tell me what I should spend my money on or how I should spend my time, then I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I allow my family to struggle financially and let my husband carry the stress of bills we cannot afford so that I can have "the house, car, clothes," or whatever makes me "look successful" to everyone else around me, that is letting myself be squeezed into a mold. When I consume all of my resources on me and things I don't necessarily need, knowing that my money would be better spent supporting a ministry that is bringing food and water to orphans who otherwise have nothing, I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I hold a grudge and refuse to forgive and be reconciled to anyone, regardless of who was right or wrong, I am not taking up my cross and seeking first the Kingdom. When I gossip and judge people for how they dress or act, instead of reaching out with love in my heart, I am letting the standards of the world squeeze me into a mold. As a Christian I am held to a higher standard and it is a tough standard. We are called as Christians to suffer. That is what the call of the cross is. It is not about wonderful feelings and everything being nice and easy. It is about dying daily; it is about losing my life, so I can find it in Christ; it is about knowing it is no longer me who lives, but Christ who lives in me. That is not easy; that is about suffering. Being a Daughter of the kingdom means giving up my rights, and my space and my stuff. It means that if I have one sandwich to my name and I see a stranger who has nothing that I am willing to split my one and only sandwich so that we can both have some, instead of me having enough and someone else having nothing. It means not being right all the time or even having the "right" to whatever I think I deserve. It means being willing to apologize to someone even if I am not wrong simply so that I can be a bringer of peace. It is being willing to do whatever is necessary to make a relationship right. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God." I want to be called a son of God, but am I willing to do what it takes to be given that title. The Gospel is not easy and we have been fed such a watered down version that it has lost its power. Jesus, when He called each of us to be His child, really called us to be a servant to every person we encounter. He called us to suffer the loss of our identity, our allegiance to this world and our very life. He calls us to lose the life we came to Him with, so we can find the life He has for us. We have to give up our right to control our lives and have things how we want them. We must surrender everything to Him and walk in love. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus stated, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all our soul, with all you mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." This is a hard saying if you really think about what it asks you. If you really try to see the implications of living that out and don't just read it as a "nice little scripture", then it is a hard saying. It is a saying that we are so so so far from living out. A couple chapter before, in Mark 8, Jesus talks about denying ourselves, taking up the cross and following Him. I wonder how much we really deny ourselves. I wonder what would happen if we started really denying ourselves and putting others needs ahead of our wants; what would the world begin to look like?

The Gospel is not easy; the Kingdom does not fit into our way of life here, but the reward of allowing God to reshape our lives into the Kingdom is so far beyond anything we could imagine that I long for and cry out to God that He would change me and make me a Daughter of the Kingdom. I want to be changed so maybe I can spread the movement of the Kingdom. It seems huge and impossible, but "with God all things are possible." Maybe if He can help me see and change and live my life based on the Kingdom then I can help other people begin to change. It could be like a virus that begins to spread, a movement. Then maybe, some of the terrible things that we see in our world could cease to be. Maybe love could really begin to conquer hate, and good could begin to conquer evil. Maybe if we were all servants to each other, then in serving each would have his or her needs met, because as we serve, others would serve us.

Crazy, idealistic, hard, yeah, but totally possible b/c that is how Jesus lived and how He called us to live. Really it leads to total freedom.

Friends....!!

So I got up this morning and had about 3 posts rolling around in my head. I actually have been rolling a couple of them around a couple days. I thought I would try to blog this morning before church, but there were too many people that needed my help getting ready so I am just now getting to writing out what is in my head.

I have gotten a lot of feedback the last couple of days from people about my blog. Verbal feedback that is. I am actually surprised to hear how many people actually read it. I mean, I know I have followers, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they keep current. Being the dork that I am, I just assume that b/c I haven't gotten any comments on the blog it means that people either aren't reading it or aren't really enjoying it. I know better than to make assumptions, but I do any way. I was surprised to hear that one friend in particular reads every post. I am thrilled, but surprised. It shouldn't matter to me, I know, whether people read or not (I stated that in a previous blog), but it was really encouraging to hear from a couple different people that they are reading and enjoying. I guess I am one to leave comments and give feedback, I automatically assume others are the same way. I can see that not everyone is that way. Enough of that.

So, this morning getting ready for church I was brought to tears thinking about how many friends I have. Now, I would have told you a year ago that I didn't really have any friends. I considered myself to have a lot of acquaintances, but not friends. Honestly, I have felt very alone for a lot of my life. My best friend is my husband and my children are a huge part of my life, so I didn't feel totally alone, but I didn't really feel like I had really great friends.

I realize now that I have tons and tons of friends; I just needed to change my perspective and look around at what was there. I also needed to start being a good friend and allowing people into my life, heart and world. So many people in my life have been there reaching out; I just seemed to isolate myself. I thought that people were distant from me, but I have been the distant one all along. I have had a lot of friends for a long time, but I couldn't see it. They have all been my friends on their side and from their perspective; it was my perspective that kept everyone at a distance. They were never really distant; I only perceived that they were distant. I can see it now; I can receive it now; I can believe it now; I have been healed so much and have become whole enough that I am not afraid to have friends anymore. I don't need to protect myself. As a matter of fact, I can reach out and be friends to others who may feel alone and isolated, who need me to reach out and bridge the gap.

I am so grateful that I can see it now. I am so grateful that I have so many great people in my life. I also see so many potential friends in my life that I just need to nurture. As I really pondered it this morning, I was struck with such a sense of blessing and gratitude.

I have friends that I have known since I met the Lord, from the first church I went to. I have friends that were in my home group at the Village. I have friends in my Celebrate Recovery group. I am making some really great friends at Providence Community and my Missional Community. I also see the potential to get to know and be friends with many others that I am just now getting to know at church . I have some really amazing friends I have met through the PTA and my daughters school; I see many potential friends there too. As I become more open and invested in making relationships that are not disposable, I can see so many friends coming out of the wood work. Friendship takes work, but the rewards are amazing. You cannot build lasting friendship, though, if you are in fight or flight mode. As long as I was waiting for the time when I needed to move on and cut ties, always felt so alone.

Most of my life I have kept everyone at distance. I used to say that there were really one 4 people in my life that were not disposable; that would be Larry, Ally, Stephen and Chloe. That is not the way God intended for us to live. We were created for community. The God-head three in one lives in community so how could we not need community. I guess I really just was afraid of being hurt and abandoned. I think I also feared that people would realize that I wasn't good enough. Really, I think my coping strategies led me to be more a shell of a person than a real person. I felt so empty, hollow and dead inside. So I wasn't a real person; it was like I was a replica of a person and I was afraid I'd be found out for being a replica. I had been so hurt and damaged that I put me to death inside of myself. I killed my heart.

Fortunately, God has brought me back to life. My heart of stone has been taken out and I have a heart of flesh. It bleeds and hurts and rejoices. That is the thing about numbing your heart so that it doesn't hurt any more; it also takes away your ability to feel good things and live life to the fullest. This process has been a long one for me, but a paradigm shift happened in my when I read the book Waking the Dead by John Eldredge. It spoke life to my heart; it removed the anesthetic so that I could feel again. If any of this resounds in you and you relate, please, please, please, get this book. It will change your life. God resuscitated my heart. One of the greatest quotes in it was ....

"The glory of God is man full alive."

Let that sink into your heart and let the fullness of its truth settle inside of you. If we are half dead and living in an anesthetized state of being, we cannot fully glorify God.

We are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Weeping is painful, but it is part of life. If we numb and avoid that pain of life, we miss out of the rejoicing as well.

As I began to come back to life, I could feel the pain others felt, but I rejoiced in it. I remember the Sunday morning that I realized that God had really brought me back to life. (I had been alive in God; I was saved, but my heart was still numb and hard.) I was sitting in church and someone was speaking about needing to pray for a particular family in the church. Someone in the churches brother had been beaten to death by gang members. He was just a normal guy doing normal things on a normal day. He yelled at a car for driving too fast down his street and the kids got out and beat him to death for it. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach; my heart broke and I felt like it was bleeding all over every where. The pain was so intense over someone I didn't even know. I grieved and prayed for that family for several days. It was then I realized that I had really been brought to life and my heart softened and freed. It did not feel good; it was not comfortable, but I rejoiced in it b/c I knew that I was becoming what I was intended by God to be. I was no longer an empty replica. I was a real human. It was kind of like the tin man. Now I feel the pain of others and can weep with them, and I can also feel friendship all around me.

It is amazing. I tell this story hoping that someone else needs to read it; I hope that someone else can find their way out of anesthesia into fully alive.

I also realize sometimes we miss out of friends b/c we misunderstand what is going on. It's like the enemy isolates us by causing us to misinterpret. I have a really great friend now that I value greatly. I am so glad that we are friends and that our daughters are friends. For a couple years I assumed that she thought I was kind of weird and didn't really try to contact me much b/c she didn't want to. Well, come to find out she thought I would think she was boring. Probably we were both waiting for the other to call and make the effort. How silly that we are just now becoming good friends when we have known each other since our girls were in Kinder garden just b/c neither one of us knew what the other was thinking. We both wanted to be friends and weren't sure the other wanted to be friends. How many people do we miss out on knowing b/c we takes shyness or intimidation to mean the other person is not interested in knowing us.

And, yes, the person I am talking about totally knows I am talking about you. Thanks for being my friend. I'm sorry that I let it take so long to be your friend. (Cat!)

In the beginning.... the start of this path I'm on

Since we got back from Holiday break, it has been so hard to find time to write. I want to write every day; I know also that I have to put certain things in top priority in my life. That leads to other things being pushed to the bottom and many times being neglected b/c I run out of time. My life sometimes seems like a world wind. I have so many responsibilities and so many things I try to be faithful at that sometimes what I would like to do never happens. School with Stephen has to be priority number one; then there are things that I do at the school and church activities and mixed in comes cooking, cleaning (not a whole lot of that actually), grocery shopping, etc. I never seem to find time to sew or create; that breaks my heart, b/c I want to grow that area so badly. Writing I get some time to do. I am praying for God to help me order my days and remove the things that use up my time unnecessarily. I strive to see what I can remove and reorder to make time for responsibilities and for creativity and me.

I arose earlier than I have been arising this morning. I was very excited b/c I knew that meant I could get my exercise and prayer done earlier and have a few minutes to write before hitting the school with Stephen. As I pondered what I might like to talk about I settled on starting to tell my story. That is the real reason I actually started this blog. We're going way back to the beginning. Or what I know and remember.

I was born January 19, 1973 to Deborah Lynn Washburn and Jerry ? Ingersoll. I may not have been planned by them, but I was definitely planned by God. He saw every detail and minute of my life before I was ever conceived. From what I remember about what I have been told, they were married so that I would not have illegitimate stamped on my birth certificate. (Did they actually do that back then?) I think my mother was excited. She was a mess, but excited. I have seen pictures of her pregnant and she seems genuinely happy about it. My mother and father did not stay together too very long. By the time my brother came along almost 3 years later it was all but over.

So my mother started the very difficult journey of being a single mother. This is a difficult journey for anyone, but was further complicated for her in that she was carrying some very painful secrets that she would not even be aware of until I became a teenager. Having suffered many terrible and unmentionable things in her life, my mother became different people and locked those painful memories away deep inside of herself. Her denial of and even lack of awareness of her abuse caused her to suffer extreme clinical depression and also caused her to be unaware that her children were suffering similar abuses at the hands of her abusers and others. I can't remember much at all about the early years, but I know they were very dark for her. She was very depressed, overwhelmed and somewhat paranoid. I know that she did the very best she could to try to protect us and take care of us. She was just not well enough to raise us in a healthy environment. When she realized that she was incapable of being in a healthy relationship with a man, she just retreated from having any type of relationship in an effort to protect us. She had been raised by an alcoholic mother who got into abusive relationships. Her mothers boyfriends would beat on her mother and at times abuse my mother. She did not want us to grow up like that so she just avoided relationships. She would later realize to her horror that her family had been the ones we needed protecting from. She suffered under the weight of that guilt until the last year or so.

I can remember being very young in a house we lived in on Green street, somewhere in Fort Worth. It was so filthy that you couldn't see the floors. I can remember my brother playing with her glasses and them getting lost. My mother is blind without her glasses and I think not being able to see evokes a great deal of fear in her. I remember her yelling hysterically at my brother to find her glasses. She needed to go to work; there is no way she could drive anywhere without them. As an adult I can understand to fear and panic of knowing she had to go to work and could not without the glasses. I remember being spanked with the plastic tracks from the race track my brother had. I remember spilling Mercurochrome (Monkey blood) all over our wooden kitchen table. If you don't know what Mercurochrome, it is an antiseptic that we don't really use in the U S anymore. It was red and stained everything for days or even, in the case of the table, forever. I was orangy-pink for a few days. I remember a big white Alaskan Husky my cousin gave us; his name was Kemo. He was beautiful, but one day we let him out and he never came back. I am sure he was stolen; he was a gorgeous dog.

I have very few memories from my early years. I can remember some really key memories that had a part in shaping who I became and who I am today. I can remember a really nice lady who used to babysit us. Her name was Mrs. Miles and she had a daycare in her home. I remember lunch time. She made the BEST grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever tasted. It is so funny the things you remember vividly from child hood. Those grilled cheeses were perfectly golden with perfectly melted cheese; they were cut into triangles. She also made PBJ and fried bologna. I always ordered grilled cheese except for one time I ordered fried bologna. What I did not realize was that she put katsup on those. I have always hated condiments and still do to this day. I had to eat it and I never ordered it again. I also remember Cheetos, the table we ate on and coloring pictures that we would turn into paper airplanes. We would ask her to staple them, to which she would reply, "staples don't grow on trees," but would staple them any way. I went into detail with those memories b/c they are some of the few really good memories I can remember.

In first grade I had a teacher who was not very nice. I don't know why, but she just must have been really unhappy. I can't remember if she was mean to everyone or just me. I remember thinking it was just me, but I can't honestly tell you whether she was mean to me or just mean all around. She impacted my life more than any other teacher all the way until college. She thought that little girls should have their hair up in pony tails and was very vocal about it. Of course, my mother did not take time to put my hair up. As Ms. Watson, an enormous woman who wore a moo moo type dress every day, would pace the room pointing out all the girls who had their hair up like good little girls should, I knew she was talking about me not having my hair up. I can remember that the ruffle on the bottom of her dress would sway back and forth. One of the most devastating blows to my creativity and artistic nature happened in her classroom. We had all colored pictures. She held up my picture and said, "this picture looks like a kinder gardener colored it." She didn't say who's picture it was, but I knew it was mine. Then when I told my mother and she confronted Ms Watson, Ms Watson denied that is was picture. Two major issues in my life can be traced back to that teacher. I am not shirking my responsibility in these issues or passing the blame off on her. What I am saying is that, after praying and digging deep inside myself over some issues, I feel like I traced them back and this was the root from which they grew. The belief that I was not an artist and was not capable of being creative finds its beginnings here. Many other things over the years just confirmed the belief that it was not safe to be creative. The other issue, though silly, still had power over my life. I became obsessed with the appearance my children from their birth. I was especially obsessed with them ALWAYS having their hair neatly done. When the girls didn't even have enough hair to have real pony tails, you better believe they had tiny little pig tails going on. I did not let loose of that drive to protect my kids from being judged unworthy based on their appearance until my youngest was in 2nd grade. I do brush her hair now, but it does not have to be up every day now. She doesn't want it up, so I don't inflict my pain onto her hair choices. And, if you haven't read the blog entitled "I am an Artist??" read that one. It chronicles the journey and where I currently am with art and creativity.

Life was pretty hard in the early years; none of us could really explain, or even remember why things were hard, but I knew we were not like everyone else. I always felt like I had secrets to keep. I never felt like I fit it. I always felt dirty, unloved, unworthy and alone. I felt like no one liked me; I was depressed, empty, and hopeless. I can remember feeling the need to have something to look forward to every day. If I could have something to look forward to everyday then I had a reason to be alive that day. (Gymnastics to days a week, etc.)

We moved a lot. The house was always dirty. There was never enough money; sometimes the electricity and phone would get cut off. My brother was totally out of control; he started being hospitalized and heavily medicated at 8 years old; we got kicked out of apartments constantly due to his behavior. I had been sexually abused by several family members and some others outside of the family, but did not tell anyone. What I remembered was only the tip of the iceberg. Many things far worse were going on that I would not remember til later.

I can't really remember being in 2, 3, or 4th grade. I was at a school called Bishop Elementary, but there is like a veil over my memories of that era in my life. In 5th grade, some good things happened academically. I had always done pretty good in school; it was very easy for me. I didn't have to study; I just remembered things. While in 5th grade I took some kind of Math test that all the 5th and 6th graders took (6th was elementary). I got the highest score on that test of all the 5th and 6th graders in the school. I was also put into the Gifted and Talented program. I was in the first group of students to do the programs; it started in our district that year.

I had always been the good child and got no real recognition for it. My brother kept everything so stirred up that he was the center of attention. Now, that is my perspective. I am pretty sure if you asked him, he would say he was never as good as me and felt like I was perfect and he couldn't measure up to the standard I set academically. Who knows? It just goes to show there are ALWAYS to sides to everything. Our perspective is based on what we see and experience from our side, but on the other side of things it looks different and a different perspective emerges. It is always wise to assume that there are two sides to every story and that standing in the shoes of each side will give you a perspective that you can't see if you only stand on one side of an object.

I am out of time. This is pretty much everything important up to 6th grade. Next time, 7th grade, a turning point in my life.

Dancing

It has been a few days since I wrote. I have thought about writing and really wanted to write each day, but it is much harder to find the time when school is in session. Home school takes a lot of time.

So I had to opportunity to operate in my gift of dance last night. It was amazing and wonderful. It has been about 7 years since I danced publicly. I used to dance in church several times a week and then I participated in a dance ministry that traveled to different churches. We taught worship through movement and ministered in the dance. I enjoyed it tremendously. When I begin to sing and worship, my body wants to participate so badly. There is almost nothing I enjoy more than worshiping God will my whole being: body, soul and spirit. I long to dance before God as David did with no regard to looking foolish. I lay dance down about 10 years ago and have only performed a couple times since. Dancing last night brought back to me one of the greatest lessons God taught me about dance. It was a wrenching lesson that I will never forget. Not long after the lesson, I lay dance down.

As I stated I used to do quite a bit of dance ministry. When I first began to dance, I had never been formally trained as dancer. I had done gymnastics for a few years, but that is it. When I began to dance, it was truly a gift God has given me. I would begin to worship and then dance. I could feel God presence so strongly when I danced. I would just get lost in the worship. Then people began to tell me how much it touched them to see me worship and I realized that God was not only ministering to me while I dance, but He was ministering to others also. He would well up in my and begin to pour out and onto others. I was very young in the Lord and I have to say pride, vanity and self was a real struggle for me. What began as a worship that flowed organically out of me, became an object of pride and searching for more approval. I am not saying God did not use it in me and in others still, but it changed. The purity was not lost, but somewhat contaminated. I did try to fight the thoughts of pride and ego, but it was definitely a struggle.

I have to rewind a minute and add a side note. Even reaching the place where I could worship had been a struggle. I still have yet to tell the story of how I met the Lord (someday I promise, I will. would make this post way too long). I can say I walked into a church 7 months pregnant, wearing a very short mini dress, Doc Martins, a leather jacket and a pink mo hawk. I prayed and asked Jesus into my heart that night. Everyone was pretty surprised; my mom was shocked. She was even more surprised that I kept coming. We had church on Fridays and Sundays; I was at every service, and to add more emphasis, I worked nights at Water burger so I showed up on Sunday morning after having worked all night long. Needless, to say mom was shocked. I can tell my from my side, I loved going to church. I could not wait to go every week. I was truly hungry to know more about this Jesus who loved me enough to die for me. From every body else's perspective, they couldn't understand why I kept showing up b/c I would come in and stand with my arms crossed. The praise and worship at this church was pretty wild. We would sing for a long time; there would be fast songs and then slow songs. For those who haven't been to a charismatic or "Spirit filled" church, things can get pretty wild. There were tambourines, flags, dancers, people laughing, running, and all kinds of wild things. I really loved it. I can remember the first night I attended what struck me was that everyone seemed genuinely happy. I had never in all my days known happy so I wanted some of what I saw in them. It was wild, but everyone just seemed like they were so happy worshiping God. As I watched, the first night, I can remember tears started streaming down my face. I never ever cried. People who knew me knew me as really hard. My mom hadn't seen my cry in many years. I remember being so mortified and annoyed that these tears kept coming out of my eyes. I kept wiping them away hoping that no one saw them. As I kept coming back, I can remember standing there during worship and seeing everyone worship. I wanted to worship, but I could only stand with my arms crossed. It's like something was sitting on my shoulder telling me, "You can't sing, if you start singing now, everyone will wonder why you are singing now, when you didn't sing before." Now I can look back and see how ridiculous that was to believe that lie, but it had power over me non-the-less. Then one day there was a something said, I can't remember if it was sermon or what, but it spoke to me. It was something about just taking a small step and God meeting us at that small step. The only thing I could do was tap my finger. I began to tap my finger on the chair in front of me to the music. It was such a small step, but boy did God meet me there. The tap became singing, then clapping; it wasn't long before I was dancing with all my might before him. I loved praising him and dancing with my whole being. It is so interesting to think about the girl who couldn't even bring herself to sing would become a dancer for Jesus.

So back to the lesson. From the finger tapping to dancing in a ministry all over the Metroplex, what a journey. So one day I was with my troupe visiting a church to minister when I ran into a friend. I had met him a few years before; his life had been very hard. I met him in the first church I attended. Prior to meeting him, He had attempted suicide. He did not die, but managed to blow open the side of his face. He was such a sweet guy who had had an extremely hard life. When I ran into him at the church we were ministering at, he had just been released out of jail. He was so excited to see me and asked me to call him so we could hang out. He reiterated to me several times that he was trying to get on track and needed some good friends. I said I would call him, hugged him and went back to what we were there to do. I was really busy at that point in my life doing "ministry". Being in the ministry made me feel so important and gave me an "identity". I did not make time to go see him b/c I was busy doing things that I thought were more important. I few weeks later, while hanging out drinking with friends he found b/c the "good" friends did not really have time for him, he fell out of a moving vehicle. He lived on life support for a short while, but he never came back from the accident. I remember so clearly realizing that my worship meant nothing when I could not even take a few minutes to love on someone God put into my path to love. He was so desperately looking for someone to care enough about him as a friend that they would take little time to be his friend and love him. I never forgot that lesson. My dance was so ugly before God with a heart that couldn't take time to love someone in need. I don't feel guilty now; I don't feel condemnation. He probably would have made the same choices. I just realized that no matter what I give God, without love it means nothing.

Dancing last night was such a wonderful experience. I love to dance; my heart has changed a lot in the last ten years. My hearts capacity to love has increased more than I can say. God has caused me to desire for love to motivate everything I do. I don't always operate that way, but every day I walk with Him I get closer. I am less concerned with pleasing man or even what they think of my dancing. God has brought my pride down several notches. I still have more than I should, but making daily progress. Even as I prepared to dance and prayed that God would show up and do what He would like, I dealt with some new areas relating to dance. Not being a trained dancer, sometimes I doubt my ability and worry that what I choreograph doesn't look good. When praying and dealing with that doubt, I came to the conclusion, that it is not about me at all. It doesn't really matter what I do; its about His Spirit and anointing me. I could stand in stork position while music plays and He could minister to people b/c it is not about me; it is about him. I didn't really worry about how it looked or what people thought. I just worshiped God and let God handle how it impacts the people watching. It was great. I hope that God opens more doors up for me to dance. I knew He told me it was time to pick it up again. We will see where things go from here.