The God who holds the promise of my future is more powerful
than the person who made the mistakes of my past.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
From My Journal--Filling the Hole
At some point, you have to be willing to risk being you with all your gifts, all your potential, and all your passion.
Otherwise, you are choosing to create a hole that you should be filling.
My Journal Uncensored (Maybe You Can Relate)--Part 2
I started to write something on my blog about wanting to be a light for those needing a connection, hug, or some hope, but really this holiday season has left me with nothing to say, and maybe it would be better to see folks after the first of the year.
But then there are the emails and comments from people who found "a kindred spirit", hope, or inspiration in all the pain and ugly of the last 18 months. Whatever they found encouraged them to be brave, to believe for healing, to hope a bit longer.
I haven't the foggiest what it was.
To me it all just looks like a disaster scene from a nightmare. But I wonder, if something in that disaster scene inspired even one person, is there someone else being inspired? Is someone else finding hope?
I know what it is to be hopeless, begging for something--ANYthing--that gives a reason to believe there is healing, that it won't always hurt so much. I know the places God has placed those treasures for me, the places that make no sense to anyone else, the sentences and phrases that have no great truth but somehow mean everything. I understand the mystery of God that allows a fuzzy mold to become the life-saving antibiotic. Too many times I have wept with the relief of being known, of being found, because I saw the medicine when others only saw mold.
Who am I to decide if this mold has a greater purpose?
All I know is He said to write--even when it hurt deeply, even when it was ugly, even when it was more honest and transparent than I ever wanted to be...Even when I am the moldy one.
And so, the blog remains...
But then there are the emails and comments from people who found "a kindred spirit", hope, or inspiration in all the pain and ugly of the last 18 months. Whatever they found encouraged them to be brave, to believe for healing, to hope a bit longer.
I haven't the foggiest what it was.
To me it all just looks like a disaster scene from a nightmare. But I wonder, if something in that disaster scene inspired even one person, is there someone else being inspired? Is someone else finding hope?
I know what it is to be hopeless, begging for something--ANYthing--that gives a reason to believe there is healing, that it won't always hurt so much. I know the places God has placed those treasures for me, the places that make no sense to anyone else, the sentences and phrases that have no great truth but somehow mean everything. I understand the mystery of God that allows a fuzzy mold to become the life-saving antibiotic. Too many times I have wept with the relief of being known, of being found, because I saw the medicine when others only saw mold.
Who am I to decide if this mold has a greater purpose?
All I know is He said to write--even when it hurt deeply, even when it was ugly, even when it was more honest and transparent than I ever wanted to be...Even when I am the moldy one.
And so, the blog remains...
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
I'd Love to Talk, but I'm Wrestling...
The post from earlier today and the next few days were written in my journal a week or so ago. I am not in the same place. Amazing to me how God finds me in my mental-encasing knot of "not working out the way I wanted", straightens the string, and transforms the picture so I see something totally new, but He does...and He did...
And I am fine...letting all the life-sucking ingredients go in, watching the life explosion come out.
But tonight, with my clock shining 11:11, I am contentedly wrestling, as though opening a giant present with a laughable amount of tape, knowing whatever I am wrestling to get to is good...because I'm not wrestling to hold on. I'm wrestling to take hold...
And I am fine...letting all the life-sucking ingredients go in, watching the life explosion come out.
But tonight, with my clock shining 11:11, I am contentedly wrestling, as though opening a giant present with a laughable amount of tape, knowing whatever I am wrestling to get to is good...because I'm not wrestling to hold on. I'm wrestling to take hold...
My Journal Uncensored (Maybe You Can Relate)--Part 1
(Journal date: November 27, 2011)
I spent a lot of the last two days in tears feeling...I don't know if "hopeless" is the word. I don't kno--stranded, like at sea, just floating, knowing I am getting closer to something but not sure what or when, just here.
I haven't been able to identify any real emotions other than sadness, and I wonder if I feel anything at all.
I have cried a lot.
Felt like just going to bed and not getting up until after my birthday. Then I realized that puts us six weeks from when Rob died. I cannot fathom.
And in the midst of feeling lost, I wrote the Christmas letter. I ended up taking out the part about me. I guess that isn't fair to the poeple who want to know about me, but there are some people I don't want to know anything about me. I think it is more than that, though. I think I never felt like I was "part of the group" with Rob and the kids, so why try to insert myself now.
In the letter, I wrote about Mom passing in 2010 and Rob's passing. I tried to be honoring to him, but I expect backlash. I expect someone to criticize it, tell me too much focus was put on Rob, need to be more honest, need to move on. Not sure what I am going to say if they do. I don't feel like explaining anything, not that I owe anyone an explanation, and who knows? Maybe if someone says anything, I will simply delete the message or hang up. I guess I will have to see.
I sent the notecard collage as a card. Pictures of Rob, the kids, them together, and one of me. I started not to put me in at all. However, for nine and a half months, it has been just the kids and me. It should be our family picture, but....But.
But, is it Rob's last year on the card, and it is hard beyond words. It is crazy surreal, and I find myself wandering through, trying to make sense of it, trying to find the truth, feeling like I failed, like it was all my fault. Maybe if I had done something different, maybe if I had understood...Maybe if I had understood who he really wanted to be and encouraged him there or supported him there, he would have been happy. Maybe he wouldn't have felt rejected. But then, I took him at his word, and there is really nowhere to go beyond that.
And it doesn't matter...except it does...because I failed before. How do I know I won't fail like that again?
I don't know, but then, the more I have read through the emails and texts from his computer and phone, the more I realize there is a lot I didn't know.
I spent a lot of the last two days in tears feeling...I don't know if "hopeless" is the word. I don't kno--stranded, like at sea, just floating, knowing I am getting closer to something but not sure what or when, just here.
I haven't been able to identify any real emotions other than sadness, and I wonder if I feel anything at all.
I have cried a lot.
Felt like just going to bed and not getting up until after my birthday. Then I realized that puts us six weeks from when Rob died. I cannot fathom.
And in the midst of feeling lost, I wrote the Christmas letter. I ended up taking out the part about me. I guess that isn't fair to the poeple who want to know about me, but there are some people I don't want to know anything about me. I think it is more than that, though. I think I never felt like I was "part of the group" with Rob and the kids, so why try to insert myself now.
In the letter, I wrote about Mom passing in 2010 and Rob's passing. I tried to be honoring to him, but I expect backlash. I expect someone to criticize it, tell me too much focus was put on Rob, need to be more honest, need to move on. Not sure what I am going to say if they do. I don't feel like explaining anything, not that I owe anyone an explanation, and who knows? Maybe if someone says anything, I will simply delete the message or hang up. I guess I will have to see.
I sent the notecard collage as a card. Pictures of Rob, the kids, them together, and one of me. I started not to put me in at all. However, for nine and a half months, it has been just the kids and me. It should be our family picture, but....But.
But, is it Rob's last year on the card, and it is hard beyond words. It is crazy surreal, and I find myself wandering through, trying to make sense of it, trying to find the truth, feeling like I failed, like it was all my fault. Maybe if I had done something different, maybe if I had understood...Maybe if I had understood who he really wanted to be and encouraged him there or supported him there, he would have been happy. Maybe he wouldn't have felt rejected. But then, I took him at his word, and there is really nowhere to go beyond that.
And it doesn't matter...except it does...because I failed before. How do I know I won't fail like that again?
I don't know, but then, the more I have read through the emails and texts from his computer and phone, the more I realize there is a lot I didn't know.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Hard Questions Part 2
Hard Questions Part 1
"I've closed my Facebook accounts, and I'm pulling down my blogs. I don't think it is a good idea for me to write anymore."
She knew it wasn't a retreat or a step back or a temporary attempt to destress.
Writing isn't what I do. It's who I am. It's the core of me. It's breathing for my soul.
I wasn't walking out on writing. I was walking out on me.
She wanted to know why.
And I didn't want to tell her.
For as long as I can remember, I've been a writer. Before I could actually write letters, I took a pen, scribbled lines across a page, and "read" them into stories. I've written to work through my own trauma, to reveal others' trauma, to try to understand. I've written to offer truth...and find it for myself. I've written to release all I think and feel...and to hide in a world not this one because this world's thoughts were too dark and its feelings too painful...And I have desired, prayed...even begged...that my writing would offer hope, a way through...a view of God to people who desperately need to see Him.
I thought I knew what that meant...what it looked like...
I thought I knew what it meant being a "Christian writer", and that is what I have tried to be. I have tried to write with excellence--using the perfect starting sentence, checking it a dozen times to make sure the phraseology was just write, getting it within the acceptable word count. I have tried to use the right words, not be offensive, and let everyone feel good when they were done reading.
The problem is I don't write for perfection. I write out of Presence. I am not acceptable. I use the wrong topics, get too honest, and use the wrong words, and several Christians have made it a point to tell me how I offend them. Can't say I feel bad, though. Honestly, I find some Christians to be offensive, and I hope I knock their comfort zones sideways. Someone needs to, and no, that is not judgment. It is fact, and before anyone starts throwing rocks, read about Jesus' thoughts on white washed stones sometimes or religious rulers who were high on laws and lacking in love.
The fact is when it became obvious that marital separation was inevitable, I was sure I knew what it meant to be a Christian, and I really wanted a good relationship with God. After a year in hell, I can honestly say I have a solid relationship with God. It's the whole church defined "Christian" thing I am doubting.
What does a "Christian writer" do when she is no longer sure she can write "as a Christian"? When she is no longer sure what "being a Christian" is? When she no longer knows who she is?
Or maybe she does know, and she knows what it'll cost...
And she has to decide...does she walk away from who she is...or walk toward all she has asked to be...
Even if it leaves people not understanding and a lot of people asking why...
"I've closed my Facebook accounts, and I'm pulling down my blogs. I don't think it is a good idea for me to write anymore."
She knew it wasn't a retreat or a step back or a temporary attempt to destress.
Writing isn't what I do. It's who I am. It's the core of me. It's breathing for my soul.
I wasn't walking out on writing. I was walking out on me.
She wanted to know why.
And I didn't want to tell her.
For as long as I can remember, I've been a writer. Before I could actually write letters, I took a pen, scribbled lines across a page, and "read" them into stories. I've written to work through my own trauma, to reveal others' trauma, to try to understand. I've written to offer truth...and find it for myself. I've written to release all I think and feel...and to hide in a world not this one because this world's thoughts were too dark and its feelings too painful...And I have desired, prayed...even begged...that my writing would offer hope, a way through...a view of God to people who desperately need to see Him.
I thought I knew what that meant...what it looked like...
I thought I knew what it meant being a "Christian writer", and that is what I have tried to be. I have tried to write with excellence--using the perfect starting sentence, checking it a dozen times to make sure the phraseology was just write, getting it within the acceptable word count. I have tried to use the right words, not be offensive, and let everyone feel good when they were done reading.
The problem is I don't write for perfection. I write out of Presence. I am not acceptable. I use the wrong topics, get too honest, and use the wrong words, and several Christians have made it a point to tell me how I offend them. Can't say I feel bad, though. Honestly, I find some Christians to be offensive, and I hope I knock their comfort zones sideways. Someone needs to, and no, that is not judgment. It is fact, and before anyone starts throwing rocks, read about Jesus' thoughts on white washed stones sometimes or religious rulers who were high on laws and lacking in love.
The fact is when it became obvious that marital separation was inevitable, I was sure I knew what it meant to be a Christian, and I really wanted a good relationship with God. After a year in hell, I can honestly say I have a solid relationship with God. It's the whole church defined "Christian" thing I am doubting.
What does a "Christian writer" do when she is no longer sure she can write "as a Christian"? When she is no longer sure what "being a Christian" is? When she no longer knows who she is?
Or maybe she does know, and she knows what it'll cost...
And she has to decide...does she walk away from who she is...or walk toward all she has asked to be...
Even if it leaves people not understanding and a lot of people asking why...
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Hard Questions Part 1
Her fingers slid into her hair just above and behind her ears, and the weight of her head rested on her palm, elbow on the table.
I know that look.
She paused. Her eyes penetrating. Her mouth did that...thing. In a flash she set up, pushed the dishes around, and said, "Let the chilli simmer. Get your coffee and sit down. We are going to talk about this."
Coffee in hand, I slid into the chair across from her. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, looked at me as though she could see right into my brain and read the electrical impulses shooting through it, and then she asked one question:
"Why?"
I know that look.
She paused. Her eyes penetrating. Her mouth did that...thing. In a flash she set up, pushed the dishes around, and said, "Let the chilli simmer. Get your coffee and sit down. We are going to talk about this."
Coffee in hand, I slid into the chair across from her. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, looked at me as though she could see right into my brain and read the electrical impulses shooting through it, and then she asked one question:
"Why?"
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