Christmas 2008

Interestingly I put on a random podcast sermon from one of the churches I like to listen to and the sermon was titled, Pursuing Divine Health. Tonight is Christmas Eve and tomorrow I’ll be going to Catholic Mass even though I’m a Protestant Christian. As you also know, I firmly believe that things happen for a reason. I just picked this podcast at random and this is how it started (I’m going to take a few moments to transcribe the first few minutes).

"Many of you know that video the Catholics put out, isn’t that amazing? Wow! John Arnett sent it to me this week… And there was this healing that the Lord’s doing and thankfully in the U.S. Protestants and Catholics get along better than in other parts of the world. And Mexico is one of the places where there has not been a cross-pollenization for whatever, for reasons I don’t want to get into right now. But one of our dear friends and part of our network, Angel, pastors a great church in LaPaz where our ministry is… anyway, Angel sent me a note this morning because he’s been working on reconciliation with the Catholics in the area. He’s been just initiating this, he’s just becoming a Kingdom minded person. And sometime ago he went to the Father and asked if it would be possible if his church, which is not a wealthy church at all, could provide shoes for all the kids in the orphanage. And they did, they brought Christmas gifts. … and what has happened as a result of that is off the charts.

Angel's note said: Last night they called a prayer meeting. About 3000 people gathered in the gov’t plaza in LaPaz. Most of them Catholics, but many of them other branches of Christianity. We all joined to pray for Mexico in a first time ever event. We had never had Catholic and Christians praying together in our country. But at the end of the event I raised my voice to ask forgiveness to the Catholics because we had built walls instead of building bridges. A great ovation was heard when I hugged the Bishop. It was even more powerful seeing other Catholics and believers hugging each other and expressing forgiveness.

I know this is a new day. New things are about to happen here. Revival is here. We are making history."

12-25-08

During Mass I went into a meditative prayer three times. During prayer I was thanking God for everything He has given me and asking Him to lay his hand on me. I was asking Him to listen to this choir through my ears. I was asking Him not to let me slip away or worry about things that are insignificant to his plan for my life.

While in prayer I found myself with tears streaming down my cheeks. I was not feeling sorrowful. I was not in grief, mourning, or sadness. I was in gratitude! Gratitude indeed!

I was thankful of all the ways that the Lord has blessed me. When my family left me, I was given a son, friends and love. When I was in my dire period, burned out from school, work and motherhood and I was pushing away my friends- A new position at work opened up which paid me my same wage with less stress; I was brought to the friends who are genuine and truly my sisters in Christ. I was brought to new friends who have shown me such love and encouragement. I was brought to people who genuinely believe in me and in God’s plan for my life. I was so grateful for all that and more, and because of that gratitude I cried thanks. I cried tears of happiness and blessings.

I don't know why I cried, I just couldn't stop. I was oblivious to the people around me, I didn't hear the singing or the priest, I just heard my prayer and the words of my heart. The cry of my heart. The song of my heart!

After Mass I went with Evelyna and her family to Christmas lunch at the Holiday Inn. They had to go pick up E’s mom and father-in-law, so I arrived at the restaurant about fifteen minutes ahead of them. I sat there with my Bible in my hand and once again, bowed my head in prayer. I thanked God again for all my blessings, I don't think I can thank him enough, He is SO GOOD. Then I asked him to read my heart and see what I longed for. I asked that he would go in and read me and guide me to find the scripture that would make sense to me and for my life. I didn't know what I wanted or what I needed to hear, but I trusted that He did. I asked for something that I could look to when I needed to feel security and to feel reassured that He knows my heart.

I ended my prayer and ran my fingers along the edges of my Bible. This is the Precious Moments Bible my mom got me for my 12th birthday. It’s beat up, written on, scribbled in (little brothers!) but it’s my special Bible and I doubt if I’ll ever buy an adult one because this Bible is so special to me. I flipped through the pages a couple times and opened the book and looked down.

I opened the Bible to Psalm 63.

O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
So I have looked for You
in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and
Your glory.

Because Your lovingkindness is
better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
Thus I will bless You while I
live;
I will lift up my hands in Your
name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with
marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You
with joyful lips.

When I remember You on my
bed,
I meditate on You in the night
watches.
Because You have been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of Your
wings I will rejoice.
My soul follows close behind
You;
Your right hand upholds me.

This reminds me of a part of the blog I wrote on Nov 8th:
This woman sings of His love for her with every step she takes because it is His hand which has held her up when she has felt like crumpling into the carpet. It is His shoulder she has cried upon when school and work have found her weary to the bone. It is the heartbeat in His chest that she has listened to when she has laid alone in her bed, lonely and longing. It is His words of comfort that she has read when she just needed someone to understand, looked around, and found no one to empathize. It is in Him that she finds the courage to press forward when the enemy glamorizes the ease of giving up and giving in. It is through His eyes she sees herself in the mirror when the enemy reminds her of the weight she's gained during these years in school, work, and motherhood. It is His value of her worth that she fights for, not the enemy's lies which place her worth in her waistline or in the opinions of men.

Christmas at The Office

Who knew that I would get my best therapeutic techniques from watching The Office? Yep, I learned alllll about alcoholism and interventions. I thought I would share the wisdom...

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if I can skin a mule deer in less than ten minutes I oughta be able to cut my way out of this.

this is equal parts scotch, absinth, rum, gin vermouth, triple sec and two packs of Splenda, I call it a One of Everything.

an intervention is a surprise party for people who have addictions. You get in their face and you scream at them and you make them feel really badly about themselves and then they stop.

when I was in college I used to get wicked hammered. my nickname was Puke. I would chug a fifth of soko sneak into a frat party, polish off a few people’s empties, some brewskies, some jello shots, do some body shots off myself, pass out. Wake up the next morning, boot, rally, more soko, head to class, probably would have gotten expelled if I would have let it affect my grades but I aced all my courses, they called me Ace. It was totally awesome. Got straight B’s. They called me Buzz.

Intervention questions:
have you ever used alcohol to alter your mood or deliberately change your state of mind?
do you sometimes have a drink to celebrate a special occasion or mark a holiday?
have you ever, under the influence of alcohol, questioned the teachings of the mormon church?

Five fingered intervention:
Awareness
Education
Control
Acceptance
Punching

As it turns out, you can’t check someone into rehab against their will, they have to do it voluntarily, they need to hit rock bottom. So I think I know what I need to do at this point. I need to find ways to push Meredith to the bottom, um, I think I can do it, I did it with Jan.

There are several ways to kill a zombie, but the most satisfying one is to stab it in the brain with a wooden stick.

KE's Dream

My friend had a weird dream and I emailed her about it. I was just digging through a Word file looking for my homework and I came across my response. During the holidays we have a tendency to feel forlorn and miss the people who were significant from our past. So I thought I'd share my email to her about her dream, I'm sure you don't need to know what hers was about in order to find the value YOU might need to take from my reply.

It was nice and reassuring for me to re-read too, I almost forgot that I wrote it! Ha!

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You still love him. Somewhere down in there, you deny it, you don't want it, but you do. But do you really and truly love HIM or what he REPRESENTS?




You've been feeling lonely and wanting intimacy.




Our hearts can romanticize the beautiful things in another person because we want what we think they can give us: stability, love, romance, companionship, the knowledge of who we are intrinsically. When we are vulnerable and we are meditating on one specific thing we begin to visualize it in our life. We are willing it to us. We are praying it to us.




But I think that sometimes our wires get crossed and we inadvertently get confused.




We left them. They left us. For whatever reason the love is unequally yoked. Even if both our hearts are still tied at the soul, in reality we still know it's not meant to be, or we'd be. So in our earnest longing for a love in our life we remember. Remembering fills the void. Remembering is tangible- kind of. Remembering is YOURS and yours alone and the only other person who can share that memory is him, and that makes you close.




I wonder if in your dream you were feeling those soul ties. I wonder if it was your way of calling out to love. I don't know about you, but I love to love. I love the little things that people overlook, I love to think about how I can surprise him and show my love in the everyday... That's what I love. It's not the receiving that gets me going so much, I don't daydream about what someone can do for me, but what we can do together or what I can do for him. I love to love! ***




You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that you're a lot like me. I think your dream was you calling out to love. Not calling FOR love, but to it. He was that last man you loved.




And if he is lying there dying, he can love you in return, he can accept your love, but he cannot show it back and you cannot be disappointed. So maybe it is also your heart's way of telling you to let him go. The old love that you hold on to. The old love is the love that you long for deep down. Maybe your heart knows that God has a new love for you. Because it's new it's foreign and you cannot long for it. How do you long for something you don't know? It's love, but it's a new love, a God love, a love more profound that you'll be able to say, "Wow, this was worth waiting for."




Either way, I think it's your way of realizing that the relationship you had with him is dead (as is he), that you two will always share something that will transcend other relationships (and that's okay & will not degrade your marriage relationship as that will be transcendent on its own), and that you are longing to give love and to be a helper. I do believe that you are growing ready as your soul is crying out to God and to your heart. I am certain that it will be sooner rather than later that your partner will come.


For now, REJOICE in your singleness. You know, I've never been on a missions trip and I've always wanted to. My son is almost ten and we already have passports. I wonder if there's a church going for a week, and I wonder how we would join them? Maybe you don't need a man to go on missions with you, maybe you just need a friend. Maybe, just maybe, your man is waiting for you to join him on his trip…



(***side note*** that's what I remember loving as like... it's been a long, long time... I wonder if I'm still that girl... yes, yes I am... I will always love, I don't know any other way to live my life but through a loving heart)

One of my infamous emails to a friend:

One of my friends sent this article to me this morning and I just finished reading it. It totally made me think of you and how you have isolated yourself through fishing. Little comments you’ve made… I don’t know, I think my subconscious picks up on more things than I do and then I attach certain things to people. So please don’t take offence that I’m sending you this. It’s really just to show you what you COULD become if you allow yourself to dwell.



I do personally know what it’s like to reflect back. I was talking with Kathy the other day about how I pray that God will not bring me a man who is short and skinny (whew, good thing I don’t have any short and skinny guy friends!). She could relate to that feeling and assured me that even if he was a midget God would make sure I was attracted to him.

But I have this tendency to look around at my friends and their respective relationships, and then I inadvertantly find myself thinking about the few past relationships I've had. Then my thoughts take a turn for the worse.

Guys always want to “own” me. They want to talk on the phone every day, hang out constantly, know where I am and what I’m doing and with whom I’m doing it. They get in the way of my time with my friends and hate it when I spend an hour on the phone talking about nothing. I have to share the remote and watch stupid things like NASCAR. There’s complaining when I want to watch three episodes of What Not To Wear on a Sunday while I clean.

Is it too much to ask for healthy autonomy? Our own lives and lives together? Lives in Christ and filled with trust, love, understanding and commitment? Not needing to reassure each other all the time, but having a consensus of love? Is that a superficial ideal that I have created to keep people away? Are my standards too high?

When I look at the relationships around me I feel disheartened because I don't want what they have. They have power and control over each other. I don't want power over another person. I don't want to give control over me. I just want to love and be loved in return. So when I turn and see this "love" around me, I want nothing to do with "love."

Nothing.

I’ll promote love for everyone else, I’ll sing the happy song of the wonder and beauty of love. I will encourage second chances. I will point out that there is no perfect man or woman, I will illustrate the value of LOVE. Singing, dancing, rolling in my meadow of change, I will look you in the eyes and I will profess how deserving you are of unconditional love and acceptance, and I will sell you on the opportunity cost of risk… you will leave from our conversation or email refreshed and renewed in a spirit of hope and love.



But for me…


Oh for me…


I will not step on that plank. There are too many sharks in those waters!!!!


Heck no!


I don’t know how to bait a shark and then fend him off. I’m shark bait waiting to bleed if I even put a toe in the shallow end.



Wow.



I’m such a hypocrite.



How do I look in the mirror?


Oh, through rationalization and justification. When I’m done with school I’ll date. When I lose the freshman 15 I gained I’ll date. When my apartment is clean I’ll date. When I finish practicum I’ll date. When God puts His man right in front of me, on my doorstep with flowers and a card that says, “I’m your gift from God and I will not break your heart or try to control you.” THEN I’ll date…


I bet that sounds familiar to you too…


Something tells me that while you might not actually think all those thoughts, they’re floating around back there. They are whispering sweet nothings in your ear. They are tickling your thoughts and they are shackling your actions. They are your ball and chain. You are more committed to them than you have been to any woman.
Am I close???


Anyway, here’s the article that made me think of you. I thought you could get as much out of it as I did. I’m going to re-read it before bed too because I think my subconscious needs to hear it. That little voice in my head sure likes to point out potential rejections far louder than any potential acceptance…


Who am I to give advice?


I’m as scared as you…


OUR COMMON SORROW

by Hudson Russell Davis

Crosswalk. com Contributing Writer

Like yours, my heart is a library of loneliness, longing to be read, but most people come only to browse. All too often the real feelings go back on the shelf.
— Tim Hansel


One of Satan’s chief means of crippling us is to convince us in our loneliness that we are truly alone, not simply without a mate but without a friend, without help and without God—forsaken. He whispers that whatever cries we utter are spoken into thin air and deaf ears, both human and divine. He tells us that people do not care and that God does not care, but it is not so.


Everything that has overtaken us is common to humankind. We all suffer loneliness. We all suffer rejection. We all raise up hope only to know disappointment. This is true of the single and it is true of the married, true under the limelight of success and the clouds of failure. We all know, to some degree, what it is to be misunderstood or ignored.


This does not mean that our sufferings are not individual, not unique; it means we do not suffer alone. I cannot know the ways you have been cut or the bruises you bear, but I care. We can never truly “understand” but need only love. While it is wonderful if someone understands, it is better if they care.


Each of us knows a particular sorrow, but we all know the pain of loneliness and the hurt of dreams deferred. We could resolve not to dream, but that is not wise. We could resolve not to feel, but that is not practical. By never speaking we could withdraw from the dangers of miscommunication, but that is not human. It seems so simple—no dreams no waking horrors, no feelings no hurt, no misunderstanding no discord. Isolation is a natural answer, but it is spiritual suicide.


If we choose not to risk we loose ever so subtly, the sharp edge to our faith. Over time we become people whose lives are as bland as our dreamless nights. Over time we become the boring but safe people who squash the dreams of others and tell them they should be “realistic.” Over time we may convince ourselves that we are the only unhappy souls in the world. We may even come to believe that a tasteless existence is really contentment. It is not. It is a numb, anesthetized, existence that falls short of living. It is a coma.


Self-deceit would rather ask nothing of God than wrestle with the answers he does or does not give. Isolation would rather resolve to need no one than risk failed relationships—even failed friendships. Because that is what it will come to if we never make peace with the loneliness. If it is suppressed, it may one day explode.


If ever we withdraw behind our carefully constructed barricades and for fear of disappointment relinquish hope, we shut out wife, husband and all living things. That is the danger—numbness not only to the hopes and dreams we harbored in our youth, but numbness to all dreams and hopes that life naturally cultivates.


Years of loneliness can warp our thinking and sap our strength. In time we may imagine that over that dune and the next dune is nothing more than sun, sand—and loneliness. So many of you have shared with me you felt lonely and alone in your loneliness. You have been very kind in telling me that my honesty eased your loneliness. I want to tell you that you were never alone. Alone is what the desert makes us feel, but we are not alone.



Indeed not only do I suffer the same trials, but also many of those you encounter weekly as you suffer in silence. How do I know? They have written and told me—a stranger—what they were afraid to tell you. And you have written and told me—a stranger—what you were afraid to tell them. Perhaps some of you felt comfortable with me because I had opened my heart and because you need not look me in the eyes and fear my rebuke. I have encouraged everyone that they are not alone, but want to add one last charge: break the silence! Open up and let someone in. And if someone speaks to you, listen between the lines for the pain that words cannot express.


Be a safe harbor for hurting hearts. Paul writes, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). You may find the comfort you have enjoyed here—in knowing my heart—closer than expected. Perhaps someone near you is waiting for you to break the silence and live by honesty. It is the surest turn in our healing to understand that we are not alone, that we share a common sorrow, a common longing, which is not our own private nightmare.


It is the Enemy’s greatest tool to cripple us, to isolate us in our loneliness. He then attempts to convince us that all the whispers and all the laughter is about us—that we are diseased or damaged and that everyone we meet knows it. But it is not true. He is a liar and the Father of Lies. There is no truth in him (John 8:44). Our greatest weapon is the faith we have been given in a God who loved us enough to rescue us “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8). Our greatest weapon against the isolation is to confess both our love of God and our genuine longing to a living, breathing, person who can touch us and restore us in love.


Beware! Not everyone loves honesty. Those who have already given up hope will not want their memories stirred, will not want the embers poked. They fear disappointment. I fear disappointment. For some, who have found peace in simple answers, the complexity of a real God who acts in ways we do not understand and cannot explain will be too much. But if ever the Christian community is to rise above the charge of “hypocrite” we must come out of the shadows and honestly state that we are content but not satisfied.


Here, I will start: “Hi. My name is Hudson and I am lonely.”

Now you. ...