My story...

I ran across a blog post today that challenged me.

The writer shared that we all have a story, and need to know how to tell it.  That means we actually have to know what our story is.

Much of my story has poured out here on my blog.  I have written a lot over the years, though it has tapered off some in the last months.  But just because I have found more freedom in Christ, found more joy, found more of Jesus... well that doesn't mean that my story is done.

God has so much more for me (and you).  His redeeming love has rescued me from so much.  He is rescuing me.  Daily.  He will rescue me.

I don't get it.  His wild, irrational, redeeming love.  But I am so grateful, thankful, overjoyed, humbled.  He sings over us when we are unaware.  He constantly whispers truth about ourselves and about Him in our ears.  Sometimes it takes a lot to really hear what He is saying.

Oh God, help me hear and acknowledge and really believe what it is You are saying!

This post about becoming an expert at telling your story had a challenge at the end.

He asked, "In three sentences or less, what is your story?"

Here is what I came up with, after many drafts.

"Coming from a sheltered home-life, I succumbed silently to cruel bullying in school.  After finding Christ in college, terrible depression enslaved me using my poor choices and relationships.  Ready to die, God stopped me, setting my feet on the path of freedom, teaching me transparency and dependency on Him, giving me an impossible joy."

So, I am asking you.  What is your story?  Can you express it in three sentences or less?  Will you share it with me?

Overwhelmed

Here I am sitting at the computer on a beautiful, sunny, warm day.  I am inside, only because the kids and I were out this morning and ate lunch as a picnic in our back yard.  They got tired and wanted in, so therefore I had to go in too.

I have a ton of things I could be doing around here.  The list seems to be unending.  I have been working on some laundry, cleaned up the kitchen some, and started defrosting some brats for supper. 

But.

I have a ton more to do, other than the day to day upkeep.

We are going to be moving, probably at the beginning of August to the farm.  We need to get the house ready to go on the market.  I can't begin to comprehend how in the world we are going to get this place ready!

All I can see right now is the big picture.  I can't figure howanything that I attempt to do today even begins to affect that big picture!

I am overwhelmed.  When I get overwhelmed I grind to a halt. 

It doesn't help that I'm still not feeling 100% over the cold I had yet.  I am still exhausted, and coughing some still.  I want to curl up and sleep, but that may not be all due to the cold, as some of that comes from the automatic shut down I go into when I don't know how to tackle what I have to tackle.

With all the day to day things I need to get done, I can't seem to figure out how to get the other stuff done on top of it.  I am so behind on the laundry, the cleaning, and daily maintenance because of my cold, that it will take me all weekend to get caught up on that, and by the time I get to next weekend... well, I will be starting over on that stuff again, and not get to the clearing out of this house to move.

Dave set the kids last week to packing up some of their toys.  Marina partially filled one box and quit (and I kept on throwing away things, or throwing more in there.  Peter filled 3 boxes.  That was a start.  I however keep flitting from one thing to another, with great intentions and nothing gets done.

I can hear Peter in their room right now, throwing things into a box to take things out to the farm.  I wish I had his motivation, or focus or whatever it is that is getting him going right now!

I guess what I could use is some prayer~
to be able to see one piece at a time
to have the motivation to do something - however small
to not let myself get overwhelmed but instead focus on God who is my strength
to trust in Him and believe Him in this upheaval as well

Don't think that I don't want to move to the farm.  I do.  Very much.  I just wish there was some way to "zap" all our stuff there and not have to figure out how to pack it all up!

So, if it is quiet around my blog for a bit, it isn't because I don't want to write.  It is mostly because I am so exhausted and have so much to do.

When I have this much on my plate, I find myself feeling dry and unable to write.  I hate that feeling and it is hard to try to write when I feel like all I am writing is "drivel!"

Know that I am taking time to read and visit other blogs, but I just have felt really dry and unable to contribute much.

And now I must go and see what "damage" the kids are doing as they are trying to "pack up their room" to move it to the farm!!

God and writing

So last night I spent some time writing.  God uses my writing to help me process and to hear His voice.

God used it to make me realize that I haven't dealt fully with some aspects of my past.  Things from back in Junior High, like when I was 12.  I thought I had laid a lot of that to rest.  But when Tricia and I were talking last week, we realized we hit on something right before the end of our session.

I had been bullied by a couple of different people in 7th grade.  It wasn't that big of a deal or so I thought.  But as I worked through it as I wrote last night, I realized just how big a deal it was.  I really took what was said and done to me to heart.

Though I am very high on the Empathy/Feeling charts, I find myself shutting down emotionally and unable to re-engage.  I traced it back to some things that happened while in 7th grade where I vowed that I wasn't going to let others see me cry in front of them again.  Unless I was in a "safe place" or with "safe people" I didn't cry.  I also didn't express how I felt to anyone for the most part, even to my mom, when something happened.

I can remember when my first cat died.  It was my senior year of high school.  I'd had her since I was four.  My mom was taking her in the next day to be put down because she was too sick and in pain.  I got home from school the next day, and had a friend with me.  We hung together in my room, ate supper and went back to the school for a late drama rehearsal.  I never said anything to my mom about Willow, for a long time. 

Several months later, I encouraged my family to get two kittens, and they had them for a very long time.  Later I ended up telling my mom that I stayed up several hours with Willow on her last night.  Curled up next to her on the couch, petting the one place that didn't hurt her (the top of her head and ears) and cried.  The reason I had a friend come home with me the next day was cause I needed the distraction.  But it was a long time before I could acknowledge those emotions, define them, and share them with someone.

I am not as bad as that now.  I have healed a lot in the last few years.

However, there are still times when I have trouble expressing my emotions.  Sometimes I don't even know what I am feeling.  Like I said, I shut down.  Because of the bullying things that happened to me, the humiliations, I ended up putting up walls to protect myself.

God has been faithful in helping me pull down those walls.  Many of them are down now, and I have much less of a tendency to hold in emotions than I used to.  It's much less self-destructive.  But there are still walls there. Some of these walls have people's names on them, I have discovered.  It's going to take a lot of hard work to get those walls to come down.

With God's help, I know it will happen.  In His time.

There are other things that are going on at the same time. - again - there is always something, and it seems God is working on me from different fronts, with different things all at once.  Maybe it seems like that because He is trying to help me shore up the weaknesses that He sees in me, so that I can come out the other side more whole, and a better person to better reflect His light.

All in His time.  And - as a reminder to myself - I don't need to know the why's of what's going on or what's happened.

God uses my writing to help me process different things.  Last night He helped me process and identify some things that I need to go over with Tricia.  Other times He just plain outright speaks to my heart, by impressing something on it.  Other times it is through reading His Word as well.

I am just so glad that He still speaks and heals and redeems and restores, today as always.

He's got me covered.
He's got you covered.

Praise God for that!  I am so grateful that He hems us in behind and before and that He lays His hand upon us all!

an elephant...

Oh boy, has my week been up and down!

Thursday was NOT a good day by any stretch of the imagination. I ran... as far and as fast as I could. I had the opportunity to spend a good chunk of time with God and I ran the other way.... totally the opposite direction. Oh, and I was so mad at myself for doing it. I knew I was doing it and couldn't or didn't or wasn't willing to stop myself.

Friday, I was numb again. I was exhausted. Thursday, I was anticipating time with God, then when I ran (probably in fear of any emotions) I got furious with myself. By Friday, I was back to numb again. I had nothin' for nobody.

Saturday, God's grace flowed over me. The kids didn't wake me up too early. They sat and watched some cartoons and snacked on cereal. I was able to sit in my bed, with my bible and journal and bible study spread out around me, with a hot latte at my elbow.

I had nearly an hour of time with God, at the end of which, I asked God to help me really be "present" with my children that day.

It was such a good day, and one we all needed.

Yesterday was draining, and thus, my mood tanked.

Worship at church was wonderful. However, I was alone at church with a 4yr old and 6yr old who kept asking me when we were leaving and if they could go to the farm.

They were pretty good in church. But we didn't get home until about 1:30pm, between the business meeting and potluck afterward. They were done in and so was I.

Thankfully, they wanted to play with play-doh, so I set them up and then collapsed on my bed. I was still in my church clothes but didn't care by that point. I curled up in a ball around a pillow with the blankets over me and didn't move.

Wanted to sleep but only was able to doze a bit between interruptions from the kids.
Wanted to cry the lump out of my throat, but nothing came when I tried to let go.
Wanted to stay in bed the rest of the day, but had to take care of the kids and prep for small group.

So, after they were done with their downtime, so was I. I got up, changed and got them outside to play.

After a while, because it was so hot, I set up the slip and slide for them and let them get wet and grassy. Dave took them inside to shower and dress while I built a fire for our small group.

Once I got active and into the day, I was ok. But I was still tired, and depressed. It really didn't lift too much. Hit me like a ton of bricks when I got home, and stayed there.

Once the kids were back outside with me, Dave escaped to do his "computer rounds" (he fixes other peoples computers for fun). Pete and Donna got there to join Sandy and I and the kids for hot dogs and s'mores. It was a good time of eating and talking around the fire, but as the night progressed, you could tell things were just heavy on all of us.

Peter and Donna had some hard news to share. I had hard news to share too, about my going to see Tricia again. Sandy didn't say much. But we know her hard stuff she is having to deal with.

It was a hard night. We want to come together to draw around each other and lift each other up, but right now, we are all hurting and aren't doing that very well.

It is an unspoken thing in our small group that we are all missing and hurting about Henry's death. It is the big elephant in the room that no one is talking about.

Sandy isn't in a place yet where she can recognize that others are missing him and hurting about his passing, because it is so overwhelming for her - she prays to go home and be with her sweetheart. Besides her children, she can't even take in anything else.

She was surprised when Cindy D. told her that I was having a hard time with Henry's death. She said to me privately last night that she didn't think that it would affect me so much.

Wouldn't affect me so much?

Henry and Sandy have been a part of my life for 6 years. They are family. I love them both. I miss him. I don't know how to deal with this. I don't know how to grieve. I don't know how to come alongside someone who is grieving.

Right now I may not be able to feel for myself, but I feel for the others in our small group. I hurt for Sandy who has lost her other half. I hurt for Peter and Donna who have lost a good friend of at least 20 years. I hurt for Henry and Sandy's kids who have been having to help Sandy go through all of his tools this past weekend.



I want to go see Tricia tonight.
I Don't want to go see Tricia to night.

Both.

I want to see her because I have missed her. I know she cares for me, and has my best at heart. We have history together, and she knows what I have been through. I know she will be able to help me and walk me through whatever "this thing" (whatever it is) is going to look like.

I don't want to see her because the lies are going on that I really don't need to be there. That my feelings aren't valid. That I shouldn't be struggling as much as I am. That I shouldn't have been struggling with depression ever since I got off the anti-depressant, and so my "fix" should just be the medication, not counseling!



When Sandy said that she was surprised Henry's death was affecting me so much, it made second guess my reaction to his death. It made me think that maybe I was just making all this stuff up, and perpetuated the lies I have succumbed to at times.

At the same time I know she was/is speaking out of a place of terrible loss. She can't comprehend or even attempt to take in others' loss compared to hers.


Hopefully I will be able to share some of this with Tricia tonight, with some sort of clarity. I don't know for sure if I will be able to. Please pray for me! There is so much more behind what I have shared here on my blog. I really don't even know where to start! Back at the beginning, but I don't even know what the beginning was!

But at least I have some of my writing back. That has dried up as my depression increased and my work load increased. Now there is something there that I have to get out, so I write.

Focused or not, I write.