If you hate the play, change the script

If I hadn't been born with a heavy dose of piss and vinegar, I'd have given up long ago. Several people have tried to break me, destroy me, discredit me. The specter of that possibility - someone exploding back into my life and pulling the thin veil off my secrets - tortured me for far too long. The only antidote is to grit your teeth, accept reality, and be honest about who you really are. The only cure for internalized shame is to air out your dirty laundry once and for all so you can get back to life the way it was supposed to be lived. After you've radically accepted your experiences, your strengths, your flaws, then - and only then - you will be free to value the person you have become in spite of all the pain. You will be able to stand tall in your own shoes and devil-may-care if the world values you as much as you do yourself.

When someone hurts you when you're small, tells you to keep it a secret or else...there's no one to blame, there's no validation of your pain, there's no healing. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of child abuse is that the disgust and the shame of it grows into that person inextricably, often saddling them with a heaping pile of steaming guilt that was never theirs to begin with. What happened can't be that bad, because you have to live with it. So you minimize the abuse and instead believe it is you that is bad. I'm bad, I deserve nothing, anything nice that happens to me is a fluke, a gift, or a mistake. My internal monologue had this sentence on constant repeat, a looped excuse for my self-hatred and self-doubt.

For the longest time I thought the only way to fix myself was to see myself "clearly" as the sinner and screw-up I was, and hope that there was forgiveness enough for a 7 year old girl who did nasty things like I did. I took the pain, shame, disgust, betrayal and evil and drew it into myself, held it so close to my heart that it grafted itself in. I thought I could think away the pain. Just will it, do it, one thought at a time. I sang the Pink song loud on karaoke nights, willing myself to change, to change those words and those thoughts that pinned me down and kept the blood running fresh from old, old wounds.

You're so mean when you talk

To yourself - you are wrong

Change the voices in your head

Make them like you instead

So complicated

Look how we all made it

Filled with so much hatred

Such a tired game

So cool in lying and we tried, tried, tried

But we tried too hard, it's a waste of my time

Done looking for the critics, cause they're everywhere

They don't like my jeans, they don't get my hair

Estrange ourselves and we do it all the time

Why do we do that?

Why do I do that?

You can't will those thoughts away any more than you can will the abuse away. If you keep all that despair and blame inside, afraid to expose your naked flesh to the world, no one will ever be able to tell you it was wrong and that it wasn't your fault. The first step to changing your thoughts is to invite someone into them. Then, armed with their more objective interpretation of the twisted jumble of events, you can begin to forgive yourself. Even without forgiveness, though, change is possible. You can choose to act as if you deserve love and respect long before you truly believe it.

If you are extremely miserable and you would like to feel better you may have to change your behavior despite whatever argument is going on in your head. If you could treat yourself with kindness and compassion, be understanding, and acknowledge your deepest fears and hurts- at least to yourself- why wouldn’t you? If this made your life easier, more livable, and more hopeful- why wouldn’t you do it? Arguing about deserve-ability certainly isn’t doing anything for you. In order to feel differently you have to act and behave as if self-compassion and kindness matters. You may have to tolerate some guilt, set some limits on your time, or even say no to the demands of others. The point is that you should get started on acting and behaving in ways that are worthy or deserving of you. Over time, your attitudes may change right along with your behavior. And in addition to feeling better because you are behaving as if you have more self-respect, you will have more resources for coping when other people put you in demeaning situations, take advantage or you, or assume that you are willing to be treated poorly. (Renee Hoekstra, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy counselor)

It's a magical thing, being compassionate to yourself. You can go back and love yourself when you were least lovable, when you were covered with tears and filth and confusion. Every one of those childhood moments when you felt unimportant, unnoticed or unloved? You can look back on that now, close your eyes and feel what it felt like to be that child. And you can notice. You can validate that experience, acknowledge that it hurt you. You can tell that little one the significance of that moment, how it bent you and strengthened you all at once. You can tell her that because of her - not in spite of her - your life has been amazing.

Do you believe you are worthy of your own compassion and love?

A living memory

The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside us while we live. (Norman Cousins)

Do you remember those hazy humid dreams of childhood summers? Have you forgotten the schemes and dreams you plotted along life's timeline when you were 7? Do you remember pinky promises and cross your heart and hope to die, all those pacts we made with other little people to become something, do something, before we got old.

My childhood dreams come alive with the smell of horse hair and the huff of a mare's breath on a hot summer day; the prickle of hay on skin and how it smelled like warm sunshine bottled up. My dreams at night were bareback riding and flying through murky skies and falling out of flaming buildings. My dreams by day were all about love: I was desperate to have it, to keep it, to always remember the important things. My knuckles went white with the gripping of love as hard and as tight to my chest as possible.

Life does not feel permanent when you're a child. Everything flits by and is gone on the wind before you've hardly consumed it, long before you can commit it to memory. Each new experience brushes against your skin like the allure of tall grass wet with dew, hands winding through the wheat tops shaking drops onto the brown tumbled up earth below. We don't know how to make connections yet, as children, and so life flies by free-form. It just is. We aren't hunters of explanations and we aren't gatherers of puzzles yet. We are hunters of daylight - craving it down to it's last black shadow on summer nights on damp cut grass of Olly Olly Oxen Free and Annie Annie I Over. We are gatherers of pretty rocks and feathers, beads and old cans from the woods.

I dreamed of falling in love. It seemed uncomplicated and wonderful in an Anne of Green Gables sort of way, as though I would be so magnetically drawn to that one person and he to me and we would be happy once we discovered the love we cloaked under sarcasm and friendship. I didn't know there would be stops and starts along the way. I didn't know I really would dislike my lover as much as Anne ever disliked Gilbert. And I had no idea how compelling and awesome the magnetism of true love is.

I dreamed of seeing things - amazing things, wild things, beautiful things - as many as I could possibly see before I die. To be born creative is also to be born with this inexplicable and undeniable draw toward the creativity of others, the beauty they create. I devoured an entire art history library looking for beauty, and developed my favorites - the spareness of Wyeth and the raw power of Michelangelo's sketches.  I listened to all kinds of music: to this day, my playlist includes songs from my grandparents and parents' generations, as well as songs from almost every genre of modern music.

Life tumbles on, and with every moment it becomes more complicated. Yet, too, as the earth spins, parts and people fly off into history and you travel on into the future down-sized. And there are places and smells and sounds that will always connect us to our core, where we can remember who we truly are, bask in the naked beauty of the soul.

For me, it is hay, and grass cut in summer, and the smell of sun on barn boards and animal flesh. It is the harumphs of happy horses and the whinny on the wind. It is the countryside on a sunny day, lying on your back picking out shapes from the clouds in the azure sky. It is friend's voices and each of their own special laughs.

Where do you go to remember who you are? Are you familiar with that core place within you that holds your essence and your dreams? How do you access it?

The naked soul

My husband and I, we're bare together. He asks me what I'm thinking and I do my best to tell him. With the children, I keep a few clothes on depression. Try to minimize it. Make sure they know I am not sad because of something they've done. 

I go for counseling, and my therapist is one of those people you'd be best friends with if you weren't in a professional relationship. I try to be bare with her, but fear creeps in: what if she thinks I need to go to the hospital? What if she thinks I'm an unfit mother?

I go to group therapy to learn how to cope with this mess. But here I'm wearing a long black cape. How does one get to a place where you share the intimate details of life with complete strangers - and all of them with issues themselves?  I speak only twice during group, from the shrouds of my cape, my eyes turned downward toward the worksheet I've covered with geometric shapes. A pictorial of my anxiety in black ink.

Somewhere in this stripped bare person there has to be a switch, a plug-in. Why do I feel so far from God? The Psalmist comforts, for he felt the same.

Do not cast me off...forsake me not when my strength is spent. O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. (from Psalm 71)

He is there, He has not forgotten. To Him, my troubles come naked and parade themselves unashamed, for they have been washed in the redeeming blood. He is not afraid of the reel of sins my mind's eye is playing. He is not shocked by my naked sorrow. It is the one place I can go where speaking is not required, for He knows me in my nakedness, and peers deep into my troubled soul.

...then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind). (I Kings 8:39)

We're in this together

I'm a closet introvert. I don't really come across as an introvert in most situations, because my real self is buried so deep under a well-polished public persona I spent my adolescence and young adulthood constructing. I am in a recovery group at the moment, the first time I've spent any time in a therapeutic group of any kind (or therapy, for that matter). I've avoided them like the plague until now because I haven't built a "person" to "be" in that setting, so I feel awkward and exposed.

I've heard some phrases in the past few weeks that make me want to stand up and walk out. Things like "you can't heal alone in the dark". Right. So the way I've been trying to do things for 30 years is completely wrong? I've always thought of friends as people to have fun with, let your hair down with, let loose with. My favorite memories of my entire life are those times you are literally rolling on the floor laughing together with a best friend. Occasionally, I've been forced to be emotional in front of my friends. And I can't say it's ever felt good or right. I know there are certain things I'll always have to process alone on a hillside with God. There are some emotions that run too deep for words. Beyond expression. Like certain moments of certain songs, the music just so close to agony and so close to ecstasy that you can't name what you're provoked to feel.

I scrub the island to a polished gloss and my mind races through all this. There is something to this being seen by others who can recognize you. Something I can't really deny. Something I can't push away for the sake of maintaining my still, quiet, and lonely soul.

This particular part of the journey reminds me of housework (to be honest, I do so much housework, I'm constantly looking for analogy to distract me from the never. ending. work.) Before you start, it's overwhelming; you don't even want to look at the mess, much less put your hands in it and get started. Then there is the inevitable hopelessness once you start the task and realize it is really as big as you thought it was going to be. But somewhere in the middle, the tide begins to turn, and you see a light at the end of the tunnel, like maybe, someday, the work will be done and it will be clean in here. And then it's done, and you sit back, and sigh, and marvel at the peace of that cleaned up vista. My soul is the same and I can't wait to see things all cleaned out for that brief moment of "I did it!" at the end of all of this.

8 ft. island & 7 ft table - ALL clear!

It's empty in the valley of your heart

The sun, it rises slowly as you walk

Away from all the fears

And all the faults you've left behind

The harvest left no food for you to eat

You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see

But I have seen the same

I know the shame in your defeat

But I will hold on hope

And I won't let you choke

On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain

And I will change my ways

I'll know my name as it's called again

Cause I have other things to fill my time

You take what is yours and I'll take mine

Now let me at the truth

Which will refresh my broken mind

So tie me to a post and block my ears

I can see widows and orphans through my tears

I know my call despite my faults

And despite my growing fears

So come out of your cave walking on your hands

And see the world hanging upside down

You can understand dependence

When you know the maker's hand

So make your siren's call

And sing all you want

I will not hear what you have to say

Cause I need freedom now

And I need to know how

To live my life as it's meant to be

~The Cave, Mumford & Sons~

Controversy?

I've tried to stay away from it my whole life. But it follows me like a droopy-eyed puppy dog and I just can't seem to kick it to the curb. Today I'm joining in and sharing my most controversial blog posts from January and December at Elizabeth Esther's witty I Use My Words.

In January, I blogged about the numbing pain of that soul-draining process of healing from old wounds in a post titled The Wound That Blinds. In December, I wrote about weaning my now 4 1/2 year old daughter for the second time in To My Youngest Daughter on Her Weaning Day. Nursing her was a beautiful (and often socially awkward) experience even for a seasoned attachment parent. I never would have done so had she not had significant special needs at the time. I had a few laughs this past week when watching "Back-Up Plan". There is a scene where a "baby" turns away from her mother's breast to inform the observer that she is "NOT a baby." She is four. I laughed. Hard.

Hop on over to Elizabeth Esther to see the whole list of controversial posts from other bloggers.

So what do you think? Are these two posts controversial? Is it weird to bare your soul, do your soul audit in "public" on the internet? Would you ever do it? Is nursing a 4-year-old in public appropriate?

To be "beloved"

What a weird, backwards gift to know through and through that I am empty . . . empty enough for Him to fill me. The fact that I am limited means I am made to overflow. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13 NIV) ~from Shaunie's Up the Sunbeam

I see it all around me...and I still don't believe it. Does anyone believe it, about themselves, I mean? Maybe it will take another 30 years to seep through the cracks of the brokenness, the thick skin of disbelief, the thousand lies we've believed about how worthless we are, the even the Bible truths that feed the dichotomous picture of humans as the image of God yet fallen and depraved?

And then, too, actions always speak louder than words. We feel beloved when it's the kiss and wild hug in the park, the unexpectedness in the joy of just being together overwhelming all those walls we've built up. We don't feel beloved when the loving hand suddenly slaps, the one who speaks the deepest love also turns suddenly, and it's anger and venom. This endless cycle, ashes, ashes into beauty, beauty for ashes, repeat.

The wedding day in the cold snow when you clutch each other as tightly as two humans can, and the smiles spill out and the nerves fade, and you feel almost purely joy for a brief window, no in between, no mixed emotions. Just bliss. How do you get back there? To the pure emotion?

When she chooses, despite every past difficulty and sister squabble and friction in shared space, to hold your hand as you walk into the water together. That's beloved. Beauty for ashes. The transformation in the moment, the moment you can see you are beloved.

For thirteen years I have loved Jesus Christ and in that time I’ve listened to many folktales about Whose and who I was. The voices of those story-tellers waxing long had mostly belonged to folks who were afraid. Frightened men and women who had learned to abandon the precious limp of their belovedness. I look down at my naked feet and stutter a meager prayer of thanksgiving that I am numbered with the afflicted whose gait testifies of the one true story of the beloved. ~Laure at Love Poems to God

"My sins, my sins, my Savior!

How sad on thee they fall,

Seen through thy gentle patience

I tenfold feel them all.

I know they are forgiven;

But still their pain to me

Is all the grief and anguish

They laid, my Lord, on thee."

~ quoted by Spurgeon in "Faith in All It's Splendor"~

True hope never minimizes a problem in order to make it more palatable and easily managed. For the Christian, hope begins by recognizing the utter hopelessness of our condition and the necessity of divine intervention, if we are to experience true joy. Any personal change that can be achieved solely through human, in contrast with supernatural, intervention will neither satisfy nor change our heart. A proper focus on the deep wound is therefore neither negative nor does it promote despair. Rather, it sets the stage for the dramatic work of God. Love can be defined as the free gift that voluntarily cancels the debt in order to free the debtor to become what he might be if he experiences the joy of restoration. Repentance is the process of deeply acknowledging the supreme call to love, which is violated at every moment, in every relationship - a law that applies even to those who have been heinously victimized...Love silences explanation, penetrates excuses, and humbles the heart, preparing that heart to be captured by the gospel of grace. (from Wounded Heart and accompanying work-book by Dan Allender)

The wound that blinds

It's one of those mornings when you just keep putting the kettle on. The hot water burbles out of the cracked teapot spout, and the bag steeps it's stems and pods, and you lift it until the brown liquid slows to a drip and drop the spent bag onto the saucer, a brown wet spot on a pile of orange dried ones, a whole pile of teabags to propel you through this morning. The cream swirls caramel through the comfort and you sigh as you lift it to your lips and try to focus deep on this one small pleasure amid a sea of pain and ugliness. Raw.

Nothing seems to come into focus these days. You blink and rub your eyes and you still see shadows and colored blur and there is no clear path and no sharpness to the images that race like sand through those windows of your soul, time in fast forward and you failing to catch any of it long enough to focus.

It's a hard thing to come to the bottom of another pit and find your brokenness and own it. Own that you can't mother these kids the way you wish you would. Own that your house falls into entropy every single day. Own that your husband cries sometimes, because of you. Own that you'd rather stay up late into the night just to get a breath of aloneness. Own your loneliness. Own the old scars and the wounds you thought healed that open their festering again, despite the washing of the Blood and the debridement of the years of scalding repentance. 

Did you really think if you reframed it again, you'd understand it? You've tried looking straight at it before, and it's just a bloody old wound that doesn't breathe purpose. Those wounds from your childhood, the times you beat your head against the road because the pain of the body was preferable to the pain of the soul?

You bite your lip again, and the blood runs, and you wash the new wounds with tea. Close your eyes and breathe one word. Thanks. And the beauty rushes back like the heavens opening up right on top of your head, and the weight lifts when you tilt back your head. You're not ready to talk to God today. But He still washes over you. No words. Just sensation, like the weight of a whole winter's growth of warmth against the winds Satan blows cold into your soul. The wind still blows. Sharp as a knife, and sometimes it gets through the armor that's grown over baby soul skin, shaggy ugly but safe. Somehow He wants the baby soul skin still soft and vulnerable. At least he puts the shaggy ugly over it. He doesn't leave you naked in the wind.

You tilt your ears back, too, to listen for the Word from the one you can't speak to today. Where were you when I was hurting? Why do you cloak purpose in sorrow like a seed in the snow, down deep where I can't see it, and ask me just believe it's there? 

The swayed back that's carried a thousand burdens still stands strong in this storm, too. Somehow.

And the face bruised and broken, bristled with cold, it's still velvet beauty, too. Somehow.

No matter how much you want to lie down and rest, you just keep pouring down the tea. The wheels keep turning in your brain and you are the silent thinker standing motionless while your body moves through the day. The kids whirl like painted tops and skitter through the mess of the hardwood floors, and the tea bags dry in the morning's pale winter sun, and the clocks tick, and it all registers slow. Bleeds through the winter weight of shaggy armor you've grown out from your soul in desperate anguish. Somewhere deep in the still brain dawns the realization that when you protect you don't just shut out Satan's cold wind. You shut out Truth and Beauty. Numbness is no way to live.

You pick up the book you threw across the bedroom floor last night and run your fingers over the rumpled tear tracks. In this present winter of the soul, alone in the warm yellow house with the phone silent on the hanger and the cell phone minutes piling up with unuse, for some reason the wounds open, and you know He wants you to scrub them out again. Alone with Him. Aching. Few friends to wrap like blankets around your cold shoulders. Just you, and that strange warmth, and that sharp evil wind. Alone down here at the bottom of this old pit you've left lay there so long you don't recognize the walls of it. 

The numbness recedes and the pain is hot and white again. As you throw off that fur coat and close your eyes to your nakedness, you realize it's not cold in here. You're in a warmth you never could have made with your shells and your coats, your wool and your shrugged tight shoulders and the hugging yourself against that old cold wind. It stirs like an ancient memory, that once long ago people walked around like this, naked. Didn't care. Were beautiful, image bearers walking close to the Image. 

You drop the bruised old sore into the hot Living Water and the pain at first is blinding. But as you stay there, under that Water, soak in that Water, let the Words wash over the old wounds, it recedes. And you reach down to touch the fresh white flesh washed white as snow and the fear recedes, too. The numbness leaches out. And you tilt your head back again and breath that one word, the only one you can squeeze out of your tired soul today. Thanks.

You're gonna cry yourself to sleep.

You're gonna soak the pillow for many weeks.

You're gonna cry...Why? Why me?

But in spite of the ache that doesn't go away

You'll be sharing your story one rainy day

and at the next table somebody catches your words.

He hears a truth he's never heard.

He takes it back to the marriage he'd given up on.

Hands it down to his daughter, who writes it in a song.

You didn't know.

A thousand things are happening in this one thing

Like a thousand fields nourished by a single drop of rain

So honey, wrap yourself in promise while you wait for the morning light

A thousand things are happening tonight.

You're gonna cry yourself to sleep.

'Cause for the moment all that you can see is what is lost, lost

Why me?

But in the midst of the most exquisite pain

You're drawn into a peace that you cannot explain.

And the praises you sing of a sovereign God

reach the girl whose last hope is gone

She never thought there was purpose in anything here.

Now the seed has been planted and it's taking root

You didn't know.

You're gonna cry yourself to sleep.

A thousand miracles you'll have to wait to see.

~A Thousand Things, Christa Wells~

Please don't hit me when I'm down

It is hard, hard, hard to have cancer for 2 1/2 years and not be healed. I have heard from so many - even those I trust and love - rebuke instead of grace and love. Yet the Bible is so clear: the faithful suffer - Job, Paul, Jesus. Suffering - even big, huge, one-upon-another trials - is not in and of itself a sign of sin. There are nights I lay awake, laying my heart bare before the Lord in prayer. Spending hours in the living room trying not to disturb my family as I pore over Scripture and weep into my Bible. Is this my fault? Could I solve this problem somehow, through my own actions? Do I need to increase my faith? Change a sin habit? Let God "in" somewhere I have hedged Him out of? At times, I've had to table the issue, lay it to the side, and just put one foot in front of the other.

Not only have we been asked to live with cancer. To watch our daughter brought to death's door and come out of a devastating illness with injuries that may last her whole lifetime. To walk the daily walk of those suffering illness...a wife who hates resting spending countless hours unable to lift herself from her bed. A husband doing dishes and laundry instead of pursuing hobbies or his own chores around the house. Children who have a mortal dread of the hospital and emergency room, because they've been there countless times to visit, watching the adults they love and trust crying out to Jesus for healing that does not come. There is little that is fun about this life. There is joy, yes - but entertainment seems like a distant memory from the past. Daily we sacrifice to learn through this trial.

We've given up so much more. We've had to walk away from relationships we treasure because of our inability to see eye to eye any longer on this issue. Suffering is not popular in a pop Christianity culture. It isn't easy to explain. There's no 30 second sound byte that encompasses this issue. It's hard to preach that people may have to lay their lives down for the sake of the Cross. Are we willing to put feet to the words of I Corinthians 4:12? ...we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure. We've found comfort in our darkest days in the amazing growth God has provided through this string of trials. There are few we know who understand the place He has brought us to.

"It is as great a mercy to have your salvation proved to you under trial as it is to have it sustained in you by the consolations of the Spirit of God." ~ Charles Spurgeon

We've all been guilty of judging others. At times, we have to vote with our feet, and that inevitably involves decision-making, judgments, discernment. What if we confined our judgments to our own actions, and kept them out of our words? How many wounds would we avoid inflicting on those we love? God says not to judge others now...it's not time yet! Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. (I Corinthians 4:5) It's of note to me that this verse ends with us receiving commendation from God, not condemnation. Didn't He already mete out the condemnation to the One who hung on the cross? And how can we discern what happens in the hearts of others? We can barely make those calls about our own hearts - knowing our internal monologue, struggles, and victories.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~excerpted from Romans 8

The miracle of this is that I can let loose my expectations of human relationships, and let go of my guilt for cancer and my daughter's illness and our continued trials, because I am free in Christ and I am loved by Christ. He satisfies what no man can, He heals what no medicine can, He loves when all others cry condemnation. If I die alone in this world, yet clinging to Christ, I will die rich. It will be worth it all. All the suffering, the sacrifice, the anguish, the Bible pages bled through with tears and the nights of lost sleep and the pain and the bone-numbing fatigue. All this is so much less than what He silently suffered for me, before I ever praised His name or lived a day for His glory.

What if we all chose to follow Christ, keeping our eyes FIXED on the prize, not watching our brother's footsteps to make sure he, too, is trodding the sacred path? (Hebrews 12:2) How much more we might accomplish for Christ's glory...and how much less we might hurt those believers among us who are already knocked down in the battle!

Adversus solem ne loquitor

in these kaleidoscopic times

fragments of ourselves are scattered

yet as the earth slowly turns

the universe follows

our colours blend together

and everything falls into place

proving that we are stronger than

the sum of our parts

~ Anne Engelen

My new favorite book on suffering has my head whirling, new truths dissolving old fallacies and a deeper, more painful perspective emerging. I spin on the words of God to Moses: Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? (Exodus 4:11, emphasis mine) I've heard three major arguments about the role of suffering for the Christian up to this point:

• suffering is an indirect byproduct of a cursed world that just "happens" or is "allowed" to affect the Christian;
• suffering comes from Satan, and is "allowed" by God;
• suffering is discipline directly handed down from God to punish sin in the Christian's own life.

In John 9, Jesus and his disciples come upon a man who has been blind from birth. The disciples ask, Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus corrects them - their perspective is too limited...they need a new category! It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. (v. 2-3) Charles Stanley puts it this way:

Is it possible that adversity can originate with God? All of us would be more comfortable if Jesus had said, "This man is blind because he sinned, but God is going to use it anyway." That would be a much easier pill to swallow. But Jesus leaves us no escape. Sin was not the direct cause of the man's blindness: God was.

In these photos, grandmother and grandchildren bend in the parchment dry spring dirt to tie cotton rag flags onto twine demarcating the garden beds. Flags that remind little feet where to step; visual cues of the boundaries, the lessons already learned. And so it is with Charles Stanley, for me: a flag to remind me of lessons already learned, the free grace I was so eloquently taught as a child. This little book - my new favorite - is dogeared and underlined on nearly every page, first by my mother and now by my hand. When my suffering seems unfair, undeserved, there is a flag: the murder of God's own Son has yet to be avenged, and waits for the last day when He will judge from His throne. When my suffering seems purposeless, there is a flag: Christ has a goal in this, a goal so important it is worth my agony. When I fear I am alone in my suffering, that Christ has abandoned me, there is a flag: in John 11, when Lazarus dies while Christ tarries on the mission field afar, He was deeply moved in spirit, troubled, and wept. "He was not emotionally isolated from the pain suffered by those whose perspective was different than His own. When you hurt, God hurts." (Stanley, p. 21)

A Latin phrase I learned as a teen comes to mind: Adversus solem ne loquitor (do not speak against the sun). There comes a point, after the soul audit, after the weeping on my knees, after the begging for an answer, when I must simply stop fighting what I cannot change.

Suffering is unavoidable. It comes without warning; it takes us by surprise. It can shatter or strengthen us. It can be the source of great bitterness or abounding joy. It can be the means by which our faith is destroyed. Or it can be the tool through which our faith is deepened. The outcome hinges not on the nature or source of our adversity, but on the character and spirit of our response.

Stanley says something else that rocks my world today:

[I was] convinced that God could be trusted in the midst of adversity, that He really could work all things together for good if we adopt His definition of good and accept His system of priorities. I realized that God knows exactly how much pressure each of us needs to advance in the spiritual life. It was hard for me to stand back and watch others suffer because I was not aware of all God was doing for them on the inside. My perspective was limited to what was taking place on the outside.

You see the cancer at 29, the brain infection that came out of nowhere and struck down a perfectly formed child, the seizures I report and the food poisoning and the damaged pancreas and the breast tumors and the surgical complications. But what is happening on the inside - on the inside of me, of Aaron, of our whole family unit - is absolutely worth the anguish.

Truly, these are "kaleidescope times", we are scattering and blending into a fresh new painting together. This mural is far from finished. We're still putting up the flags. It is with little feet we still trod the carefully circumscribed pathways of this garden of faith. It is through this season of suffering that we learn to walk them with our eyes closed. The peace of God in our hearts is the hand of God clasping our small one. For even when He speaks no words, He is not silent. Even though unseen, ever present. Though He places the suffering here in our midst, so too He comforts and sustains.

::

Today, a woman wrote me that she accepted Christ after reading this entry from last week, and the verses linked there. She is, literally, from the opposite side of the globe. Today, in the midst of writing these words, my daughter had a 4 minute seizure of the worst kind. So He continues to bring glory through the blood, sweat and tears. So He wrings praise from lips trembling in fear. So He upholds when we are undone. Please lift us up in prayer. Amelia has an appointment at Mayo this afternoon, and we pray with groanings too deep for words...Father, please give this doctor wisdom to heal this precious treasure.

In the garden of the soul

Show me the way that I must take; to Thee I offer all my heart. Teach me to do thy will for thou art my God. Keep me safe, O Lord, for the honor of thy name. ~ Psalm 143:8,10,11 NEB

This is the view this time of year of what I still think of as Steve and Amy's field. Pie in the sky dreaming, probably. The colors of spring are almost as vibrant as the colors of fall: the green of the leaves and yellow of the flowers beginning to break through the tarnished gold of last year's corn stubble on the ground; the pinks, oranges, and yellow flowing out of the black, wet trunks of the trees in watercolor blur; gray stick of the trees yet to blossom standing like punctuation marks between the colors.

Same landscape as my life these days, really. Cancer and hospitalizations and illness in the midst of the busiest season of learning are the punctuation marks between the colors. The vibrant colors of children's voices, laughter, scooters and bikes whirring on the deck boards of the porch and the rattle and hum of Big Wheels flying helter-skelter down the gravel driveway. The smells of bonfires burning, and brats over the fire, and clean, musky rain. The life overflowing with pain lends haunting sweetness to the life running over with small joys.

When I wake up in the garden

Peaceful slumber wakes my eyes

The sun and moon are always present

There are no more crying people around

Love fills all up inside me

Filling my heart with wishful dreams

No more sorrow fills my canvas

Along this lonely sea

Ships fall off of the horizon

Bringing love, peace, and joy

No fire can ever harm us

Only music fills the air

~ the voice of another worshiper found in an unexpected place:

Susan Tedeschi sings "In the Garden", co-written by Tedeschi

with her bass guitarist, Tommy Shannon, best known for his

days with Stevie Ray Vaughn

We sometimes imagine that God must eventually "sit us down" and "explain" his mysterious ways to our satisfaction. Let us suppose we have never seen a skyscraper. We discover a whole city block surrounded by a board fence. Finding a knothole, we peer inside. Huge earth movers are at work; hundreds of men in hard hats are busy at mysterious tasks; cranes are being moved into place; truckloads of pipes and cement are being unloaded. What on earth is happening? There is nobody around to answer our questions. If we wait long enough, nobody will need to. When we see the finished building, all the incomprehensible activity becomes comprehensible. "Oh! So this is what that was for."
"I shall be satisfied when I awake, with Thy likeness" (Ps 17: 15 AV).

A word for 2010

abide.
To stay; to continue in a place; to have one's abode; to dwell; to sojourn;
To remain stable or fixed in some state or condition;
To endure; to sustain; to submit to.
To bear patiently; to tolerate; to put up with.
To stand the consequences of; to answer for; to suffer for.


This year I will stay with God, continue in this place, take up my dwelling as a sojourner in a land of suffering; fix myself in a state of submission and endurance; bear cancer patiently, learn to tolerate it, stand the consequences of.
I will suffer for Christ.
Cancer is the mirror in which I see glimpses of bittersweet glory on earth. The reflection of Christ's love in a million small ways. The image of submission in my life. Cancer turns my imagination toward heaven, that blessed and everlasting healing of my mind, body, and soul. The pool of deep thoughts. This year, I will learn to abide with cancer - with God - in a new way.

I challenge you: pick a word for 2010?

idea culled from Ali Edward's resolution

Loculation

I came across this word while writing a set of procedure guidelines for nurses today. It means "the formation of numerous small spaces or cavities within a larger cavity". It reflects something that has happened in my heart as the years go by. Around age 20, I started to notice that there were some pretty big abscesses in my character: infected, hard lumps that were getting more and more visible to the casual observer as time went on. Around age 25, I started the painful process of opening these flawed areas up for exploration, drainage, healing. It's not an enjoyable thing, to watch that smelly, icky stuff drain out for all the world to see, and to watch it heal, all scarred over. Now I'm finding that, if I don't let God probe deep enough in those tender spots deep within the wound, I am allowing loculation to occur. And years later, I have to open the whole thing back up again, because there were small areas within the large one that didn't get cleaned out well enough the first time around.

I was laying in bed a few moments ago, putting my sweet smelling baby to sleep. Thinking back over my morning. I am so tired, deep in my bones. I wake up tired, I go through my day tired, and I go back to bed just as tired. There is none of the usual ebb and flow of energy these days. And I am tired of being tired! As I audit my last few weeks, from a soul perspective, I really can give myself pretty good marks...for the most part, I've had a good attitude about this whole ordeal. But the last few days, I've been struggling to accept my situation and keep moving forward. Inertia is one of those physical laws of the universe that really applies to this situation: as the mud gets thicker on the tires, eventually they're going to stop spinning. Everything is going to freeze up. And that's where I finally am at. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I am getting to the end of my [human] rope. At this crossroads, I have to decide if I'm going to let God step in? Or if I'm going to struggle, and moan, and throw myself another good old pity-party? What did I learn last time, when I let God probe into this painful old wound called selfishness? For really, what I'm asking - begging! - God for, is for life to easy again, for life to go the way I expected. To somehow revert to pre-cancer. To just get my normal problems back.


Deep inside, I know that isn't the solution. Life wasn't that much easier before cancer. I would quickly forget how much worse it could be. Right now, I'm going to go lay down, say a little prayer that God's grace will cover my unfolded laundry and unplanned supper, and rest these tired bones awhile with that sweet smelling baby.

Put your money where your mouth is

"A friend once confessed: Anger can be addictive. It masquerades as power. And as I've experienced, every time we think anger will get us what we want, we’re supporting Satan’s philosophy. We're believing in the power of the roar, not the compassion of the Cross. Frustration immigrates us to Satan's domain, when we're called to claim our rightfuly citizenship in Christ's Kingdom, aligning with Jesus’ revolutionary way: the way of love." Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience

My brother used this phrase often: "put your money where your mouth is". He is the second child, the justice-oriented one, first the minder of all details of fairness in our family jurisdiction, now a police officer in our old hometown. He meant it, too: ever sensitive to hypocrisy, he demanded a higher level of faith from all of us. The actual practice, "walking our talk". Childhood with him to keep me in check was a good trial run for adulthood as a person of faith. Is there ever a harsher critic than the child born next in line after us?

Cancer is where the rubber meets the road. (I am full of proverbs today.) Here, in this place of vulnerability, will I curse or praise that God who allowed this trial? If I confess that He is God of all, Ruler and Creator, than I consequently confess that He has the power to allow or bar this trial from my life. Logic states that He allowed it. What is my response? Anger, a last feeble grasp at an illusion of power over my own circumstance, the sands in my proverbial hourglass? Acceptance, a feeble shrug of my shoulders at the inexorable suffering that plagues the universe? Or a balanced give-and-take, the constant yearning to understand deeper, to grasp the why and how of God's reasoning and His love? I choose that tug-of-war, that soul-broadening reflection that brings me to my knees in worship one moment, and shaking my fists and crying out in frustration for understanding the next.

As always, this dichotomy of soul plagues me even in the most mundane circumstances. Throwing that familiar 12-pound bowling ball this evening was no exception. One moment, I praised God for victory. In the next, I felt my mouth growing dry as my anger rose like venom from my throat: what is the "why" in all this, God? Why I am here, using precious time with these people, on this trivial, even frustrating, entertainment? For what purpose, God, would you allow me to squirm under this personal tragedy as I swallow the bitter tang of fear to exist in this jostling crowd in apparent ignorance-is-bliss? Why force me through the motions if I am to die in the end? Why allow the turn of the screw as I writhe under the weight of the curse of creation?

The answer is: know Me. In all circumstances, in all surroundings, know I am with you. In your pain and your sorrow, walk in My footsteps. Believe in Me, do you? Well, show the world what your God is made of: put your money where your mouth is, then! Walk the talk. Shine in dire circumstances. Show the world that I can conquer physical ailments (hypothyroidism & cancer), character traits (anger), circumstances (4 children under 5), the failing economy (while living on one income), and all of this world's myriad obstacles. What is cancer to He who made the immaculate conceive, the infertile bring forth the apostle, the seas parted, the land submerged, and His victory reign over all?

What is my faith, if it is not my daily walk? Today I meditate on that truth, that faith is as faith does. That my faith in the Cross is what propels me to praise, and to love, and to bring glory, even in this time of torture, trial and tragedy.

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died;
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ, my God;
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.
~ Isaac Waats, 1674-1748, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Mirrors

Don't assume it is passive
or easy, this clarity
With which I give you yourself.
Consider what restraint it

Takes: breath withheld, no anger
Or joy disturbing the surface.
Of the ice.
You are suspended in me

Beautiful and frozen, I
Preserve you, in me you are safe.
~Mirrors III, Margaret Atwood

I suppose it is a shock to every cancer patient when their physical appearance begins to change because of their treatment. I naively assumed that, because of the specificity of my treatment, I would have no long-term appearance changes. I am grateful I am not losing my hair - although I have always wanted to try out the Sinead O'Connor look! - but the other changes are annoying, regardless. I knew, objectively, that going off thyroid replacement and taking radiation to kill off the remainder of my functioning thyroid would rapidly speed the aging process. But it is rather a shock to go to bed 29 years old and wake up much older! My hair is coming in white, at least in one area of my head. I may end up with a completely white head of hair at the end of this! Wouldn't that be something [insert look of horror here]. I also patted my own back for my victory over the weight gain that I was told would be part and parcel of this process - I gained not one pound while my metabolism shut down, which is a testament to the power of the "growling belly system" for weight control. However, my body shape has changed, which is really disappointing to me.

In the midst of this sudden aging, I lean on the unconditional love expressed by my husband and children. It is amazing to me to look into Aaron's eyes and realize there is genuine love there for me, undeserved, treasured. To laugh with my son and realize he cares not a wit about what I look like, only that I am present and that I love him. I know that God, certainly, cares for me regardless of how my appearance changes. Yet I also cannot dispute that He cares immensely about how things look. I sit in my kitchen writing this, and a cascade of swirling snowflakes is falling between the rising morning sun and I. Even from my window, I can see the tiny crystal structure of the flakes catching the sunlight like tiny pieces of frosted glass. The sun is a pale yellow this morning, uncertain yet if it is flavescent or albicant. The cottonwood tree waves her bare branches like old arms toward the cold moon setting, and the pine stands still as a sentinel in the windless dawn. The grasses on the hillside have turned rusty brown, and collect the snowflakes like so many pieces of jewelry to adorn their dry stalks. The world of my morning was so obviously made and set in motion by a God who cares about beauty. The question is: what does He find beautiful in me?

I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:10-12

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. ~ I Peter 3:3-6

So I sit, quietly, and watch the unfading and ever-changing beauty of God's creation swirl past my window. Breathing in the cold morning air and delighting in the hot cup of coffee He provided, brewed by the patient, loving hands of my husband. Delight in being home, this beloved yellow house filled with all it's beloved noises and seasons. Enjoy the holidays. I've heard that phrase a million times, and I finally understand what it means. It means savoring, absorbing, revelling in the little common and wonderful things, reflecting on the miracle of Christ's sacrificial birth. Putting on the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Stilling the waters of my soul in the beautiful dawn.