Tag Archives: Christian Living

Pain

28 Friday Feb 2014

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Those of us who live with deep grief walk a bit differently.  We stoop a little, limp a lot, and take our steps slowly. Grief is mind-bending;  it alters your steps, shifts your perceptions, and echoes loudly in the soul.  It doesn’t go away; it’s always present. First thing thought about in the morning, and the last thing thought about at night.  No, that’s not quite true- it happens before the thinking even starts, and continues when all thinking stops.  It’s the stuff bad dreams are made of.  It just is.  Controlling our thoughts is good, as far as it gets us, but it does begin to dawn on even the most naive at some point that we really haven’t gotten very far, and very little about the situation has actually changed.  Trying to explain to someone what we need or want doesn’t work so well, either.  It’s too hard to put into words what we need and why;  too difficult to even try to explain what it is we’re trying to say.  So the whole thing becomes even more of a mess.  The odds of being both heard and understood aren’t great.  Nobody’s listening.  It feels as though God Himself is not listening.

Sometimes other people really do hold all the power, at least in any given situation.  Anybody who has ever been the victim of a crime knows this.  Any woman who has ever been in a domestic violence situation knows that the other person is in control, at least of events located in time and space. The person holding the weapon is the one who gets to decide what happens next. It is far easier to be compliant, and usually a lot safer in the long run, if not in the moment.  Most of the time we don’t have a choice, nor are we asked. We realize too late that if we had any say in the matter at all, that time has long since come and gone, and we are completely at the mercy of the person in front of us. Horrible feeling.

We don’t have as much control over our own destinies as we would like to think, either.  To imagine that we have control is simply not always true, especially where other people are concerned.  As my daughter said earlier, people have free will. Free to use it for good or evil, hurt or healing, but have it we do, because God saw fit to give it to us.  We have to live with the consequences of other people’s choices, like it or not, even if it scars us for life, and leaves us disabled. We know this is not Heaven, but the shock hits us hard every time, nonetheless.  What does shock feel like?  Same thing pain does.  Tonight it was cold. Absolutely freezing cold.

Hope is not control, although we hang onto it like it is. We’re fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.  We have control only over our own actions and our own words, but that’s about it.  Most of the time we are powerless.  Yes, in all the small, daily choices, I have a certain degree of control;  how I spend my money, how I spend my time, what food I eat, or clothes I buy.  But for the big things- the life changing things- no.  Not so much.  And there is not a damn thing I can do about any of it.  I simply have no say.  And I do not see it as being any different from any other life-threatening, or emotionally damaging situation I have ever been through.  To be empowered, you have to be given a choice.  There has to be one.  And you can’t force someone to give it to you.

This is where Anorexia starts:  with the realization that since we have absolutely no control over whatever is going on in our outer world,  we sure can control the hell out of our inner world, so control it we do, one restrictive, self-imposed choice at a time. In deference to not having any control over the world around us, we just make an inner one, and barricade the door.  It has been said that we try to control our outer world because we cannot control our inner world, but for the anorexic and the avoidant, the reverse is true.         

Someone asked me this week to write my testimony;  the story of my healing from all that I went through with my divorce, but I realized tonight I don’t think I’m going to have one. Not from all of this.  Had I known everything that would happen after, especially the last few years, I can honestly say I would rather have stayed married. That part of the story is familiar territory;  it’s all I’ve ever known.  It’s okay.  I am never so unsure of my subject as when I am writing about myself, and wasn’t sure what to write anyway.  But emotional healing is not an option.  I am simply not being given a choice.  Again.  In therapy, this is called re-traumatization.  Works about the same as the original trauma, but now we add a moat.  No bridge.

This is all I do have tonight;  I memorized it a long time ago, not on purpose, but I read it once and it stuck, so here it is:

“Pain has an element of blank;                                                           

It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there was

A time when it was not.

It has no future but itself;

Its infinite realms contain

It’s past enlightened to perceive

New periods of pain.”

 – Emily Dickenson

Sorry, but I did warn you that it wasn’t always going to be happy over here, and tonight it just isn’t.  Don’t know if and when it ever will be, but not now. Certainly not tonight.  Can’t even find a scripture for this one, and there sure as hell aren’t any pretty pictures.

Gifts and Grace: Christmas 2013

29 Sunday Dec 2013

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SAM_0682Today was Family Christmas at my parents’ house in Jamesville.  It means that anywhere from fifty to sixty (?) of us descend on a big white house in Jamesville, and for several loud and crazy hours, chaos reigns.  Kids everywhere- under tables, behind furniture, lined up on the window seat in the bay window in the living room, or running through the crowd of adults in the kitchen.

We’re kind of like a scene out of My Big, Fat Greek Wedding, except that we’re not Greek.  Not even close.  But loud, enmeshed, and hilariously dysfunctional, yes.  And then some.

It used to be that the few family members who were Christians would gather in the kitchen, and everyone else was in the family room, or the living room.  Over the years, as more and more of the family has come to know Christ, the kitchen has become quite crowded, and now the few who are not yet Christians are the minority.

But, we’re crazy.  I pulled my nephews’ girlfriend aside and said “Honey, walk around and look very carefully at these people.  Think long and hard about this;  you still have time to get out.  And this isn’t even all of us- quite a few couldn’t make it!”

My brothers didn’t come with their families, which always makes me sad, and my daughter wasn’t there.  Doubly sad, because this is her twenty-third birthday, but she spent the day with her father and his girlfriend.  Some cousins didn’t make it.

This year was a difficult Christmas for us;  a lot of stress, sadness and disappointment.  My oldest daughter was sick, and we spent hours in the emergency room with her a couple of days before Christmas.  Our tree died.  All shopping was done at the very last minute the day before Christmas, because there was no money to buy gifts ahead of time.

The real gifts?  Sleeping in the emergency room with my girls, overnight, on two small chairs, and watching my younger daughter take care of her older sister.  Being together, even there.  Getting medicine, ginger-ale, flowers, and all the necessary items required for feeling better when you feel deathly ill.  Watching them open gifts Christmas morning, and knowing they were here, together, and both are okay.  Seeing aunts, cousins, niece and nephews, and eating together, and knowing that in the end, this is what matters.  These are the people who matter.

Some Christmases are truly horrible.  But as we get older, the memories of the bad years blend in with all the other years, and it becomes part of your family story.  “That was the year the tree died.”  “That was the year we couldn’t buy gifts;  or we were all sick, etc.”  At least, that’s how I explained it to the girls.  It’s okay that this year didn’t go well.  Next year will probably be much better.  2014 is right around the corner, and all the potential is there for good things to happen;  for more memories to be made, and even maybe a miracle or two.  You never know.  So much good could happen in the next twelve months.  It would be a waste to miss the real gifts of this Christmas, which are the people we love, and the God we worship.

He has truly blessed us, every one.

Waiting

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

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Unemployment is hard.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, has gone the way I thought it would.  Things that appear to be a way out turn out to be dead-ends;  potential job leads go nowhere.  It makes me think of a road my husband and I were on in Georgia, on our honeymoon.  We were looking for a certain historic district, because I wanted to see the houses, but our road went on and on, pavement gradually turning to dirt, and the way became more and more narrow, until it finally ended in swampland.  Pretty, with moss hanging from trees all around us, but no houses.

I think I have looked under every rock in Syracuse, and it just is not going to happen.  I stopped looking in my ‘field’ along time ago (truth to tell, I don’t have one) and have been looking for anything that would pay the bills, or at least the rent, as it is now October 2nd and it remains unpaid, as do the utility bills and everything else.  The fact that I don’t like this apartment may not be an issue soon, because without a job, I won’t be here long.  Where I would go matters little to me at this point.

On days like this God seems far away, and I know that I’m moving into a difficult time of the year for me, when the enemy seems to go all out to discourage and destroy any hope.  Dark, swirling, under-currents of fear are already moving around me, making it difficult to sleep, eat, or think, much less see a way out.  October is hard, always, and not being able to go to my counseling appointments makes it harder.  There is nothing I can do about that, except continue to wait, but at least when I had that, life was doable.  In the last couple of years, everything has fallen apart, including me, and trying to figure out how to pick up all of the pieces  and move forward takes more energy than I have.  And that’s without  a job.

The only one who can help, at all, is God.  There is little or no comfort in the Word;  no solace even in prayer.

Is waiting the same as trusting?  I don’t know.

But it’s all I have.

Reunion

13 Saturday Jul 2013

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So, tonight I went to my thirty-year high school reunion.  I was so, so happy to see my friends, but for some reason, came home with a heavy heart.  So aware of how much raw pain we have all been through, or are now going through;  how life has not turned out (for most of us) how we hoped, and dreamed.  I never did lose the twenty pounds I wanted to lose before the reunion (was that even realistic?)  but it didn’t matter once I got there, and saw my friend waiting for me at the door.  Didn’t matter that I couldn’t find anything to wear, and couldn’t get my hair done, or my nails, or buy new shoes.

And yet, it was nice to be reminded that life was once good, and fun, a long time ago.  A lot has happened.  It was nice, for a few hours at least, to not have to deal with all the recent pain and humiliation of the last few years, and the therapy that has turned into a nightmare.  Good to remember how we all used to have so much fun, just hanging out together, and laughing, and being silly.  And good to be with people who have known me forever.  Sweet and blessed relief, to be with real friends, not the phony church stuff, or the workplace drama.

Heavy talks, about marriages and divorces,  and how we have learned the hard way that a marriage destroyed by an affair will just never be the same, no matter what the counselor says.  That the truth would have been so much healthier, and easier to bear without all the platitudes and false hope.  It would have been nice to have the music not quite so loud, so we could hear each other, and talk more.  And we missed our friends who weren’t there tonight.

Stayed away from the bullies, because some of them don’t look much friendlier than they did in fifth grade, and enjoyed the few who seemed like they grew up to be pretty decent people.  Saw one woman who, for some weird reason, had stopped on her way up the stairs one day in elementary school and slapped me across the face.  Hard.  Did not see the one who kept trying to stuff me in a locker in middle school, thank God.  Tried to eat, with my jaw that still will not open all the way, and made a complete mess of it.  Oh, well.

And wish with all my heart, that I had more time.  After not seeing my friends since my wedding, twenty-five years ago, it was just not enough time.  (And I made them promise to never let me do that wedding thing again without at least doing a background check first.)

I have always been blessed with good friends, for as long as I can remember.  For all the people who have turned out to be false (and there really have not been that many)  I have always had the best of friends.  And it’s true: while I love my new ones, there is nothing like an old friend that you share memories with from twenty or thirty years ago.  Nothing.  And I tend to not lose friends;  once I make them, they’re for life.  It makes me feel like a very wealthy woman;  rich in family, and rich in friendships.  I may be semi-homeless, and so far below poverty level that I can’t see the line if I look up, but I don’t believe I will ever lack for friends.  It’s just something God has blessed me with.  And, I am truly grateful.

I’m glad I went.  Cried all the way home, because I love and miss my friend Janice, and now she is driving back to Utica, and I just got to see her for a couple of hours. And tomorrow I have to go to church and will hopefully not run into my counselor, and have to deal with all the horror of this thing-that-just-cannot-possibly-be-happening to my life, but just for tonight, I had fun.

All The Kings’ Men

27 Thursday Jun 2013

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Cover of "The Search For Significance: Se...

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Back when I was going to Believer’s Chapel, there was a popular book called The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee that was used not just as a small-group resource, but also as the text for our lay counselors class.  The purpose of the book was to expose the ‘lies we believe’;  to identify our erroneous beliefs, target them in order to change them, and so eradicate our undesirable feelings and behaviors.

The problem was, I wasn’t believing a lie.  My husband really was sleeping with The Elf,  and everyone who knew about it was told not to tell me in order to ‘save’ a marriage that had apparently already ended.  I didn’t believe that I was unloved by God, or unworthy, nor was I at all unsure of where I stood spiritually.  In fact, that period of my life was the strongest I’ve ever felt spiritually, probably because the only reality I had was God.  I did believe (not mistakenly) that going to the store to get a gallon of milk shouldn’t have taken two days (unless the store was at Turning Stone in Oneida) or that husbands shouldn’t be locking their wives out of the house, or sleeping with elves.  I also believed that I could not leave my husband except for infidelity, and while I had suspicions, I had no proof, as everyone who knew about it was told not to tell me.

So, I read the book, and did my homework.  But I still believed there was something I wasn’t being told, and had an uneasy feeling (belief?) that  life as I knew it was about to go horribly wrong.  In fact, in one group, when asked “What the Holy Spirit was saying to me specifically”  the only thing I could come up with was “Brace yourself.”

Speaking of which, I have Scoliosis, and wore a back brace for a few years as an adolescent.  (Or didn’t wear it, as my high school friends remind me, since I would wear it to school, take it off and hide it and then put it back on before going home.)  I hated it and the unwanted attention it drew.  For a kid who’s only goal was to be invisible and get out alive it was a cruel and unusual punishment.

Anyway.  At the time, we were attending Grace Assembly of God, and one night a man named Tiff Shuttlesworth (really) came to do a meeting.  He was a charismatic, flamboyant speaker, and did ‘healings’ that were ‘miraculous’.  Well, I wanted, desperately, to not wear this brace anymore.  It was hot, and uncomfortable and provoked a lot of bullying and teasing in school.

All I remember is sitting in the hallway after the service, with a crowd of people around, while this man knelt on the floor and ‘commanded’ my back to be healed.  With a shout, he suddenly jerked forward the leg that was shorter so that it lined up with the other foot.  And so, I was healed.  And everyone rejoiced and went home, and I still wore my brace.  (Sometimes.)

This is what I think of every time I go to a session, or an appointment, or a group that has as a goal ‘fixing my erroneous beliefs’ so that other people will feel better, call me healed, and move on to their next project/client/patient.

Because I won’t play this game, the general consensus is that I must really not want to be healed.

The fact is, I have been rejected by my biological father, my husband, and now my therapist, among others, but clearly these are the most damaging.  Everything else, I can handle, but these three are huge.  I’m not psychotic, mentally ill, or delusional.  I’m grieving.  I wish with all my heart I were believing a lie, and that I could magically make it all go away by just changing my thinking.

Because, if that were possible, I would be sitting on a beach right now in Florida, with my daughter, and my husband on a much-needed vacation.  But, I’m not.  Instead, I’m sitting at an old computer, in an apartment full of half-packed boxes, looking desperately for a place to live and a paycheck.

Not exactly a day at the beach.

Healthcare in America

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

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I can be difficult, but I am rarely confused. (Or if I am, I’m not aware of it.)

Call to Medicaid this morning:

“I have a question about this form you mailed me, and I made some mistakes when I tried to fill it out.  Can you please send me another form?”

“Let me put you on hold.”

Long wait.

“Ma’am, the reason you lost your insurance is because you failed to provide us with the correct information.”  I lost my health insurance?  Was anyone going to tell me?

“I haven’t yet provided you with any information;  can you please send me another form?”

“Let me put you on hold.”

Long wait.

“Ma’am, I think I know why you’re confused.  You failed to provide us with the correct information when you called to re-certify, so we dropped your insurance coverage.”

“I never called to re-certify;  I was filling out the paperwork, and made some mistakes, and called over a week ago to get a new form.  I haven’t received anything.  Can you please mail me a new form?”

“Let me put you on hold.”

Nothing, not even elevator music.  An entire cup of coffee later:

“Ma’am, I spoke with my supervisor.  You actually have no insurance because you did not give us the correct information, and did not tell us everything about your financial situation.”

I now have to go to the bathroom, so am getting a bit impatient.

“I actually have yet to tell you anything, correct or incorrect, as I need a new form to fill out.  As soon as I get it, I will fill it out and mail it in, and then you will have all of my information.”

“Ma’am, I think I know why you’re confused.  We’re all just trying to help you.”

“Can you please ask your supervisor to send me a new form?”

“Ma’am, you filled out your forms incorrectly.  That is why you have a problem.”

“I haven’t filled them out at all, or mailed them to you.  How can they possibly be incorrect?  And what did you base your determination on?”

“The incorrect information you gave us.”

This was all said with great patience and authority, as though she was explaining things to a small child.

Then she says:

“What we’re going to do is mail you a new form so you can provide us with the correct information, but until this is resolved, you have no insurance at all.”

Okay.  So what about the appointments I have had this week, or last week?  Or the week before that?

Oh, that.  Well I guess you will have to pay out-of-pocket for those appointments.

My pockets are empty, Lord.

Yesterday was a very bad day.  The Kidnappers (AKA:  The Ex-Husband and The Girlfriend)  showed up at 7:00 a.m. to take my daughter to Florida for two weeks, and then I got ready and left for a dentist appointment to see if they can tell me why my jaw won’t open.  When I signed in, I was informed that they couldn’t see me at all, because there Appears to Be a Problem With My Insurance.

After that (and an unexpected phone call from my Therapist-Who-Insists-She’s Not-My-Therapist) I went to my primary care physician to fill out disability forms.  He said “I can’t fill these out, I just met you.  I don’t know anything about you.”  This is the same doctor who, back in 1999, was called into the room to look at the inexplicable rash covering three-quarters of my body (cortisol overload) and jumped back, exclaiming: “What the hell is that?  Do you do drugs?”

No, it’s from finding out that my husband has been sleeping with an elf for the last couple of years.  (I can explain, but not now.)

Another call to United Healthcare to find out what is going on assured me that there is no problem, and as far as she can tell, “my insurance is fine and there are no changes.”  I then called the Department of Social Services, where a bright and happy young man assured me that even if I were to lose everything, I will still have Medicaid “which is the best health care there is.”  (And I quote.)  Never mind that none of my doctors accept Medicaid.  And does this kid not realize that perfectly good people die every day on Medicaid, usually while standing in some over-crowded, un-air-conditioned hallway waiting for Their Number To Be Called?  Not to worry, though;  I also qualify for Family Planning, which means that although I cannot get treated for any of my other problems, if I want birth control or an abortion, it’s on the House.  Well, thank you, Mr. President.  Should I accidentally get pregnant while going through Menopause, I’ll take you up on that.

Until then, I just want my Zoloft.

And this, my friends, is how we create Mental Illness in America.

Life with Asthma

13 Thursday Jun 2013

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The Doctor, by Sir Luke Fildes (1891)

The Doctor, by Sir Luke Fildes (1891) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had another doctors’ appointment today.  The receptionist smiled at me, asked for my name, and then told me I don’t have an appointment.  (She, or someone from that office, had called to confirm it a couple of days ago.)  I quite clearly could not breathe, having spent the morning trying to empty a flooded basement, and she continued to smile, and nod, and cut me off every time I managed to get out a word. She simply would not let me finish a sentence.  I finally walked away to use an inhaler, and then went back to the desk.

“I……..have……appointment.”  I feel like idiot.

“Still can’t breathe?”  More smiling, more nodding.

“I found the problem.  You were put in the schedule as a ‘mystery patient’.

Can’t talk, laugh, or breathe, at this point, and am hoping maybe a doctor, or nurse, or even a slightly observant maintenance person comes along, possibly carrying oxygen.  Nope.  After several more moments of trying to get out one word at a time in between all the smiling and nodding and cutting me off, a friend who works there shows up, finds a nurse, and gets me in to see a doctor quickly.  When I am rich and famous, I will buy her a small gift.  Maybe a new car, or something.

Anyway, the doctor, who apparently can’t recognize an asthma attack when he sees one (for this he paid for medical school?)  also began to talk over me, through me, and at me, and cut me off every time I tried to talk.  He then stated that I apparently can’t breathe  (I could quite literally die laughing at this point, except that I was trying not to cry) and since that’s not what I was there for (it was supposed to be a routine follow-up for a sinus infection, that I had last year) he decided to leave the room, since he didn’t know what to do.  Oh, and I had called over a week ago to see if I could get in quickly, because I cannot seem  to open my mouth wide enough to eat without dislocating my jaw. I didn’t want to go to an emergency room  if I could just get in to see a doctor.  Soon.  Because I’m hungry.

I should have gone to the emergency room.

As I was trying to talk to the doctor, he suddenly decided to leave the room, because he didn’t know what to do.  As I was motioning for him to stay, I had one of those split-brain moments of “Really?  Patient can’t breathe, and doctor doesn’t know what to do, so he decides to leave the room.”  I am sure that someday this will all be hysterically funny, but at the moment, the room is spinning.

One of my daughters wants to be a nurse.  She is as frustrated (disgusted, really) with the lack of good, common-sense health care as I am, and has all those young adult dreams of getting a degree and changing the system.  I had the same hopes and dreams, two degrees and three jobs ago, and realized that They don’t want the system changed.  They just want you to do your job, sign out and go home.  And come back and do it again tomorrow.  If you’ve read Homer, you know that there is only one real way to change a system, and it’s not Top Down.  They can’t be bothered, and that’s true whether it’s a business, a university, or a church.

Anyway, back to the story.

The nurse manages to get the doctor to come back in the room because, after all, it is him that I am trying to talk to, but he looks terrified, poor little man.  I finally leave with an appointment for tomorrow morning at Crouse Physical Therapy for my jaw problem (God bless the nurse) and he’s sure that I just have TMJ (Gee, you think?  I grind my teeth when I’m awake) but never offers a breathing treatment, or anything for the asthma.  Or, for that matter, my sinuses, which he forgets to look at or inquire about.

Inhale.  God is faithful.  Exhale.  God is good.

So, for those of you with an asthma sufferer in your life, please, for God’s sake:

Note the signs of ‘unable to breathe’:  this includes odd gasping sounds, hand to chest, odd mouth movements (these would be words) or obvious signs of dizziness, sweating, accompanied by a slightly panicky look in the eyes.  These all mean “I need air.”  Fainting generally means “I need air quickly.”

If the person is trying to talk, and you know that they have asthma, please let them finish a sentence before you jump in with questions, or run off on a tangent.  Long breaks between words do not necessarily signify the end of a sentence, it means I am inhaling so I can finish what I’m saying.  Cutting me off means I have to start over.  With even less air.  Combine this with the fact that it usually takes me awhile just to form a complete thought (under normal circumstances) and we could be here awhile.  Use your common sense.  If it sounds like an incomplete sentence, it probably is.  Wait.

I’m not high-maintenance.  Really.  Just stressed.  Can you tell?

Okay, back to cleaning up the basement.  Thanks for listening.

 

Apart From Me

29 Wednesday May 2013

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“Fruit Basket”, oil on wood“I am the Vine;  you are the branches.  Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit.  However, apart from me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.”   John 15:5

Fruit is not necessarily the result of productivity and hectic schedules.  We are driven to succeed, to prosper (at the expense of our souls) and to produce results that can be measured and taken to the bank.

People are no longer referred to as people, but as consumers, customers, or even (as was said to me once by a star-struck elder) as cattle, to be driven down the hallway and given information on How to Become a Member.  Emerging from the room some thirty minutes later, with their steak knives and information packet (never mind that they went forward for prayer, not membership) they go forth glassy-eyed and pacified, back to their unexamined and unexplained lives.

This is not fruit.

When God tells us to be fruitful, he is saying far more than just increase in number.  Earn more. Be more. Fruit is both quantifiable and qualifiable;  it means increasing in soft skills (think interpersonal relationships) and in competence.  But before any of that can happen, and far more important to God, is to increase in the Fruit of the Spirit.  Outward success means nothing if we’re not known for our love, our gentleness, our patience with people.

Pastors are front-line mental health workers, whether they want to acknowledge that or not.  Most people seek some form of pastoral counseling when they need help;  we want our questions answered, even more than we want our problems solved.  We want God with skin on.

We can’t do this without spending time with God, in the Word, in prayer, and worship.  Ministers can’t minister, can’t pastor, or shepherd the people, without this.  It’s not enough to just want the title, or the office.

Being out of work for the last year has been a blessing in disguise.  Since 1998, it has been non-stop trauma, hardship, and crisis: domestic violence, adultery, divorce, foreclosure, bankruptcy, illness (emotional and physical) two college degrees, single-parenting two teenagers, and endless car trouble, financial difficulties, and housing problems.  I haven’t stopped or slowed down, until this past year, because if I stopped, it would all fall apart.  This took a huge toll on my spiritual life, which affected my emotions, my thinking, my physical health, and my finances.

Now that the world has stopped spinning, and I’ve been disentangled from other people’s agendas (pastoral or otherwise) I can finally breathe.  I will be forty-eight years old next month.  There are things I want to do, and things I never want to do again.

I wrote awhile ago that I was finished with secular counseling, and I have great peace about that.  They don’t have any answers, or any spiritual authority, or knowledge of the Word and ways of God.  For me, personally, pastoral counseling works.  Someone who knows how to take the tools of the mental health world, and integrate (graft) them with the power of the Holy Spirit, and be God with skin on.  The best counselors and teachers I have had, including those in secular settings, have been Christian.  On the other hand, some of the worst counselors and teachers have also been Christians.  Go figure.

All I can think is that it has to have something to do with bearing fruit.  When a pastoral counselor veers too far off track into the limits and dictates of the clinical world, we waste time and money.  When we ignore the clinical pieces, and treat everything as though it’s a spiritual problem, we get flaky.

I have to go and get ready for a doctor’s appointment, and then to stop and look at office space.  The doctor’s appointment is for my ongoing battle with depression over this ongoing situation with my own counselor, and the office space is for……well, we’ll see.

Have a blessed day, people.

Bartolomeo Bimbi Citrus Collection des Medici

Bartolomeo Bimbi Citrus Collection des Medici (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Trust

11 Saturday May 2013

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English: The Promised Land. View south west th...

English: The Promised Land. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So we have to move.  Again.  It seems that every time we get settled, and I get everything just the way I want it, the landlord sells the house or the rent goes up.

So, here we go again.  And I don’t even know where we’re going.  Last nights’ message at church was a reminder that we live in tents;  we’re not here forever.  When we get to the Promised Land, we can settle and build houses, and multiply, but until then, it’s all packing and moving.

I have prayed and prayed about this;  what is the wisest thing to do?  Stay and pay the higher amount, or use it as an opportunity to move on?  Tiffany graduates this year,  Brittany is already out on her own, and really, I am free to go wherever I feel God is leading me.  I keep reminding myself that God is a God of order, and that He does indeed lead us step by step.

I feel in my heart it is time to move.  But I am so comfortable here.  I hate change;  I like to take a couple of years to slow down and think about things before I do anything.  I don’t have an impulsive bone in my body.  It’s why sudden endings and losses leave me feeling blind-sided, and take so long to recover from.

I have learned this;  it’s not wise as a tent-dweller to accumulate so much stuff.  I’ve spent the last few weeks going through drawers, and boxes and closets.  Pulled out a huge box of journals from the last fifteen years;  found photos and memories, cards and letters.  And one thing is clear;  God has been at the center of it all, always preparing the way ahead of me, and providing when there was no way we could have made it this far.  And always, always, scripture, on everything.  Scrapbooks, high school yearbooks,  journals, notebooks.  The Word of God has been my rock and foundation through it all.  Like a thread woven through all of the situations and circumstances, the dark times and the happy times, there is the Word of God.  Safe, stable, unchanging, and able to keep me from falling.  Or from getting lost.

So there is no reason to fear.  Even if I make a wrong decision, God is able.

Have a Blessed day, people.

“In quietness and trust is your strength.”   Isaiah 30:15