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Stacey L. Lacik

~ Common Sense Christian Counsel

Stacey L. Lacik

Tag Archives: Faith

A Wing and a Prayer

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

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college, Faith, God, Prayer, stress, Trust

SAM_4077Somewhere along towards the end of July I applied to graduate school, never really thinking for a moment that I would get in. I didn’t hear an audible voice from God. The bush out by the front door didn’t burst into flames. I didn’t get a handwritten letter delivered by a dove with the words “It’s Time. Apply Now” in glowing, golden script. My plan has been to wait and apply to grad school next year, when my youngest daughter graduates from her college. However, one sleepless night in the dead heat of summer, I sat at the computer and applied to school. A few days later, an advisor from the school called me and said that even though it was well past the deadline, they would waive the application fee if I could get all of the required forms and letters of recommendation in as quickly as possible. There was only one spot in the MSW program left for this fall.

So I thought, “Well, why not? If they’re willing to waive the fee, I  have absolutely nothing to lose by trying”. And so I did, running all over town trying to find transcripts, health forms and letters of recommendation, and everything else that needed to be in so that the director of the program could evaluate it and make a decision. There was only the smallest glimmer of hope that I might be accepted, but I sent as much as I was able to pull together, reasonably sure I would be rejected because I didn’t meet all of the requirements.

Then I waited.

This past Monday morning (only five days before the first class) I got an email saying I had been accepted into the program, even without having met all of the necessary requirements. I then spent all of Monday and the early part of Tuesday morning frantically trying to find the money needed to keep my car on the road, but I finally ran out of both time and ideas. In the end I spent over two-hundred dollars of the rent money, just so I would have a way to get to classes and doctor’s appointments. It was that, or get a ride home from the DMV.

More stress.

And so, early this morning, I grabbed a notebook and a large cup of coffee and headed West on the thruway. Hundreds of cows and cornfields later, I turned onto the campus of the college on the lake, and found myself sitting through an entire day of Writing for Professionals (a class I would have very much enjoyed, had I not been so tired). The rest of the classes will meet here in Syracuse, so I won’t have to drive all the way out to the school every week, but at least the transportation problem is solved. I’m not sure I have the physical strength or energy for this (health problems hijacked much of my summer) but this is one of the those times to “set my face like flint” and go forward, ready or not. The time is going to go by anyway, and I won’t ever feel ready enough, so the thing to do is to go and make the most of what time and energy I have. Each day has more than enough worries of its own, so the focus needs to be on what can be done today.

I believe God has a plan, and I believe it’s time to do this. I have to trust that He will make the way straight before me, even though I can only see the next couple of steps at the moment.

But first I have an eight page essay to write, and so blogging will have to come after schoolwork, for now at least.

Good-night everyone.

“Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.” 

Exodus 23:20

 

Happy Birthday to Me

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

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Christian Living, depression, Divorce, Faith, Family, Grief Loss and Bereavement, Healing, marriage, opportunity, Pastoral counseling, perseverance, Reality, Single-parent, Soul Healing, Trust

The house is quiet. There’s nobody here except me and a lone summer house fly. Last Wednesday was my birthday, and it came and went fairly quickly, as birthdays are wont to do. Nothing particularly wonderful or magical happened. Nobody rode up the driveway on a white horse. No miracles happened. After waiting all year for it, the day ended with a sort of quiet fizzle, and I woke up the next morning with life pretty much the same as it was the day before. And can I just say (because every divorced woman knows it) that the other side of the bed seems to stretch into infinity like a vast and empty wasteland, especially when we’re depressed or lonely. Not having someone to do life with hits hard on birthdays and holidays.

Can I get an Amen? Anybody?

I had the sobering realization the other day that some of my houseplants have lasted longer than my marriage did.

A long time ago I starting using my birthday the way most people use New Years’ Day, for reflection and setting new goals. It’s a day to stop and survey the stunning gap between where I am and where I want to be. Consequently, it’s also the time of year that I struggle the most with discouragement and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. This latest birthday has been really difficult for some reason, probably because there were so many things I had wanted to do by this age. At this point I feel like I’m running a race I can’t win, mostly because I’m just too tired.

The Fourth of July is also always a long and lonely day for me. I have cried pretty much all weekend. The harsh and painful reality is that there is no husband grilling hamburgers out on the deck this weekend. We’re not having a picnic, or going to the beach. We’re not all going to the parade, or the fireworks together. The only thing I want in all the world is to spend the day with my kids, but since the divorce they are always with their dad, usually on vacation somewhere fun and sunny. Today they’re up in Old Forge, one of my favorite places to go in the summer. We camped there a lot when I was growing up, and I want to go back someday and smell the pine trees, walk through the woods, and go in all of the little shops. It’s a place I associate with happy family memories of campsites and candy, souvenirs and sandals.

There’s a wicked little imp who dances around my pillow every night, singing “You’re nothing but a failure … you’ll always be a failure … no one will ever want you … even God can’t help you … it’s too late! it’s all too late!” It’s the last thing I hear every night, and the first thing I hear every morning. It’s like being poked and prodded with a tiny little pitchfork all night.

I wake up exhausted every day.

The last fifteen years haven’t gone at all the way I hoped. Most of my friends who were divorced around the same time I was have all remarried, and now they have new homes and families of their own. I never, ever, intended to raise two girls all by myself, and it never occurred to me that I would be alone this long. I had thought that I would be done with school; that I would own my own home, and that my counseling center would be up and running by now. It feels sometimes like it’s too late for all of my hopes and dreams, and I have a hard time most days hoping and dreaming for anything anymore. A lot of my prayers have gone unanswered. I don’t question God’s authority, but sometimes I just want to know why?

I ran into an old friend this afternoon in the drugstore. We met about thirty years ago in a campus ministry group, and as we talked about all we have been through, and where life has brought us, we kept coming back to the fact that no matter how hard and harsh life can be, God is still ultimately in control. Even when we can’t see it, He is guiding and directing us. He has led and kept us through it all, and we have to believe He will continue to do so, because if we don’t, there’s really no reason to go any farther. There would be no reason not to quit.

Christians often like to pick what we call our “life verse”; a portion of Scripture that has personal meaning for us, and seems to sum up what we feel our individual life with God is all about. Mine is Philippians 3:12-14:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not count myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

This is what brings me back every time. So, tired or not, there will be no quitting today. I haven’t come this far to give up now, even though it may look to everyone else like I haven’t accomplished anything yet, and quite possibly never will. I know better than anybody that I have stumbled and fallen many times, but as far as I’m concerned, every day is a new opportunity to start again. One more time.

Sometimes I have to write my way back to a right way of thinking.

Happy Fourth of July everybody. Have a safe and blessed holiday.

Timeout

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

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Abundant Life Christian Center, article, Christian Living, Counseling, counselor, depression, Divorce, domestic violence, editor, Faith, God, Good Housekeeping, Grief, Healing, journalism, Leadership, magazine, marriage, Mental health, Pastor, Pastor John Carter, Pastoral counseling, Soul Healing, Trust, writer

SAM_4068We’re going to take a break here for a minute from all of the soaking, sozoing, and shabar-ing we’ve been doing lately, so grab yourself a towel and sit tight.

A week ago today, the March issue of Good Housekeeping hit the newsstands. I, along with five other women, were interviewed by a journalist for a story the magazine wanted to do on domestic violence. I’ve never been interviewed for a national magazine before, and I have to say it’s been an interesting experience. The whole process took about six months from beginning to end.

I wrote a lot, not just about my own situation, but about domestic violence in general, and emotional abuse in particular, which is what the term gaslighting refers to. It’s taken from the 1944 movie Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Other terms for this kind of abuse are mind games and crazy-making. They’re tactics used by an abuser that are intended to make you question your own reality, or worse, make others doubt your reality. It’s a ploy designed to isolate you, and cut off any means of support or help. It deflects attention away from the behavior of the abuser and onto the person they’re abusing. The behavior itself isn’t addressed; instead, the mental stability of the person being abused becomes the focus (yes, gaslighting occurs in counseling, and frequently results in collusion) and this is why you do not ever counsel both spouses together when there is domestic violence going on. It’s a dangerous (and in my case, almost deadly) mistake, and one that Christian counselors in particular frequently make in their zeal to “save the marriage”. But untrained and uninformed people can do a lot of harm, even when they mean well. Domestic violence is not a matter of anger management. Abusers manage their anger very well, and can stop on a dime and turn on the charm when they want to.  Most churches, at least the ones I know of, never have a domestic violence agency come in and train their leaders. This is why most of the people in the pews don’t bother reaching out to church leaders for help. It isn’t there.

SAM_4072

Anyway, I thought I had made myself pretty clear, both in what I had written and in the phone interviews, but I think that in the end the editors of the magazine tried to make my story fit their story. I think that what they wanted was a part on spiritual abuse, and pulled bits and pieces from what I had written and said about my own experience in order to do so. The problem is that while my husband was emotionally, physically and verbally abusive, the spiritual abuse, if any, came from the church, not him.  (I personally don’t consider my disappointment about not being able to go to Bible college to be abuse at all). They completely missed the fear and danger of what my daughters and I went through.

The part about what the elder’s wife said is true, unfortunately, but that is not the point at which I “quit reaching out and started praying I’d find a way out.” The truth is, I never did actually reach out to begin with; help found me, first from my primary care doctor, and then from a pastor at a different church than the one we were attending. The part about my pastoral counselor isn’t true at all; she never said that, or even implied it. All I said in the phone interview was that I made the mistake (huge mistake) of having my husband go along with me to my counseling in the first place, and that he controlled the whole thing from the beginning. But my counselor was never his counselor, and we didn’t go to her for marriage counseling.  Looking back, I can see that maybe I didn’t make that clear.  I thought I did, but I was so upset at the time that it’s possible that I didn’t.  I had to look over all of the notes from the police reports and court appearances in order to send the facts of the charges and orders of protection for the magazine, and in reading the court reports I can see that the counselor honestly thought we were there for marriage counseling, when, in fact, the counseling was for me. I knew I needed a witness and an advocate, and help with the grief and anger I was trying to deal with on my own.  I knew that whatever I was facing was going to be too heavy – too difficult – for me to handle by myself. Friends and family can love and support you, and they did, but they can be too emotionally involved sometimes to be of much practical help. I just needed the facts regarding adultery, from him, because those were the facts I believed I needed in order to decide what to do about divorce. I didn’t know that it was okay to leave an abusive situation if you were a Christian; I was never taught that. He went, because he wanted someone to validate him and protect his reputation; and to make sure that my counselor didn’t believe me.

I also wanted to make it clear to the editors that I, like most women, didn’t stay in the marriage because of “low self-esteem”. The average woman will leave an abusive situation an average of seven times.  The church leaders (at the time) had a “three-times-and-you’re-out” policy, meaning that they would help and support you no more than three times, and if your situation didn’t improve, then they were done with you, and you were on your own. There was absolutely no knowledge or awareness of domestic violence, or how to help people in crisis. The most dangerous times for any woman in a domestic violence situation are when she is pregnant, or during the first six months after leaving.  Another huge reason woman stay, and something I stressed to the writer, is the issue of finances. When women leave an abusive situation, they, along with their children, quite often fall immediately below poverty level. If all you have ever been is a stay-at-home mom, and in my case, a home-schooling mom, and all you have is one car, which he is going to get to take with him; and no viable means of getting employment and health insurance, you’re going to do your best to make that marriage work. Losing your house is not a small thing, especially if you have children; in our case, it has resulted in years of moving and instability that have only made things worse, not better.  I’ve never had the chance to get better, because I’m always trying to keep a roof over our head and the lights on. I can’t remember a day that hasn’t been clouded by grief and worry for over fifteen years. There are no ‘happy’ days, although there are happy moments, albeit few and far between.

Having said all of that, years of physical and verbal/emotional abuse do take a toll, and yes, your self-esteem suffers. When all you hear, day after day, is “No one will ever love you – no man in his right mind will ever want you – even your counselor is going to see what you are and reject you” (and she did, in the end) it hurts.  You don’t feel attractive, you don’t feel pretty, you don’t feel wanted. You feel pathetic. Rejection and fear are the feelings you learn to live with on a daily basis. The physical abuse is simply too embarrassing and too difficult to write about, to be honest. The whole thing is humiliating.

The one quote in the article that is exactly what I said is that “divorce doesn’t end abuse, it merely changes it. It may not be happening in your living room any more, but it happens on the phone, in the driveway, at school events and soccer games.” The church still shuns you, although they let you know in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that they are “praying for you and hoping you come back to the Lord.” I didn’t fall away from the Lord however, or ever lose my faith in God, although I’ve lost it in people. On the contrary this experience has deepened my faith in God. The person who actually helped, in the end, wasn’t my own pastor but was Pastor John Carter, from Abundant Life Christian Center in Syracuse, N.Y.  He is the only person I actually ever saw confront my husband about the violence in our home (on the midway at the State Fair, of all places) and I will forever be grateful for that, and for his help and counsel.  I went to Abundant Life after the divorce because I felt safe there. The counselor helped in that it she provided a safe place to go and try to deal with all of it. Sometimes we need to pay someone to just sit still and hear us.  To be both a presence and a witness to our grief, and sometimes, but not always, a friend.

Anyway, I thought that everything I said in the interview was all very clear. The problem, I believe, lies with the magazine editors, not the writer of the article. She seemed to understand what I was saying, and as a counselor myself, I know how difficult it can be to try to write a verbatim account of everything that was said in an interview, especially if you don’t know them personally.  It’s easy to make a mistake, or to get a wrong impression, no matter how hard you try to be accurate. When the ‘fact-checker’ editor from the magazine called me, I did tell her that she did not have the facts quite right, and tried to correct her, but she seemed to already have the story written as far as the magazine was concerned. I told her that the quote from my counselor was incorrect, and asked that it not be included, but for some reason, they wrote it into the article anyway.

I am horrified to see that they quoted her as having said something she did not ever say, or even imply, and to see it when I got my issue last week was extremely upsetting. I can’t fix it, no matter how sorry I am, and have had a difficult week worrying about it all of it. Any relief I had from finally being able to tell my story has been ruined by the error, however unintentional it may have been. After six long months of waiting for this story to come out, I don’t think I’ve done anything but cry since it did. Believe me when I say that I haven’t slept in a week. I am just so disappointed.

What I learned from this whole experience is that the story that results from an interview is not necessarily going to be written at all the way it was said. I will never read an article again without thinking I wonder if that’s how it really happened? I learned that from now on I will write my own articles, and tell my own story.  I may not get it all right, but at least I will know why, and where the problem lies.

 

A Contemplative Night

25 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

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depression, Divorce, domestic violence, Faith, Family, God, Grief, Healing, marriage, Mental health, Soul Healing, Thought, Trust, Word

1396744041183Lots of thoughts and feelings tonight.  Seemed like every demon in Hell was ready and waiting before I even swung my feet over the edge of the bed this morning. I had to distract myself all morning to keep from sinking into sadness; spent some time in the Word, with a cup pot of coffee, and then some time getting group notes and files in order, and eventually I felt better.

And then, in a notebook, in the middle of notes on European history, I found several journal pages from the beginning of the end of my marriage.  (When I say the beginning of the end, I mean long after it actually ended;  it just took a few years for the reality to hit.  Shock does that to a person.)

Notes on how my husband, after having been gone for a couple of years, verbally attacked me in a pet store of all places, in front of the salespeople and our daughters, who were little at the time.  How I began to realize that I had outgrown him while he was gone, not just spiritually, but emotionally, and that there really was no marriage left, and hadn’t been for sometime.  How the manager had come to confront him, and help me.  How completely and utterly humiliating it all was.

More notes.

He had pushed me one day, quite hard, in our bedroom, and then, after staring at me and hesitating for a moment, pushed me again, and I flew all the way across the room and hit the dresser.  (This ended up being a hospital visit, with one of the discs in the center of my back protruding visibly through my t-shirt) and how, somehow, that particular day, it finally occurred to me that he wasn’t ‘out of control’ he was in fact very much in control.  Something about the way he hesitated before pushing me the second time.  That day – that very day, I realized that abusive people are not ‘mentally ill’.  They are masters of not only self-control, but of deception.  That it is easier for them to charm the oil out of a snake than it is for them to tell the truth.  For so many years I had made excuses for him:  I had made him angry, he was mentally ill, he had childhood issues (who doesn’t?) but I never called it what it was.  I never saw it for what it was, until that exact moment, on that exact day.  All because he stopped to think about it. Truly mentally ill people don’t do that.  Abusive people do.  If he hadn’t hesitated, I wouldn’t have seen it.

The nice thing about getting older is that you get (hopefully) more clear-headed.  You become more firm in your convictions, right or wrong, so watch yourself, but you get stronger.  You become free.  I know that I do not want any more abusive people in my life, and certainly not in my heart.  I do not want any more ‘friends’ who get angry if I don’t do what they feel I should do, never mind the fact that I am more than capable of hearing from God for myself, thank you, and I also do not want any more people who wear their psychiatric labels like a suit of armor, protecting and absolving them from any moral responsibility in the wars they wage against other people.  It’s not that they can’t control their anger, it’s that they choose not to.

Why so transparent tonight, about such personal issues?  Because the walls of my heart are all trampled down tonight, and in this brief space of time, before they go up again tomorrow, I need to put all of this somewhere before I go to sleep.  Somewhere where maybe it can help someone, who is tonight where I was all those few years ago.  And all I can tell you is, God Himself delivered me.  That if you trust Him, He will make a way out;  He surrounds us with His legions of angels, He goes both before and behind us, and leads us through, and out the other side.  I am not completely through yet, but can definitely see sunlight somewhere up ahead.

So, I am sad and worn out tonight, but oh, so thankful for all that God has delivered me from.  So very thankful.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them. ~ Romans 8:28

 If we remain in His love, God will redeem every circumstance for His glory.

Worried Sick

10 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

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Tags

anxiety, Bible, Counseling, depression, domestic violence, Faith, God, Health, Pastoral counseling, Single-parent, Soul Healing, stress, Trust

Coming down with pneumonia was not in my plans for this week.  My immune system has tanked again;  it seems that stress is bad for your health, financial stress in particular.  I had to make a choice between paying the rent and paying my daughter’s spring tuition; they are roughly the same amount of money.  If I don’t pay her tuition, she can’t go online and see her grades, and there is a hold on her account, meaning she can’t register for her fall classes next week.  If I pay the tuition, but not the rent, she won’t have a place to come home to at the end of the month.

Running away is not an option, and appears to be the realm of ex-husbands, ex-fathers and irritated pastoral counselors.  But not mothers.  We don’t bail, jump ship, or disappear.  Mothers get a cup of coffee, a Bible, and get alone with God to see what He has to say about the situation.  About us, in our situation.  And what He has to say is “Persevere … remain steadfast … trust, and see the salvation of your God.”  In other words, don’t jump.

So, I paid the rent.  Not all of it, but at least enough to cover April.  I haven’t said anything to my daughter, because I want her to be able to concentrate on her grades, and studying for final exams.  I don’t have a clue what to do next, or what is going to happen now.  The money is gone, and there’s no getting it back.  I’m not even sure I did the right thing;  paying bills lately is akin to shooting arrows at a target while wearing a blindfold.

Every time the phone rings, or I see that there is a phone message, I think it’s the landlords saying we have to go, or National Grid saying they’re shutting off the utilities, or the school, demanding payment.  I try not to answer phone calls unless I’m sure of who it is.  I have a hard time looking at my bank accounts without feeling sick, nervous, or nauseated.  I have so much apprehension about going to the mailbox that some days I just don’t.  There is rarely anything good in there. Most of it is anxiety-provoking demands for money that I don’t have.

I am the queen of avoidance.

When my daughter came home for Easter last week, her acceptance for nursing school came in the mail, and she was so excited.  I am so proud of her, and didn’t say a word about the fact that I don’t know how we’re going to pay even for this semester that hasn’t ended yet.  She can’t just suddenly stop in the middle of her junior year of college. Those who are unfamiliar with the dynamics of domestic violence say that I should just ‘make’ her father pay for her schooling.  Well, wouldn’t that be lovely.

So here we stand.  I don’t know how it will all work out, I just have to believe that it will.  Pneumonia isn’t fun, but it will clear up.  I have a modicum of faith.

But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.  James 1:4

When the Crisis Doesn’t End

21 Saturday Mar 2015

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depression, Divorce, Faith, God, Grief, Single-parent, Soul Healing, stress, Trust

This was a heart-broken day.  It was my youngest daughter’s twentieth birthday, but I didn’t get to spend it with her.  Her father picked her up at school and took her to Ohio, and she won’t be home until tomorrow night.  She went to a basketball game and out to dinner, and will stay at a hotel tonight.  She is having the time of her life, and I wouldn’t take it from her for the world.  He can more than afford it, and I can’t compete with NBA games, and Universal studios, or condos on the beach.  I, however, am having a hard time buying her a card and a gift.  I knew this was going to happen, but I had set my mind to be okay, and I was (kind of) until someone reminded me this afternoon that the girlfriend went along with them.

And, I confess, I think I have hate in my heart tonight, Lord.  A bag of candy and a lot of tears later, I believe there’s some intense dislike and resentment there.

I don’t want to be the kind of person who hates, or dislikes anyone.  I usually don’t, but this one is hard.  Always.  So please, God, guard my heart against bitterness.  And hopelessness.  Hopeless is a horrible feeling, but it can be so hard to fight it, and some days I just don’t feel like fighting.

Sometimes I feel that there is no corner of my life untouched by sadness.

I have not heard from my landlord yet regarding the house;  I owe them money, and am not sure [again] if we’re coming or going.  I am so very tired of moving.  If I had a million dollars, I would buy a place of rest and refuge.  (With roses.)  Somewhere peaceful, private, quiet and safe.  It would be nice to be able to go to sleep for one night and not have to worry about money, or bills, or being homeless, or having the utilities shut off.  It’s not that I’m not grateful for what I have (and I have a lot) but the financial and emotional fallout from divorce and domestic violence is huge.

I had written last time about I book I had found, about False Memory Syndrome.  The book has been enormously helpful, but healing from misguided therapy has taken a backseat to all of the financial worries and health problems.  I will write more about it, because writing helps, but not tonight.

Tonight all I will do is trust God, and pray that tomorrow will be a better day.

(And try to beat my daughter at Trivia Crack.  Or maybe I will let her win, just for tonight.  After all, it is her birthday.)

 

Fret Not

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Stacey in The Journey

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Tags

Christmas, Faith, Gifts, Holidays, Money, Single-parent, Trust

I think I killed our tree.  Last year was not my fault (the apartment was too hot) but this year I did it.  I don’t know what’s wrong;  I went to put the lights on it, and it sounds like it’s raining.  Needles everywhere.

It is the week before Christmas, and there is no money for gifts.  It’s the most horrible, nauseating, dead-in-the-very-bottom-of-your-gut type of feeling a single mom can have.  Most of the time, I feel sick.  No matter where I am, or what I am doing, I can’t fully enjoy it.  We are in pretty much the same boat we were in last year, and I haven’t yet recovered from last year.  Same scenario, different location.

Constant worry.   

So many bills are unpaid;  there are piles of medical bills, utilities, my daughter’s tuition for spring.  Everything is past due, so late fees keep piling up.  The car needs repairs, or it won’t pass inspection next week.  If I buy gifts for my daughters, or for anyone else for Christmas, even a few, there will be no way to pay the rent next month.  I’m preparing myself now for the annual January shut-off:  no internet, television, or phone.  It seems to be a new and unwanted tradition – dead silence.  Not good for those already struggling with depression.  I know my girls have bought gifts for me already;  we went to the mall yesterday.  Walking along behind them, I thought, they are so beautiful.  I don’t know if they realize that they themselves are my gifts.  Probably not, because they aren’t parents themselves yet (thank God) but like most parents, I want to be able to give them something to open on Christmas morning.  There is a little girl in all of us, no matter how old we are, who wants to come down to a sparkling tree with beautiful packages, and bows, and pretty things picked out by people we love.  People who love us.

I don’t feel merry, I feel grim.  The kind of grim determination you need when you have to head out into a storm, and there’s no getting around it, so you set your face like flint and go forward.  But it is definitely not fun.

We don’t need a small miracle, we need a large one.  Maybe several.  I have mustard-seed-sized faith.  You can see it with a magnifying glass, but it’s there.

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, … nothing shall be impossible unto you. – Matthew 17:20

In Retrospect

13 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Stacey in Uncategorized

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Abraham, anxiety, Bible, Christ, cognitive therapy, Faith, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, marriage, Pastor, Teacher, therapist

Barnes and noble

Barnes and noble (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, . . . nothing shall be impossible unto you.”   Matthew 17:20

Much of my life has been sabotaged by anxiety.  I was driving to Barnes and Noble last night, and decided to listen to Pastor Carters’ message from a couple of weeks ago on the way.  Two things have stood out to me in recent weeks.  One is that I do not truly understand the love of Christ for me.  Hear me out on this one, because it won’t make sense to those obsessed with doctrine, but I have loved God and His word for since I was a little girl.  What I have never been comfortable with is my relationship to, or with, Jesus.  In all honesty, I’m afraid of Him.  All of our cultural analogies (He’s a friend, a lover, a brother) make me uncomfortable.  The only role I’m comfortable with is that of Jesus as Teacher, as that one I can relate to. But as  the pastor was talking about Christ taking my place before God and bearing my sins for me; about being my advocate, I suddenly began to realize the mind of Christ towards me, and  the role He plays in my relationship with God as never before.  I cannot in all honesty fathom Christ actually praying for, or advocating for me, because I know me.  Nobody in their right mind would, and most of those who have promised to do so have jumped ship.

There are many books on the market, mostly geared toward women, that try to appeal to our sense of romance in order to illustrate our relationship with Christ.  Sorry, can’t relate to that either, having never been loved, or in love, for that matter.  (I did tell you the marriage ended, right?)  And those books make me uncomfortable.  Jesus as brother?  As peer?  As best friend?  I feel like Goldilocks;  nothing fits.  And, they seem to me to make Him less than in an effort to make Him approachable.  Less than Holy;  less than righteous;  less than the embodiment of the full power and authority of God.

When I was engaged to my husband, I was in spiritual torment.  There is a place marked and dated in my Bible, December 1, 1985.  It’s the story of Abraham in Genesis;  the supreme test of his faith, when God required him to lay his son on the altar. This particular day, while  I struggled with the knowledge that I should not be dating this person, I knew God was asking me to give this relationship up and lay it on the altar of my life.  What I failed to see until very recently, is that God provided a substitute when Abraham obeyed in spite of his broken heart.  I was so focused on what I would be losing (my only chance to have a relationship) that I never saw the whole story:  that in the end God provided something better.

The other thing that has stood out to me in the last couple of weeks has been the pastor’s encouragement to walk by faith, not by sight.  This will absolutely take  an act of the Holy Spirit,  as things don’t look very good right now.  In fact, the ship is sinking.  My hunch is that it will happen as a result of a growing awareness of God’s acceptance of me, and His willingness to provide a sacrifice in the form of Jesus.  While I have a difficult time with this, mostly due to our cultural clouding of who Jesus really is in relationship to us, I am aware of a growing understanding in this area of my life.  Without this understanding, walking by faith is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

So, those are my thoughts for the day.  Grow in the grace and knowledge of the sacrificial love of God, my friends.

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you truly believe." -Gustave Flaubert

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