Recently, I have been faced with the reality, AGAIN, that I am not the great fixer of all problems. In fact, in most situations there is very little I can do in a physical way to even help friends that are experiencing tough times.You know, this is a real kick in the teeth when I want nothing more than to make it all better. I am a fixer, by nature. I want everyone to be happy, healthy, to get along, etc, etc....you get the point.
Maybe it is a friend that has a financial need...and I cannot meet it. Maybe it is a friend who has a sick spouse...and I cannot heal him or even make her pain and fear go away. Maybe it is a friend who is struggling with the greatest battle of their life at the moment...and I cannot win it for them. Maybe it is someone I love battling addiction...and I cannot free them or even make them choose well.
No matter what the situation is or how painful it may be for the ones I love, I cannot jump in and be the rescuer or the fixer. So what CAN I do?
Well, the first thing I can do, which sadly I often put last, is to pray. As a follower of Christ, I believe that when I cry out to God on behalf of those I love, He hears me and He is moved at the sound of my voice. Maybe His answers don't always look like what I desire or what I expect, but I know that He is not an apathetic God and He is working behind the scenes. Maybe He brings comfort to a heart , strength to make the right decision, a financial blessing, rest from the battle, or freedom from addiction. Maybe He just makes Himself known so that those who are in pain or afraid or in bondage do not feel alone.
Another thing that I can do is be a listening ear and encourage my friends. I think we often forget the value of just being there for someone. Just being available is a real gift to many people. In this world, where we are all so caught up in the busyness of our own lives, time is a valuable commodity. When I take time out of my life to spend focused time with a friend, whether in person or on the phone, it makes them feel loved. There is likely nothing more important in my life than making someone feel loved, valuable and cared for in a time of need. So many times people just need to vent. They just want to tell someone how they feel. They don't want me to fix their problem, they just want to talk about it. I can do that. I can also speak life giving words to them, words of love, words of encouragement, words that remind them that they are not alone, that they can get through this battle, that they are valuable and worth fighting for in this crazy rat race world that we live in.
So maybe I cannot FIX the problem and maybe I cannot rescue my friend, but I can mostly certainly pray for them , listen to them, love them, care for their heart and encourage them. I have to remind myself that these are valuable and powerful tools in loving people well, and my desire is to love people well.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Thoughts on the Past
I have recently been thinking on the darkest days of my past and walking through the stages of rejection, betrayal, denial, anger (rage really) and deep, deep pain. In the first years those were the emotions that ran the show, along with the copious amounts of beer that I drank. At some point, I had to decide that a life of anger and pain was not a full life. It was not the life that I wanted to lead. It was not the life that I wanted Mia to see and experience. It was most certainly not the kind of life that Jesus had promised me...life and life abundantly....not even close!
I managed to put on a happy face most of the time, but really I was screaming on the inside. It was like a fire was searing my soul day after day after day. Talk about a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63) , I was living there...camped out in the burning noonday sun with what felt like no shade. I so desperately wanted to do the "right" thing, to do this the "right" way. So I tried to just be nice, be happy, keep on with my life in the most normal fashion I could muster. I kept on raising my Mia, kept on going to church, even being on the worship team. I joined staff at a house of prayer and spent lots of time hanging out with Jesus in the prayer room, whether in a chair or behind a microphone or behind my guitar singing out raw songs of love to the Lord. BUT...my heart was really only on hold. It screamed and I sent it to the back burner, not allowing it to have any real precedence in my life. Surely, if I was relying on the Lord and doing this the "right" way, I would not be in agony, right? NO..wrong...dead wrong. I was drowning in my own sorrows...a frantic mess. I felt schizophrenic...trying to put on the happy face while feeling like I was dying. I was a drunk, which made me feel like my whole life was a facade, a lie. Ugh...it was awful. I was just prolonging the inevitable and boy, did it suck.
So how did I transition from the dark side into the light? Well, for me, it was all about a choice to embrace the forgiveness that Jesus talks about in the Bible and displayed with His life. I had to choose to forgive the one that had hurt me. I had to choose to forgive myself for the damage I had done in my marriage. And along side forgiveness, I had to work, like it was a full time job, to bury the hatchet so to speak...not just forgive, but let go of the offenses and hurts.
Even more than that,though, I had to choose to face the reality of my heart and the terribly crushed, no...shredded, state that it was in. My heart was a mess and putting it on the back burner and wearing the happy mask was not serving me well at all. And without a doubt, drinking was most certainly NOT helping a thing. It just made it all the worse. I would drink and think about the life I no longer had, about the memories (good and bad), and about every single offense I had dished out and received over the course of 19 years and that, my friends, is a lot of offenses right there. Drinking heightened every emotion in quite the dramatic way. If I was angry, it turned to a boiling rage. If I was feeling sad, it turned to overwhelming despair. If I was lonely, it made me feel like I had been totally forsaken. It caused me to focus on the negative and the things that I could not control, which only made me feel more crazy and out of control.
So, in the midst of that dark and ugly and painful place, I chose to face my heart. I chose to be honest with myself, with some close and trusted friends, and with God, who already knew anyway. What I found was that when I was willing to face it head on, it was better. Now...to be brutally honest with you, it was horrifically worse before it was better. BUT IT WAS SOOOO WORTH IT!!! I can only think to describe it one way. If you have a nasty open wound and it gets dirty and infected, but you leave it untreated, it may heal over at the skin level, BUT...the infection is still there, festering under the surface. It becomes terribly painful, possibly unbearable. It may even begin to make you sick, because it effects your whole system. The only way to deal with it, is to re-open that wound and clean it out. It is a nasty and painful process, but the end result is a wound that heals nicely from the inside out. This time, when it closes up at the skin level, it is truly healed. There is probably a scar...but the pain, the anger, the resentment, the bitterness are gone.
In addition to this heart surgery that I pursued, I laid down beer (all alcohol really). I don't think for one minute that I could have gotten real healing otherwise. I needed to get healing without a crutch. I needed to do it for real, without anything clouding my vision. I wanted to rely only on the Lord and the friends He had so graciously put in my path...and to do it with clarity of thought. Honestly, to keep with the whole infected wound thing, I decided surgery without anesthesia was what I needed. I was pretty sure that if I walked around in a numbed state, that I would pass by some of the most painful spots. Friends, I did not want to pass anything by and have to deal with it later. I wanted to get as much dealt with as possible. One day I decided that enough was enough. I had some good friends pray with me and I have not had a drink since that day almost 6 years ago. It was a tough first year, but the healing and breakthrough in my life that came from giving up beer were so worth the struggle.
God was so faithful to meet me in my pursuit of healing. He sent amazing people to love me, people who spoke life and hope and love into my heart. Those days of singing raw love songs to Him in the prayer room brought so much healing to my heart. When I felt like a barren wasteland, and cried out to Him in song or in prayer, He watered my heart with His love. He revealed Himself to me as the lover of my soul. He showed me that even in this dark and damaged state, that He loved me and saw beauty in my heart. He revealed Himself to me as my Husband. He was the one who stepped in and protected my heart, who cared for me, when I no longer had a husband. He revealed Himself to me as the Healer, when He took my ashes and in return He gave me beauty. He took my crushed heart and He put it back together...better than it was before. Really, He gave me a new heart. I do not take any of that for granted. I count it a privilege to have been so weak and broken as to need to lean on Him and Him alone in those days, because the relationship I have with Him now was born in that place. There is nothing quite like sharing suffering with someone to birth deep intimacy.
It has been 6 years since I was first separated and nearly 4 since I was divorced, and still, there is no experience that can top the pain of that experience in my life. Yet, I tell you, that there has never been greater opportunity for the Lord to show Himself strong on my behalf. I am a new woman, a more confident woman, a more whole and complete woman on this side of things. Not because I am great or because I picked myself up by my boot straps, but because the Lord is gracious and compassionate and He put His hand out for me to come...and well, I took it. In my weakness, He was strong and He healed my broken heart.
Why do I choose to write this all now? Well, I find that it is good to revisit it from time to time. It is good to retell the stories of God's faithfulness. It is good to remind myself where I came from, because it gives me greater compassion and understanding for those that are experiencing this agony right now. And who knows...maybe the Lord can use my story to give someone else the courage they need to face their own pain head on. Maybe it will give someone hope that there is a good life, a full and abundant life available on the other side of their season of despair. Because I can tell you...this is a good life, a very good life, and I am grateful to God for it.
I managed to put on a happy face most of the time, but really I was screaming on the inside. It was like a fire was searing my soul day after day after day. Talk about a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63) , I was living there...camped out in the burning noonday sun with what felt like no shade. I so desperately wanted to do the "right" thing, to do this the "right" way. So I tried to just be nice, be happy, keep on with my life in the most normal fashion I could muster. I kept on raising my Mia, kept on going to church, even being on the worship team. I joined staff at a house of prayer and spent lots of time hanging out with Jesus in the prayer room, whether in a chair or behind a microphone or behind my guitar singing out raw songs of love to the Lord. BUT...my heart was really only on hold. It screamed and I sent it to the back burner, not allowing it to have any real precedence in my life. Surely, if I was relying on the Lord and doing this the "right" way, I would not be in agony, right? NO..wrong...dead wrong. I was drowning in my own sorrows...a frantic mess. I felt schizophrenic...trying to put on the happy face while feeling like I was dying. I was a drunk, which made me feel like my whole life was a facade, a lie. Ugh...it was awful. I was just prolonging the inevitable and boy, did it suck.
So how did I transition from the dark side into the light? Well, for me, it was all about a choice to embrace the forgiveness that Jesus talks about in the Bible and displayed with His life. I had to choose to forgive the one that had hurt me. I had to choose to forgive myself for the damage I had done in my marriage. And along side forgiveness, I had to work, like it was a full time job, to bury the hatchet so to speak...not just forgive, but let go of the offenses and hurts.
Even more than that,though, I had to choose to face the reality of my heart and the terribly crushed, no...shredded, state that it was in. My heart was a mess and putting it on the back burner and wearing the happy mask was not serving me well at all. And without a doubt, drinking was most certainly NOT helping a thing. It just made it all the worse. I would drink and think about the life I no longer had, about the memories (good and bad), and about every single offense I had dished out and received over the course of 19 years and that, my friends, is a lot of offenses right there. Drinking heightened every emotion in quite the dramatic way. If I was angry, it turned to a boiling rage. If I was feeling sad, it turned to overwhelming despair. If I was lonely, it made me feel like I had been totally forsaken. It caused me to focus on the negative and the things that I could not control, which only made me feel more crazy and out of control.
So, in the midst of that dark and ugly and painful place, I chose to face my heart. I chose to be honest with myself, with some close and trusted friends, and with God, who already knew anyway. What I found was that when I was willing to face it head on, it was better. Now...to be brutally honest with you, it was horrifically worse before it was better. BUT IT WAS SOOOO WORTH IT!!! I can only think to describe it one way. If you have a nasty open wound and it gets dirty and infected, but you leave it untreated, it may heal over at the skin level, BUT...the infection is still there, festering under the surface. It becomes terribly painful, possibly unbearable. It may even begin to make you sick, because it effects your whole system. The only way to deal with it, is to re-open that wound and clean it out. It is a nasty and painful process, but the end result is a wound that heals nicely from the inside out. This time, when it closes up at the skin level, it is truly healed. There is probably a scar...but the pain, the anger, the resentment, the bitterness are gone.
In addition to this heart surgery that I pursued, I laid down beer (all alcohol really). I don't think for one minute that I could have gotten real healing otherwise. I needed to get healing without a crutch. I needed to do it for real, without anything clouding my vision. I wanted to rely only on the Lord and the friends He had so graciously put in my path...and to do it with clarity of thought. Honestly, to keep with the whole infected wound thing, I decided surgery without anesthesia was what I needed. I was pretty sure that if I walked around in a numbed state, that I would pass by some of the most painful spots. Friends, I did not want to pass anything by and have to deal with it later. I wanted to get as much dealt with as possible. One day I decided that enough was enough. I had some good friends pray with me and I have not had a drink since that day almost 6 years ago. It was a tough first year, but the healing and breakthrough in my life that came from giving up beer were so worth the struggle.
God was so faithful to meet me in my pursuit of healing. He sent amazing people to love me, people who spoke life and hope and love into my heart. Those days of singing raw love songs to Him in the prayer room brought so much healing to my heart. When I felt like a barren wasteland, and cried out to Him in song or in prayer, He watered my heart with His love. He revealed Himself to me as the lover of my soul. He showed me that even in this dark and damaged state, that He loved me and saw beauty in my heart. He revealed Himself to me as my Husband. He was the one who stepped in and protected my heart, who cared for me, when I no longer had a husband. He revealed Himself to me as the Healer, when He took my ashes and in return He gave me beauty. He took my crushed heart and He put it back together...better than it was before. Really, He gave me a new heart. I do not take any of that for granted. I count it a privilege to have been so weak and broken as to need to lean on Him and Him alone in those days, because the relationship I have with Him now was born in that place. There is nothing quite like sharing suffering with someone to birth deep intimacy.
It has been 6 years since I was first separated and nearly 4 since I was divorced, and still, there is no experience that can top the pain of that experience in my life. Yet, I tell you, that there has never been greater opportunity for the Lord to show Himself strong on my behalf. I am a new woman, a more confident woman, a more whole and complete woman on this side of things. Not because I am great or because I picked myself up by my boot straps, but because the Lord is gracious and compassionate and He put His hand out for me to come...and well, I took it. In my weakness, He was strong and He healed my broken heart.
Why do I choose to write this all now? Well, I find that it is good to revisit it from time to time. It is good to retell the stories of God's faithfulness. It is good to remind myself where I came from, because it gives me greater compassion and understanding for those that are experiencing this agony right now. And who knows...maybe the Lord can use my story to give someone else the courage they need to face their own pain head on. Maybe it will give someone hope that there is a good life, a full and abundant life available on the other side of their season of despair. Because I can tell you...this is a good life, a very good life, and I am grateful to God for it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)