Back here again...

It's five days since Thanksgiving.  My third Thanksgiving without David and I am acutely aware of being alone, again, for the holidays.

I know I am experiencing depression again.  The ending of a market season, the gray days, the prospect of alone holidays, the lack of prospect for the type of deep friendship that I wish for in my life... all of these aspects are weighing on me.  I understand why people become hopeless and despondent at the holidays.

I wish I could say that being a Christian removes all of the difficult things - hurts, loneliness, broken-heartedness, but it doesn't.  Yes, Yes, there IS hope, but belief in Jesus Christ doesn't magic one into automatic peace.

As Westly says in The Princess Bride, "Life IS pain.  Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

So, I choose to breathe.  I choose to get up in the morning and make something of my day.  I choose to believe that there is purpose in my life.  People who used to be friends of mine would call this 'bootstrapping', and I guess I am.

Things get better when I push myself to be thankful for the good things I ca see in my life, the blessings that exist.

But for now, I'm honest.  I'm depressed.  Life is not the way I would like ti to be.  I have a little tiny sliver of hope, but just that.  It'll be ok.  I keep telling myself it'll be ok.  I hope it'll be ok.

Breaking Free of Entanglement

I've not written here for the last few months.  Most of my writing has been for me and God alone.  My heart, oh this silly small heart of mine, has not been available and like with most things it takes me time to chew things out.

I've been back out in the dating scene again, such as it is, and have been spending lots of time in prayer trying to understand both what I want from God in this matter, and more importantly, what God wants from me.

I'm sure I won't surprise you when I tell you that sex is still the most controversial thing when it comes to dating, even as an adult, even as a Christian.  The Biblical idea/ideal/charge/expectation of abstinence is laughed at in the secular world, and that I understand.  What I'm surprised at is how much it's poo-pooed in the Christian dating world as well.  Because, after all, we've all HAD sex and there is no re-virginizing.  We know how to protect ourselves from pregnancy, and disease.  After all, isn't sex just an expression of our care and affection in a physical realm?  We INTEND to marry, so it's ok if we don't wait for marriage, right?

I'm in my mid-40s.  I've been married.  I had a sexual relationship.  All of those things are true.  Somehow, I'm an oddity to say that I want to hold to the self-same ideal of no-sex prior to marriage, and sex only with my husband.  Have I always felt this way since my widowhood?  No.  But it's something that God has really been working on me about... and the level of accountability has been a sacrifice.

There have been men who have walked away from continuing to developing relationships with me because of it.  That's hurt... and I get it because well, frankly, the physical aspect of a marital relationship is something that I miss quite a bit (to put it mildly and appropriately for this setting).

In the end though, I believe there is a man who is both enough in the mental/physical world as well as a spiritual match for me.  I believe I am precious enough to wait to be in an appropriate relationship (marriage) to consummate our love... and I believe he is too.  Is it going to be difficult?  Yes, terribly.  But it still needs to be something that I am willing to do, something that the man I will be involved with is willing to do with me.

I said in my last post that I told God he could have anything, he could do anything.  My sexuality is the sacrifice of anything for me.  It's not an easy sacrifice, but I promised obedience... to which I will still say, "yes, and Anything".

Anything

The last few months I've started blog post after blog post after blog post without finishing any of them.  I've been wrestling with something for the last year that I couldn't really put into words, and I am not sure that I have them now.  Please bear with because I am determined to publish this today.

I don't want a comfortable Christian life.

I've done that, a comfortable Christian life.  I believe in Jesus.  I have accepted salvation.  I have served my church in ministry capacity.  I am fairly well versed in the Bible, I can have conversations about my beliefs.  I have the appearance of someone who has it together.  I had a comfortable Christian life, and I walked away from it because it wasn't enough.

When life got hard, as it does, it was easy to walk away from the church, easy to figure out my own way of doing it, of living life.  I had this. I made choices, went by my feelings, I could use my intuition to make a fairly comfortable life.  It was a good life.  I was a good person.

Then my world fell apart, and all of this self-constructed life imploded.  It was just over a year from that point that I returned to my faith.  Something changed in me.

I'd lived this safe comfortable, happy Christian life.  I knew it was not enough.  I grew up in the church, I knew how to behave, how to appear.  I knew the rules of that life and I knew it wasn't enough because as much as it had changed my heart and had granted me salvation, my life really had not changed.

I determined last Fall that I didn't ever want to get comfortable in my Christianity, that I always wanted to ache and be aware of the depth of salvation.  I would express this desire and very few people understood what I was trying to say, I don't even know if *I* understood what was in my heart.  I'm not sure if I understand it now.  But it's been burning in me for a year, and like an infected pimple I cannot stop scratching at it and picking it.

Today was reading in this in a book called, "Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God And My Soul", and here is a short excerpt that really impacted me:

"I remember the first time it occurred to me that my life looked more like the lives of the people Jesus rebuked than the people Jesus drew near to.  I was reading his words to the religious in Matthew, "So you outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (23:28).
  
Ugh.  I felt that way.  I knew deep down I was screwed up.  I also knew nobody really knew it, and I liked it that way.  I did not want to be facedown in the sand like all the sinners Jesus healed.  I wanted to stay bright and shiny and good, and comfortably on my feet.  Yet when I read the words of Christ, I felt this call.  A call to fall on my face.

It physically hurts to see our pride, to see our sin, to quit playing good, to feel broken and to need God. And it hurts even more to let others see it.  So we run from falling; we choose large fig leaves to cover up with and not God.  We run from that vulnerable feeling that we may not measure up, all while aching to measure up.

Throughout the history of humanity, this has been how we engage God.  First we ask, is he real?  And second, do we really need him?

What if the thing we are trying to impress him with was the very thing keeping us from him?"

I'm rocked to my heels.  I need this.  I want God to get ahold of me and shake me to my core.  I want to be His girl, the one He uses... in whatever small or large way He has.  I don't want to need this, but I do.  I'm scared.  If I really trust God with my life, if I really let Him have control of it?  What will He ask of me?  What will I lose out on?  What is in store?  Because I DO want to have a comfortable life. I DO want to be cherished and have a happy and simple existence, I do.  I do, I do, I do.

But what I have with God right now is not enough, and I feel drawn to let go and to trust God and say, "Yes" to His call.  I want a reckless faith that says yes.

I have no idea what is in store, perhaps it is a 'normal' and comfortable life.  I have no idea.  But the thing in the depth of my heart wants more of God and less of me (and I absolutely understand how holier-than-thou and churchy this all must sound).  I'm asking for prayer for this journey.  I welcome any companions on this journey, but I can't tell you how it's going to turn out.  I guess I just have this faith that God is going to meet me, and I pray He does.  I know He promises to do that over and over.

So, here I am and the prayer in my heart is, "Oh God of second chances and new beginnings, Here I Am, again today.  I will do anything.  Anything."  

I find myself

I find myself aching again.

In light of Robin Williams' suicide yesterday, I find myself aching for a man I didn't know aside from a very public persona and for the man I knew so very intimately and couldn't save.

(As as aside, I know it wasn't my job to save him, but the thought remains none the less.)

I find myself aching for those of us who have lost loved ones to the heartache of suicide.

I see people talking about suicide as the ultimate selfish act and I just want to throttle them.  Actually, throttle is a kind word for what I'd like to do, but I digress.  I see these people who speak as Christians, use their faith as a weapon of shame and cutting, elevating their opinion, airing their self-righteousness and I ache for the people who they hurt - intentionally or not.  I'd really like to think that they are just so entirely self-focused that they can't imagine how their words might land on someone who struggles.

Then I see other writers, who speak as seekers of Jesus.  Writers who's voices I identify with - not knowing but seeking, who encourage people to get help - and suggest that help beyond prayer might be needed, and I am thankful.  Writers who offer understanding and honesty, salve to the wounds of the disheartened and I too, am encouraged.

I don't have the answers.  If you are hurting and aching, please reach out.  Know that there IS help, seek it.  Take the help and find peace.

In which I remind myself...

The following verse has been a favorite of mine for the last six months:

Jeremiah 29:11 - 13 (New International Version)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

I love the first bit, and for the longest time, that's as far as I read or referred.  God had a plan and it was to prosper and not to harm me.  That was what I clung to after David's suicide, when I questioned why would God put me in this situation, why would God make me go through these horrible feelings.  It's a scripture that my dear little sister gave to me - the reference is tattooed on her wrist - and I clung to it for over a year.

That scripture helped me breathe when I thought my heart would come out of my body, on the weekend that I was so grief stricken and stressed out that I thought I was having a heart attack, went to the E.R. and was told my pressure was something like 210/150 and I was given nitroglycerin.  (I wasn't having a heart attack, I was having a panic attack because of not sleeping and not eating for days - my pressure is fine now, this was two years ago - in the event that the above has raised your own blood pressure.)  I was still so angry at God, I couldn't really acknowledge my need of him yet, but somehow his having a plan helped me out.

It wasn't for over a year that I was trying to find scriptures to write down and remind myself of how far I'd come that I looked that verse up in my Bible.  At the time, I was just starting to really seek a deeper, connected relationship with God.  I knew that my simple salvation was not enough.  I knew that God was calling me to a deeper relationship with him.  

I had no idea what that meant, nor what I was in for.

It was about this time that I met Joan.  We were the 'snark sisters' at the Women's Bible Study at church.  Maybe we weren't really snarky, but somehow we questioned the same things, our viewpoints were similar.  She (blessedly) wasn't a 'church lady', and despite our difference in age, she was hip to me being my messy, authentic, searching self.  She wasn't even offended when I slipped up and used 'language'.  Because Joan just saw me as a like-minded seeker of Jesus, she just accepted me though that is her character and nature to love and accept people - and I am SURE she prayed a lot for me.  (Hello, rabbit trail)

I started going through what Joan described as a desert experience.  She talked about her own, and it seemed to me to be that place that matures our faith from needing spiritual milk to spiritual meat (1 Peter 2:2-3 Like newborn babies, crave spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.).  

For me, the milk phase was short.  The phase where salvation seemed to be enough lasted for about four months.  I was seeking forgiveness for years of having run away from my relationship with God.  It wasn't till I was seeking God for a relationship that I realized that I wasn't nearly prepared because I didn't have much to give.  Therein entered the desert.

Ah, the desert of one's faith.  Joan said that I would look back on that (this) difficult time with fondness, and I did (do).  When it started and every time I entered church I would cry, because I was so moved.  I was SO challenged to give God more of the stuff I held onto, so challenged to be obedient to submit to his will, so broken and in need of him (and willingly having submitted to this deeper challenge).  I cried so often that people at church didn't even give me a second glance.  I wish I were kidding, but Joan used to tease me that people might be concerned if I ever made it through a service without crying!

Anyway, I started feeling like I would never get to that point of spiritual health that I wasn't always aching in my bones to be near to God*.  To comfort myself I started seeking scriptures about God redeeming people.  Mostly, it was about God redeeming Israel/the Jews.  (Do you know how often God does that?  Seriously, it's amazing how many times Israel/the Jews run from God.  It started to give me hope that I was not SO messed up and broken that God wouldn't do just about anything to draw me back to him.)  I read a lot of Isaiah, Jeremiah.  I was comforted with the story of Peter's betrayal of Jesus before his death and then Peter's restoration after the resurrection.  I was blessed by Joan's Bible study of the book of Nehemiah - the rebuilding of Jerusalem.  

But the scripture that encouraged me the most was Jeremiah 29:11 - 13  God having plans for me gave me peace, but what excited me the most was the statement in verses 12 - 13: "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

I could believe easily that God had plans for a hope and a future, but that I could call on God, I could come and pray to him... and he would listen.  My friends,  HE PROMISED TO LISTEN!  He said I would find him when I sought him with all of my heart.  I WOULD find him.  I don't know about you, but some days I feel like I am praying to the ceiling (or in my case, literally a computer screen, as I tend to write out my prayers).  And I know what the problem is... the problem is that bit at the end of that verse: all my heart.

That's when I sigh, and let go of my pride, and open myself up and am honest about where my heart hurts and what's going on.  When my whole heart is involved, he lets me find him.  Him who my heart so desperately wants, allows me to find him.  A Most Holy God allows this human; flawed, broken, sinful, messed up human to know him.

Dearest friend, he wants to you to know him like that too.

*Adding this:  I still ache to be nearer and nearer to God, but many of the impediments are cleared and it doesn't feel horrible. 

Falling in Love, Part 2...

I nearly wrote this as my Facebook status tonight:

If I had known the Jesus I know now, I don't think I would have fallen away for 15 years.  If I had fallen in love with Jesus the way I am now, how different life would have been.

The truth is, I don't know that for sure.  Of course I don't know that for sure.  Of course, no one knows where they would be or who they would be based on the choices they make.  That's my disclaimer, and not at all the point of this post.

The point of this post is this:  Why didn't I meet that Jesus when I was young?

I've been reading a few different blogs and bloggers.  This week Micah Murray talked about being enough for God (here: http://redemptionpictures.com/2014/05/13/dear-god-am-i-good-enough-for-you-yet/ ) and the post resonated with me.

There are so many things that I thought were required from me as a Christian and I think that getting away from the 'ought to' of Christianity was helpful.  I'm not recommending that path to anyone however.  I'm just looking at it from the perspective that God did work that distance out for my good.

Last Autumn, after having my too tender heart hurt by someone who presented himself with an interest in me, I prayed to have the experience of falling in love with Jesus.  The experience of being so enamored of him, of who he is, that my heart was satisfied.

In a conversation/prayer about something unrelated today, I realized that I was talking to God as a best friend, as someone I loved and trusted implicitly - and I don't know how this changed.  Time?  Exposure? Desire?  Prayer?  Reading the Bible?  All of it together, probably.

But I wish I had found this Jesus.  I wish this Jesus was the one who had been shown to me... where it wasn't obligation that drove the relationship, but that relationship and the obsession of knowing someone you are fascinated by drives the desire to read the Bible, to pray, to change, to know more, to have more depth.

How do I convey that?  How is that passion taught to others?  I don't want anyone to be stuck in legalism of the should do and ought to...

In Need of Help...

Here I am again.

Dear Lord, I am such a mess.

Help.

Countless days after countless days after countless days my prayers start like this.  I don't know what I am doing.  I am lost, and broken, and messy.  I am frustrated, and alone, and hurting.  I am not enough and I will never, ever be enough.  I need your help again, God.  I need... what ever you have for me today.

Why do I think that I can do it on my own?  Why have I bought the bill of goods that Bible teachers have told me since I was small that relationship with you, God, makes everything ok?  Why do I think that if I have salvation, life will be easier?  Why do I think I won't struggle with pain or suffer loss because of my relationship with you?  Why DON'T you make everything in my life better like a magic pill or an incantation of some kind that gives me all of what I want and none of what I don't?

Why am I still alone?  Why haven't you brought someone to love me, someone for me to love?

Why do I feel messy inside?  Aren't you supposed to bring peace to me all the time?  Aren't I supposed to feel ok?  Isn't my life supposed to be better?

I just want to not hurt.  I just want to feel important again.  I want to be held and cherished - to hold and to cherish too.

Fix my life... fix my life so I don't need to cling desperately for you for every breath.

Sigh... that's the point though, isn't it?  I need to cling to you desperately for every breath.  The reason you've not miraculously fixed my circumstance is because you want relationship with me.  The reason... my life is messy, that I am messy is so I am aware of how much I need you.

Reading in Nehemiah 9 today.  The Israelites repent, turn to you, get comfortable in themselves and think they've got this, and turn away.... again and again.  And I do the same.

I don't WANT to be in a desperate place of need of you.  It's not comfortable for me.  I am self sufficient.  I can do it my way.  Things go well that way for awhile and then I realize that it's not going so well, or something happens that hurts me deeply and to the quick.

I turn to the things that I have found that can bring me comfort, or distraction, a temporary peace.  Then I realize that those things aren't working and so I run away from them and I am angry at you for not taking that distraction from me so that I don't feel the pain of what I am running from.  That anger puts a barrier in front of us again too. Oh, this cycle.

When will I realize that I just need to need you every day, God?  When will relationship with you be my habitat, my solace, my comfort?

When will I remember that even though I go through things, when things are hard, when I am stuck, you turn those circumstances into good things for me, or for others - even when I can't see it in the moment.  Help me to see?

I believe.  Help my unbelief.