Ellie's Hotel and the Catapult

Ellie (aka Rachel) opened up her garage top hotel for business today. Her first two customers had lots of pets join them. She even has service for Jack, the wonderdog -- with two different types of water. I don't understand that, but I guess I don't have to!

Meanwhile, up on the deck on the other side of the yard, Jonathan is building a catapult. It seems to be aimed directly at Ellie's hotel, which concerns me just a bit. There could be a war in a few hours. I might just have to distract them with a meal of peace.

Watching my kids play this summer seems to be more of a joy than it ever has before. Our little family has been through a lot, and my kids have seen and heard more than kids really should. It is such a gift of God's grace to me to be able to watch my kids just be kids. They are playing and creating today to their hearts' content and it is a thing of great beauty to me.

Sure, they are real kids who say "Mom, I'm bored," a little too often and they can be really mean to each other. But they are miracles to me, each and every one of them. They have saved my life, more than once. I am beyond blessed to be able to do life with them.

Pause for a Thunderstorm

As I've looked over my postings for the last few days, I've realized that there is an intensity about them that requires a little break -- both for me and you, my dear readers. So here it is . . . with of course a connection to grace and identity at the end, because I wouldn't be me without that!

Early in our marriage, we took an intensive Russian course in South Carolina. I loved my time there, being in the classroom and spending time with others who were suffering through the beginning stages of Russian learning along with me. But my favorite part of the day were the afternoon thunderstorms. I have never since seen so much lightening or heard such loud thunder. We would often sit outside our dorm room and just marvel at the rain and noise.

Yesterday Rachel came home from school with a book of poetry proudly in her hands. I immediately looked for her poem and am now sharing it with you:

BOOM!
A thunderstorm is coming
I'm scared
It's just a storm
We're fine
I'm still scared
Come here
Ok BANG! Flash! Oh no!
It's just rain
See, we're fine
Jack is not scared
Or the cats
I'm still a little scared
Watch some TV
IT WON'T TURN ON
The powers out
Come color with me
Ok. Flash!
Look, a rainbow
It's over
I'm not scared anymore

I'm still marveling at the insight my daughter has. I'm not sure that she even knows what she has written, or the gift she has given her mother in this piece of writing . What do I love about this?

• She has the freedom to say she's scared, even when others might make fun of her
  
• She looks for ways to distract herself, but none of them work -- except being with others
• She is scared at one of those "just a" things . . . don't we all have them? Things we are afraid of, but think we shouldn't be? Something that will be over with soon?
  
• She remains scared, even when others around her tell her that no one else is . . . and she admits it!
  

As I reflect more about this little bit of third grade writing, I am amazed and humbled by her honesty. It is the kind of honesty that I want to have in my own life. Sometimes, when I am afraid, the cliches don't make me feel better -- but in order to make other people feel better, I pretend they do. But not my Rachel. She hasn't learned to do this yet. I pray she never will. I pray that she will be able to walk in the freedom of her true self, and her true identity in Christ. I pray that she will not feel like she has to go into hiding with her family and friends.

I know that God has put these children into my life, another set of miracles, to help me mature. Thanks Papa!

Don't Quote the Bible to Me!

The first time I walked into a 12 Steps Meeting, I felt like I was in a movie. As I said, "Hi, I'm Melissa," and heard in return, "Hello Melissa," I thought I was going to burst out laughing. It was, in part, a nervous laughter, along with a sense of how incredible it was that I had gotten myself to a place such as this.

When I walked into that meeting, I hated God, I hated the Bible, and I hated anyone who offered to pray for or with me. But at the same time, I was drawn to these things that I hated. I wanted so much to find that God really loved me. So here I was, shaking, ready to swear, and listening to people around me telling the world that they were here at this 12 Step Meeting because they wanted to grow in their Spiritual Life. I found out later that some of the people in the room thought I was a piece of work when my answer to the question of my appearance here went along the lines of, "I don't really know, but I have been spiritually abused and please don't give me any Bible verses." Yeah, I think they were probably thinking I was in the wrong place, too.

How had I gotten here? Well it wasn't an addiction to alcohol or drugs, but rather an addiciton to many other things, including over thinking and loving people to their detriment. In short, I was here because my life was out of control. In the years between kicking out my husband and discovering my son had cancer, my son had gotten better, my husband moved back in, I finished my Master's Degree, I had my dream job, and I had run three Ironman Triathlons. And I had never been more UNHAPPY. Depressed. Anxious. Angry. Scared. Full of Rage. My emotions were coming out all over the place and I was a complete wreck. There was one episode where I broke down in Cub Foods, yelling at my husband for who knows what minor infraction (I couldn't shop there for months). After years of coping fairly well, I was again thinking about suicide all the time. So, I went to the meeting suggested by my therapist.

It was with this group of people that I finally found the Room of Grace. It didn't happen right away, but over time I began to trust the people that I was with each week. By sharing their own stories of brokenness I realized that I was not alone. And by crying and laughing with me as I shared my own, these people shared with me a love that I had been craving. I came to find and know God's love through the love of other broken, deeply hurting people. Yeah, we shared some prayers and some Bible verses, too. But mostly it was through the sharing of our hearts that we found healing.

This group was yet another miracle in my life. Through God's gracious gift, I was able to receive their love. It is difficult to receive love because it requires trust and my trust had been broken. But God enabled me to trust, first others and then eventually him. It is only this received love that has the power to change lives.

Miracle Pictures, Part One

This picture is a miracle. Actually it is many miracles, but that is something you would never see unless you knew the rest of the story. Over the next few posts, I'm going to make an attempt at capturing some of the miraculous nature of this family photo. In order to do that, I have to tell some difficult things about myself and my family. This is the first time I've told these things, in this way, so please excuse the rough edges in it. It is, afterall, only a first draft.

After years of submitting to physical and emotional abuse, I finally got up the nerve to admit to myself and another person what was happening in my home. I say myself, because for the first 12 years of my marriage I couldn't bring myself to call it abuse. I think it goes back to early days of our marriage when I did tell someone in our church, who told me what was happening was normal, especially in marriages with a strong unsubmissive woman! I spent the next 12 years trying to be good enough, trying to submit more . . . and failing misrably. I know now that the natural outcome of this kind of life is going to be depression, but when it first hit me I was really scared.

I had been separated from my husband for about a month when I first began to think of myself as unworthy of life. The thought was fleeting, but it came back. And back. And back. The world seemed black, overwhelming -- almost like a prison. I didn't see how I could possibly be a good enough person, a good enough mom to even deserve to live. And so I wanted to die. Really bad. And then the shaking started. I would sit and shake and shake. I couldn't stop. In order to stop the pain, I started hitting and cutting myself. It was amazing how the appearance of a bruise or blood on my skin would allow me such emotional relief.

I finally was convinced to take meds, but they couldn't start working soon enough. I know I wouldn't be alive today without the people who surrounded me, who watched my kids, who talked to me late at night, who told me they loved me.

And then, just one month after the depression hit me head on, Jonathan was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, it felt like God had hit me in the gut. The wind was knocked out of me and I no longer had the energy to even be depressed. Fatalism hit me, along with a deep abiding sense that if God existed at all, he was NOT good.

But in the background, God was working to show me his love. The overwhelming nature of my life hit everyone around me . . . it was clear that a single mom with four children age five and under could NOT do this on her own, and so I no longer could hide. I could be angry; everyone expected it. I could be scared; it was a natural feeling. Food came out of the woodwork. People came to help work in my business. People cleaned my house. They watched my kids. And I was free to be on the LONG journey of healing.

There is more to this story, as I would get much sicker before I got better. But, in retrospect, although it seems sick to say it, Jonathan's cancer was a way of salvation (albeit a strange one), not only for me, but also for my relationship with God and my husband.

Faith is not always smiling

So, it seems that I now am feeling ready to write about some of the dark days of the past few years. When I was in my teens and 20s I never felt anything like depression. I was a rather happy-go-lucky girl, who saw the good in everything (including a very difficult marriage). I assumed, wrongly, that depression and godliness could not co-exist. So I buried the pain and put on lots of smiles. When I couldn't muster a smile, I stayed home. I became a master at hiding -- from my children, my husband, my family, my coworkers. I'm certain, now, that many of them suspected that all was not right with Melissa, but at the time I was convinced that no one knew. I filled my mind with cliches that I didn't believe and spouted them off all the time in the hopes that eventually I would feel the joy that these cliches seemed to promise. What I didn't realize at the time was that by stuffing all the pain associated with abuse I was receiving, I was laying the foundation for a very dark and difficult mental illness.

Over the next few posts I will explore some of my depression history, what I have learned, and how I think God is continuing to redeem those dark days. I will also look at a very painful time, last November, that I call my Dark Night of the Soul.

For today, I want to leave you with a quote from Ed Welsch's book on Depression:

God says that strong faith can coexist with emotional highs, lows, and everything in between. It is a myth that faith is always smiling. The trust is that faith often feelings like the very ordinary process of dragging one foot in front of the other because we are conscious of God.

If your life feels like this today, please know that I KNOW. I have lived like this for months at a time. I will probably feel like this again. The daily slogging of life, against the ordinary difficulties like broken down cars, just barely not enough money, or even the need to take three kids to three different places with only two adults can be overwhelming to the point of tears. Your issues may be huge, like a sick child or parent. You may be grieving the loss of a friend or family member or a job. You may just be sick of the pressures of a job. Or you may have no idea why you feel like crap. Whatever the source of your pain, God is with you in it. Even if you feel like he isn't. Even if you can't believe. He is standing by your side, his arm around you ... whispering in your ear, I love you child. I love you.

And I don't believe for one minute that God is angry with you, he is not displeased at your lack of faith to get over the icky feelings. Faith is not always smiling.

Yet another post on how much we need each other

Today I'll go back to Susan Howatch and her novel The Heart Breaker. This was a book that I didn't expect to relate to for a number of reasons, but by about half way through I was almost completely undone. If you haven't read Susan Howatch's books, don't start with this one, (I'd start with Glittering Imagines), but if you like her writing, eventually you will end up here.

Here she is quoting from Mud and stars: the report of a Working Party on the Impact of Hospice Experience on the Church's Ministry of Healing:

All of us, carers and cared for, are on a journey whose destination we understand only dimly: We know we are searching for something, yet the nature of the thing we seek eludes us. On this strange journey, in this tantalising search, we only feel lonely and bemused, in need of guidance, encouragement, companionship. Not always knowing what we are asking for, we reach for the help of others.

More than once I have been confused about the path God has led me on. The whys overwhelmed me, making it nearly impossible for me to see God. I was lonely beyond belief and I needed a fellow traveller to come alongside of me and help carry my burdens. Today I have a special gratitude for those who have hitched my wagon to theirs and helped pulled me through the deep muddy pits. I'm certain that at times you wanted to push me back into the muds, but you allowed God's love to flow through you anyway.

And by the way, I still need you and others to join you. And I need to be able to love you back. I may not be stuck, but I will always need to give and receive protective love to help me continue to mature. We all really do need each other, despite anything our American culture teaches us.

My Children are Learning to Protect

The dog picture will make sense at the end. Or maybe it won't. Let's just say that Jack riding in the back of the bike trailer was one of many highlights to this glorious day!

My children know me. They know my sin. They know my weakness. For a long time I tried to hide my imperfection from them as I thought that the only hope for my children to be perfect was for me to provide a perfect model for them. Anyone who has tried to do this knows how perfectly exhausting and ineffective it is. All it takes is a jam jar falling out the fridge to allow those carefully hidden words to come flying out. Sometimes it takes even less than that!

So, today comes yet another confession to you , my dear readers. I struggle mightily with the 10th commandment. Yeah, that one about coveting. The problem with this commandment is that it is awfully sneaky. I don't want a lot of things and most of the time am very happy when my friends get great things. I've rejoiced with incredible jobs found and dream vacations for my friends. BUT, there are some day and times when I am so NOT able to do this. I've been in lovely houses owned by lovely people where all I've wanted to do was run out and cry because I wanted what they had so much and knew that I would never have a house like theirs. I've listened to people list accomplishments and not been able to come even close to rejoicing. I have to admit to having some not so nice thoughts at times.

And yes, my kids know about this. I especially struggle with one person in my life who seems to get everything I think I want. We were at the person's house today and he wanted to show us yet another of his toys for their lake cabin. I cringed inside, knowing that looking at this toy would just wreck my day. As we got back into the car, I was ready with all kinds of critical words about this person and his family. I didn't feel at all about talking to God about this . . . to use a quote I wrote in here eariler this week, I was ready to give the devil a nice long ride.

Jonathan, knowing my distress and weakness in this area, spoke first. His words showed an incredible love to me. He said with absolutely no critisim in his voice (I would know if it was there), "Wow Mom . . . It's like they are building an amusement park up north." I started to smile. He went on to describe this amusement park and what it would look like and how much fun it would be to enjoy playing there this summer. By the time he was done, I was laughing as I enjoyed this picture he was creating. His uncritical humor was like a lifeline out of the jealousy and envy that were seeking to drown me in misery.

And as if by unconscious decree, all four children continued to surround me for the rest of the day with an incredible gift. Their presence. Childish. Free. Loving. Gracious. Laughing. We went on a bike ride that was a comedy of errors from start to finish. Starting with bringing Jack the wonderdog who did NOT want to be in the trailer (what were we thinking?) and ending with Jonathan leaving all his tackle alongside the bike trail and not realizing it until we were home (a place for me to show a little protective love of my own!), the day had more than its share of memories. But, we laughed so hard today. It was a Philippians 4:8 kind of day:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

While there were struggles along the way, we all seemed to be able to point ourselves back to living in a place where we could think beautiful things about each other. Our new natures were certainly wooed today. I'm so incredibly blessed to be able to do life with these precious people. I love you Jonathan, Andrew, Caleb, Rachel, and Brit!

Thank you Papa for putting us together in this life.