The Hard Road

The Hard Road

It Is Time To Go

I can see Him standing there in my mind’s eye.  Arm outstretched, the wounds left by His earthly life still visible.  

“Baby, it is time to go.” He informs me.

“I don’t want to.” I say, shaking my head and letting my fear speak.  The road He is standing on is a hard one.  It isn’t going to be an easy walk and I fear that I won’t make it through the difficult spaces.  It is dark and all I can see is what is right before me, the rest is pitch black with only a promise that daylight will meet us at the end of it.  Until then only where we are standing will be illuminated.

He looks down at the ground for a moment before He looks me in the eyes, His hand still reaching for me. I can see the water welling up around His deep brown eyes that search me.  

“Baby, you know I walked a hard road once, too.  I would never ask you to go where I haven’t already been.  Take ahold of my hand.  I will lead the way and when the darkness before you gets too overwhelming just look up at Me.”

I begin to cry.

“But that road, it scares me.  Can’t we go another way?  Can’t we go around it to get to the light?  I have worked very hard to forget what happened on that road.  I want to leave it behind me, not walk back through it.”

He reaches up and wipes away my tears, catching them with the sleeve of His garment.

“No, Baby, the only way to get to the light at the end is to go back down the road that brought you to here.”

“But you told me to leave the old way behind, not to walk back through it. I don’t understand why you are asking me to travel such a difficult road.  Especially when everyone else says to leave it in the past.”

He cups my chin and stoops down to meet me face to face.  

“You and they have mis-understood.  I said for you to leave all of the things that you picked up along this road behind.  I need you to set down your mortar and your bricks, the ones that you have gathered up to build all of your walls. Those need to stay here.  And all that luggage that you have acquired along the way filled with the things you clothe yourself in such as despair, doubt, hurt, anger, and fear.  Those are the things that we will shed together as we walk, so that I can clothe you in strength , trust, joy, and courage.  If we bypass this road you will bring all of that with you and you will never make it to the path that is meant for you.”

I sniffle and let His words sink in.

“I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.” I grumble with a loud sniff.

He chuckles as he stands back up.

“No, I don’t expect that you do, but when we come to the end of this road and you start on your new path you will be glad that you walked this hard road with me. I promise.”

“My stomach is shaking.” I say as I grab His hand.

“I know, Baby.  I know.”

I hear Him humming softly the song He has often sung over me as we take the first steps.  Though hesitant I squeeze His hand and lean into His strong yet gentle arm and hum along with Him.

Five Minute Friday: Still

*I never time myself for five minute Fridays.  I let the word lead me for however long it leads.*

I find that even with all the strides I have taken this year and how far I have come from where I was I am STILL me.  I STILL have the same under lying issues that I have always had.  I STILL struggle.

Some days, months, seasons even I struggle more than others.  This is that season.  The season when I have to push down even harder on all the things that try and push their way out of me.  All the unknown memories that tease me from the shadows.  The little girl trying to be heard, seen, remembered from behind her prison.  The little girl that has me clinging tight to a teddy bear at night.  

I push down hard on what is pushing up and burrow deeper into blankets and solitude.  Shutting myself off even when surrounded by people.  Closing in.  Walling off.

And the anger is there.  Anger at me. Anger at them (whoever the them is who feels too close to my walls, or let me down, or who makes for a good distraction from all the pushing that is going on inside.)  I don't lash out at most of them I just let it all reverberate inside of me.  Most of the time because I know the anger is petty and more of a me issue than a them issue.  

I STILL do all of this, but I am getting better at knowing and recognizing it.  Seeing it for what it is and acknowledging it.  I am also better at not completely hiding away from the world.  I am planning, and hosting, and not shaming myself for the internal pushing. 

I am working on showing up even when I want to hide away.  I am giving myself grace for when I can't force myself to show up.  I am working on giving others grace for their lack of understanding, and grace for the fact that some things could solely be my perception and not the reality.

I am STILL a work in progress.  Still working, still progressing.  

Still hurting, still wounded, still healing, still learning.

"Be still and know that I am God"

Psalm 46:10

I will sit in stillness and also IN my "STILL-ness" and know that God is God.  He has me in all of my stillness, no matter which meaning of still that I mean.  And I will let Him reign over it all.

A prayer for all the "Mercy's" in the world

A few months ago I wrote a brief glimpse into the story of a girl I named Mercy.  This Mercy girl flits in and out of my heart often.  I don't know the rest of her story yet, but I know that there are lots of girls like her out there and so this prayer is for them, for all the "Mercy's" of this world.  The story I wrote will follow the prayer, will you please join me in praying for Mercy.

*****Lord , I pray for all of the "Mercy's" in this world.  I pray for the all the pain and hurt that runs deep through their veins each and every day.  Lord, show them the mercy that they cannot find in themselves or their world.  Send them hearts that will listen and understand.  Show them that they are not alone and that the anger and sadness is not who they are, show them that they are more.  Give them the strength to speak the hurts instead of acting them out, give them people to speak these truths to who are compassionate, people who can see past the bruises and into their hearts.  Most of all Lord, I just pray that they find you.*****

Mercy

She sat in the bay window, her knees pulled tight to her chest.  She was clothed in all gray: light gray stretch pants, long and loose cable net sweater, and socks that scrunched up around her ankles.  Her attire matched the color of the sky outside.  She hugged her knees closer and rested her chin upon them.  She watched as raindrops zig-zagged their way down the window.

A man's voice spoke from behind her, drawing her back into the present and out of the watery world before her.  She didn't want reality, she wanted to wash away like those raindrops.

He called to her again.  "Mercy.  Mercy.  Can you hear me?"

Her name was Mercy and the irony of her own name and his question did not escape her.

As she slowly turned to face the voice her own mind asked the same question, "Mercy, can you hear me?  Mercy.  Mercy?" , but she wasn't speaking to herself.

She raised her eyes only long enough to glimpse today's intruder.

He sat in the only chair in the room; legs crossed, a notebook and pen poised and at the ready.  He was younger than most.  Her eyes caught his for only a second, but that was a second too long.  It was too much exposure and she turned again to face the window.    The rain was still dripping but the spell was broken, reality glaring hard about her.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"I want you to tell me why you are here."

"You know why I am here."  She wasn't going to make this easy on him.  She never made it easy for anyone.

"I want to hear it in your own words."

"I am here because life sucks, the world is scary, the fear and the anger tear at me all day long and I can't take it.  I have no where to release it all and so I tear at myself, because I am the one I am most angry at."

But none of that came out.  She just sat in silence and instead pulled a sleeve up over her arm showing him it, because that arm spoke louder and bolder than any words ever could have.

He was fairly new at this job.  He had seen other arms, other patients, but none like this.  He worked hard to cover his shock at the depth of pain revealed in this showing of skin.  He didn't know how she was able to touch it.  The skin was a dark purple, all of it and swollen.  Deep scratches and scabs broke through the purple in telling lines.

"Why?" It was all he could muster and he wasn't sure if he said it with the professional flatness he had been taught to use.

He hadn't.  The concern seeped through the question.  Her ears perked, because she heard it, the concern.  "He really is new," she thought, "or is it that he really might care?"  Either way, the slip of his heart dropped her guard enough that she allowed words to slip out.  "It is who I am.  That is me inside and I wear it out.  I wear my insides out and no one likes that, so that is why I am here.  I am here because I show my honesty and it is too honest."  Her hand pulled her sleeve back down over her hurts and anger.  That was the most anyone had gotten out of her in a long time.  This speaking honesty instead of acting it out was tiring and frightening.  She slipped from the window and moved to her bed.  Climbing inside she turned away from him and pulled the covers up close around her.  "Can we be done now?"

"Okay, but I will be back soon.  Thank you for showing me."

My heart doesn't operate in the scientific: Bucking against the fence posts

*This is the second installation of this series.  My heart Part one.

I am going to travel backwards for a moment.  To share with you something I wrote but never posted.  This was written after I had gone in for my neck issues, but prior to getting any kind of diagnosis.

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11/19/13

Our Pastors have been preaching a lot on healing.

A lot.

Our once a month Sunday night service was all about healing last night.

I went to church wanting to hide in a corner.  I was contemplating where would be the best "hiding" spot in the sanctuary where I would be the least visible.  I felt like a caged animal being poked with sticks.  Honestly, I didn't even really want to go in.  I thought about just sitting in my van for the whole service. ( I go on my own when we have Sunday night services).

I made myself go in though.  And I made myself sit in my normal spot;  middle section, second row back, second seat in from the right.  I was freezing, so I wrapped my grandpa sweater around me tight and kept my arms folded tight to my chest.  I probably looked pretty frangry (freezing and angry).

Before we started singing the pastor talked about how he really felt that Jesus was going to heal people and that if we needed a healing to be sure and ask for it.  He also said that wherever we were that we needed to meet with Jesus.  If that meant dancing, dance.  If it meant crying, cry.  If it meant laying face down on the floor in prayer, then lay down.

So I stood there being frangry.  I told Jesus, "I am here and I am really angry.  And Lord, no one had better come and try and heal me tonight, because I don't want it."

I realized that this is an odd thing to tell the Lord, especially for someone who has said she is on a healing road.  So I explained to the Lord and to myself, mostly to myself, because Jesus, He already knows what I mean and who I am.

"God, I don't want you to heal me before they find out what it is.  I want to be able to say 'SEE, SEE, that is what has been causing the hurts, that is what is causing the pain!  I am NOT making it up, it is real and it is THERE!'"  And I had an instantaneous image.  In my mind I was holding up a blackened slimy blob in one hand and the cause of the physical hurts in the other and I realized that for both my physical and emotional hurts and pains that I wanted to be able to pinpoint, name, and see that there was a cause, a reason for them.  A tangible thing to hold and to say, "See this thing, it is real, it is REAL!  This has been the cause and I am not defective.  I am really okay and this whole time this slimy black blob has been to blame for the emotional and the medical whatever it is for the *physical.*"  If healing comes before I can root that out then I will always feel defective.  I will always feel as though God merely healed me from my own overwhelming defectiveness.

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Now go from here to Encounter weekend that first weekend of February.  When I came home I wrote my feelings from the weekend out in my journal.  This is what I had to say about part of the weekend.

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I drew this and wrote out these scriptures
after writing out my letter.

Friday night I had felt like a caged animal.  The very first assignment was to write a love letter to Jesus of all things.  

Hello!  Can we just jump into my intimacy issues right off the bat?  Yeah, great.  I told him I wanted to be the wild horse bucking against the fence posts, wanting the security of the fence, but the freedom to still buck.  I told him that I did not want to be close to Him.  He understood the why's.  I didn't have to state them out.  I told him that I could never buck like the wild horse though, because I had already been broken and told that any wild left in me was bad.  It wasn't much of a love letter, but it was my heart at the moment.

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I didn't even really know where those feelings were coming from as I wrote them, they were just there.  I still don't fully understand that wild horse analogy that I was feeling.  I have an inkling that it has something to do with memories that had yet to come out, and those that still have yet to come.  

I finished up the events of the weekend by saying, "I feel war torn and battered.  I don't feel abandoned, but maybe a bit betrayed.  Morning came and joy wasn't waiting."

I have  spoken  of how I went and saw my pastor after this weekend happened.  I didn't speak about what he said to me during that meeting.  (This is the man whose ear is so close to God's lips that I can see the whispers of His voice reflected in his eyes.  As with anyone I don't just blindly follow, but because of how this man lives his life and who he is, because of who God is, I have learned to listen.)  This man told me at our meeting that I just needed to take time and give everything to God, sit down and have it out with Him.  He said that God had a healing for me.  He told me that he could see me with a smile so big and my heart so free and filled with so much joy that my kids and husband would not recognize me, because I would be different than who they had always known.  I would be/feel light.  He told me that I would be the catalyst to move my family into great things.  He also told me that it was no small wonder that I was here in this place (literal location) that God had purposed to put me here for this very reason. He warned that I should not take that lightly and that opportunities like this one don't last forever.  

I was incredibly discouraged when I left, because didn't he know that I did not know HOW to do those things?  I hoped for his vision of my future, but I saw no way that it was going to happen.  Joy? JOY?! Beaming, BEAMING, out of me?!?  Doesn't he know that I am  the girl who doesn't know joy?  He might as well have asked the lame to walk, the blind to see, or the captives to go free.  And now that I write that out, that is exactly what he was asking. Only I felt as though he were asking me to figure out how to go about doing that.  But it was never the lame, the blind, or the captives who saved themselves was it?

(to be cont.) 

*I have been told that this cancer is most likely not the cause of the previous physical ailments and that they are probably not related to one another.
**linking up with faith barista/white space even though the prompt is Easter and I don't speak to that directly this is the story in continuation of my personal Easter story of stones being rolled away.

I will make you beautiful; the makings of a masterpiece

If Jesus told you a love story what would He say? What would you want Him to say?

I was tasked with writing a love letter to Jesus this weekend. I found that really hard. Probably harder than it should have been. In fact this last weekend was just hard in general. I have been struggling since. I asked to see one of our Pastors today because I was struggling living in the hard of it all. I think I went there looking for a hero to save me from my hard. Of course I didn't find one. I left wondering what I had been expecting to happen at that meeting. It wasn't a bad meeting, please don't get me wrong, it just wasn't the "rescue" I was looking for. Since I left I have been asking myself what it is I think I need, what is it I am wanting to hear?

I was reading some blogs that were linked up with my last post. I noticed that quite a few of them had parts of their blogs where they wrote as if Jesus was speaking to them, to their hearts. It made me wonder, what is it that Jesus would say to me.  Obviously these words are my own, but I have no doubt that He was the one writing them on my heart.

*I am lying under the covers, surrounded by blankets and pillows; it is my own downy fortress of protection. Jesus comes and sits next to me. I turn away from Him and curl into myself. He just scoots closer and rubs the hair away from my forehead as He speaks in a soft whisper*

I know you are mad at me. I know how people have suggested that when you remember your hurts happening that you should envision me there with you and I know how the thought of me standing there watching makes the pain of it even worse. You want to know how I could just stand there and watch and not stop it.

I know that part of you thinks that because I didn't stop it that I created you for this, but I didn't. I didn't create you to be a rag to mop up man's desires, nor did I create you to be invisible and broken. I created you to be beautiful, a masterpiece. Man tried to destroy my handiwork, but baby what he doesn't know and what you have forgotten is that I am taking those pieces and I am going to make the most beautiful stained glass work of art you have ever seen. It feels slow and those shards feel sharp, but that is because I am taking my time to fit all the pieces in just right. You are going to be the sparkliest stained glass this world has ever seen and art like that is worth waiting for.

*He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and leans in close*

I know you are frustrated and scared. I know this weekend brought up hurts you thought had finished hurting. I also know it brought up much fear, because it loosed up hazy realizations of memories you don't want to remember, things you don't want to know. You are so afraid of finding out what has been hiding behind that door with all its scratching noises, but I am bigger than that door, baby, and anything that lies behind it.

You curse your mind for all the barriers and safeguards it has put in place over the years. Don't curse them. They have kept you going until you were ready to break them down and until I could bring you the people to help you do it, but your going to have to learn to let them in. Let Me in.

You fear it will prove too risky and that they will just let you down, leave you hurting, leave you tending to tender wounds all on your own. Trust in my timing, trust in My people. I am putting you in their hands because I know that they won't let you fall. Allow them to hold you. Tell them what it is you need.

I made you a promise 13 years ago that your heart would be healed here in Groton and I moved heaven and earth to get you back here for your healing, so please don't let fear stop you from getting it. Tell my people what it is you need, I will help them to listen.

It is okay to be weak small one. It is okay to be vulnerable. You have tried to be strong all on your own for far too long.

*He takes my hand and I pull it up to my heart as He sings soft and low the words

Beautiful, Beautiful I made you beautiful and I will make beautiful things of your life.

Carefully touching you, causing your eyes to see, yes I will make beautiful things of your life.*

Trust me dear heart, trust me.

An open letter to pastors

I wrote this letter to my new pastor.  Really it could have probably been written to any pastor anywhere about the deafening silence coming from the pulpit about sexual abuse and how it has a huge voice that needs listening to in discussions of sexual purity.

July 1, 2013

Dear Pastor .......,

                I sat through service yesterday and listened to you talk on purity.  At one point the room went hazy and it became hard for me to see, so I knew it was something I probably really needed to hear.  But the more I heard the angrier I became.  Angry, because for every time I have ever heard a sermon preached on purity not a single pastor, not one, has ever touched on the sexual sins that adults commit on children and how those sins fundamentally change those children.  Not one!  And so I wanted to stand up and point my finger and shout out:  “Okay, OKAY!  I HEAR what you are saying, but what about us?!  What about those of us who were used as others sexual dishrags before we had any say in the matter, or when we were in that in between stage of child and teenager and we were so confused by what happened and our reaction to it that we felt somehow to blame for it?  What about those of us who grew up thinking that our purpose in life, or worth, was nothing more than that dishrag we were used as, maybe even made to be?  You tell us to be pure, to control ourselves, but you never once touch on how to do that when someone else’s actions fundamentally has changed everything about whom God created us to be. It changes who we are, how we see ourselves, how we see the world around us. Pastors love to speak on how sex is a gift.  I have never known it that way, so I understood when you spoke of the man who asked for his sexual drive to be taken away.  To me sex is more like a poison.  It isn’t intimate, it isn’t holy, and it certainly has never felt like a gift.  It is and always has been a thorn: a deep piercing, infection producing thorn, so how about we as a church discuss that sometime.  Because I know that I am probably not the only one.  I am guessing that just about 75% of any congregation at any given time has been or will be sexually abused, maybe even more.  So where are the sermons on that?  Where are the sermons telling the adults to stop using children as rags for their desires?  Where are the sermons talking to those raggedy children turned adults addressing their shame, their guilt, because they had desires from the time that they could remember that the church says is impure and wrong.  Where are the sermons that will stop making them feel shamed and guilty and start helping them figure out how to change those desires, because shame and guilt sure aren’t getting the job done.  Where are the sermons that discuss how to move sex from the shame/guilt/ poisonous thorn in my side box to the intimacy gift box, because boy I would sure like to know how to do that?!  Are pastors afraid to discuss this?  They aren’t afraid to talk about homosexuality, adultery, pornography, etc., but I am pretty certain that in a large number of these issues if you did a little digging that you would find that the root of many of these sexual sins would be childhood sexual abuse.  So yes, I am pointing my finger, yes I am angry, because why don’t we as a church, as a people address the root of the weed instead of just pulling at what we see coming out of the ground.” 

Please understand that I am not really angry with you.  I am angry with the situation, the silence, the deafening silence from the church when it comes to sexual abuse.  Do people think it doesn’t happen in churches?  That Christians are immune from this plague?  Are pastors afraid to offend the abusers or is it just nicer in general to pretend they aren’t there?  Because trust me they are there, in your congregations, sitting in your pews, invisible, but there and so are we… the sopping wet or crusted over stained and used dishrags. 

Sincerely,

Karmen Madan

The trouble with being "amazing"

The trouble with being "amazing" is that I am not.  I am not amazing. 

I should back up a bit and explain what I mean.  I often hear from people that because I have seven kids I am "amazing".  They don't know how I do it.  They tell me how they would go crazy and how they can barely cope with __ (insert # of children here).  I usually smile and fumble around trying to find the appropriate way to respond to that kind of, oh praise I guess I will call it.  Inside, I cringe and think "if only they knew!". 

"Amazing" is definitely not a word that I would ever use to describe myself.  I know that when it is said that those saying it mean it from a good place.  They don't realize how that word resonates inside of me.  I feel as though I am viewed and placed on such a high platform and who I am and how my life really looks is such a sham in comparisons.  It makes me angry.  Not at them, but at me, because I don't measure up.  I don't measure up and somehow I feel as though I should. 

My house is often in varrying stages of chaos.  Most days if you came over you would be lucky to find a place to sit.  Piles of laundry, toys, and mail seem to spread everywhere. In the kitchen the sink is more likely than not to be full of dishes from last night's dinner, the floor will be in need of a sweeping, and the garbage might be close to over flowing.  My 2 year old will probably be running around in his underwear and the dog is bound to smell.  None of which would bring the word "amazing" to mind.

As a Mom, I think I am pretty mediocre at best.  I disappoint my children daily.  There never seems to be enough of me to satisfy them.  I am terrible at making sure their school work is organized, finished, and turned in.  In the homework realm I am pretty sure I get a failing grade.  Their fingernails get long and dirty before I realize it and get them cut.   I yell when I should be listening.  I am impatient.  I get frustrated quickly.  I am not saying a am a horrible Mom.  My kids are clean, usually, well fed and for the most part happy little people.  I just don't see the word "amazing" fitting into my Mom description.


As a wife, hmmm, you would have to ask my husband.  I don't know if I would marry me or not.

As a person, this is where I struggle with that word the most.  "Amazing."  My insides are messy. I am not quite ready to share that messiness with you.  If you have seen the show Hoarders, that is how I could best describe me.  Internally, I hold onto it all.  I have piles and piles of "stuff" everywhere and I am trying to process it. So, that is where I am.  Processing.  I am processing and being very un-amazing in my doing it.
I am far from where I feel the world views me and far from where I want to be and that is the trouble with being "amazing", because I am not and it makes me angry.