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.

Learning the art of bravery

What is Bravery?

Bravery can look like a lot of things to a lot of people.

I don't think bravery can be defined the same way for every person.

Brave for me means stepping out of my comfort zone, choosing to ignore the tapes that play in my head, and forging a new path.

This month has been a month of brave for me.

I set off on a faith journey to the distant land of........ O-hi-o. 

I forged new roads, made new tapes, and I met some great people.

Let me take you back a bit to a little over a year ago, because that is where this story of bravery really starts.

As I was reading the comments of a blog I saw my name and thought, "when did I comment on this?"  It was not me though, but another Karmen with a K.  I was thrilled and had to let her know I existed. This was my first step of brave; putting myself out there and introducing myself.

From there we began an online friendship through facebook and our blogs.

The more I learned about her the more I wanted to meet her.

I battled the tapes in my head telling me that I am not worth getting to know and broached the topic of meeting.  She was game, so we made a plan.

At O Dark thirty in the morning, otherwise known as 4 am, on Friday October 3rd I hopped into my husband's truck and started my long drive from CT to Ohio.

Sometimes, you don't even realize that you are being brave.

On the trip out there I was following the gps on my phone.  I had programmed it the night before to avoid tolls as much as possible and also to get me there via the fastest route possible while also avoiding New York.  As I was driving along in the dark through all the construction my gps told me that it had a new route that would get me there 1.5 hours faster.  That is a lot of faster so I pushed the reroute button without a thought.  It wasn't until I was driving through Jersey and the sun was coming up that I realized that I had just driven right smack dab through New York City.  Right smack dab through it! I was brave and survived it without even realizing where I was at the time and that I was even being brave.

Allowing someone else to do the leading let me conquer something that if left to my own devices I never would have thought I could do.  (Bigger life application inserted here.)  I was big and brave and stronger than I thought!  I felt like Super Woman in a white pick up truck.

As the hours and miles went by I would push out the creeping thoughts of "what if she doesn't really want me to be there?" or "what if they think I am weird for coming all this way?"  and would replace them with how I would feel if someone were to think so much of me to do the same.

That is another step of brave, hearing the old tapes, ignoring them, and recording new tapes to replace them and then play those.  And not just play them, but choose to believe them.

When I pulled up she came out and we hugged like old friends and I was welcomed into her home with the ease and comfort of walking into my own.  Her daughters were also wonderful, engaging, and also inviting.

Her sweet dog, Nigel, and I made fast friends. The day I wore capris he couldn't stop licking my legs, I think all the sugar I consume must make me taste extra sweet.  If I could have brought him home with me I would have, he is just the sweetest little guy.  I mean seriously how could you not fall in love with this face?

That night we went to dinner and  I got to meet many of her friends, all of them were just as lovely as they appear to be on her blog.

It was kind of surreal actually.  Imagine one of your favorite books, now imagine getting to step into that world for a weekend and live in it with all of the characters from that book.  That is kind of what it felt like, but not, because, you know, they are all real people.

I loved being allowed into her world, wanted even.  

Although a  part of me wondered if before I had come she was like, "Hey, friends, come have dinner with this lady in case she is a total nut case and I need back up!", but I told myself that it was probably more like, "Oh my gosh the other Karmen is coming and she is so Ah MAy Zing that you must come and dine with her, because it would be selfish to keep this much awesome to myself!"  

I am guessing that the truth actually lies somewhere in the middle of those two.  

The whole weekend felt easy and wonderful.  I felt able to be myself.  Even when being myself included dumping insane amounts of ice all over her kitchen floor, because the ice had not been falling into my water bottle like I had thought and instead was backing up into the chamber from whence it came, so when I pulled my bottle away all the ice fell everywhere.  (If there is a way for me to make a mess and be a klutz at the same time, you can bet I will find it.)  Or the time when I was getting ready in the morning I whacked the towel bar with my arm and sent the rod clanging, LOUDLY to the tile floor.  Myself is a bit loud, and messy, and imperfect and it all felt OKAY.  (Another brave, accepting me as being me and not belittling myself for it.)

When bravery changes your armor.

On Sunday, I went with them to church.  I was new, but I didn't feel it.  Everyone was so welcoming and warm, I was greeted with hugs and smiles.  During the service I felt right at home. That to me is the mark of a good church.  No matter what denomination it is, if it is God loving and Bible preaching the same Spirit should be present within it.  If it is, then it will feel like home, even if the "decor" is slightly different.

By Sunday night it felt as though Karmen and I were old friends.  Chatting freely and deeply.  At one point her husband came into the Kitchen and said that we were in there solving all the worlds problems.  We were.  Get ready world, Karmen and Karmen for President & Vice President 2016!  (okay not really, but we would be awesome!  We could throw the world an awesome party and solve all its issues at the same time. Of course I am too much of a flighty creative to hunker down and get to business, so it is probably better if I just stick to blogging and kitchen table conversations.)

When I came back home my Sister told me I was brave for going.  I was, and I am.  I am brave.

It is an evolving bravery.

It is giving me a new armor.  It is a process of shedding my old armor of walls and fear and replacing it with an acceptance and comfort of who I am.  And with this new armor I am gaining with it an army. An army of people who also accept me and bring me comfort and who are helping me to remove those walls that I hid behind and are inviting me to go with them into this brave new world of freedom to be m.y.s.e.l.f.

My Heart doesn't operate in the scientific: The operating table

This is the third installment of  this series.       My heart Part One     My heart Part Two

"You went in for an operation, but you got up off of the table before it was done."

That is what he had said to me, my pastor, at our meeting.  I wasn't sure I agreed.  If I had gone in for an operation it felt like I had chosen the wrong hospital. That weekend had very definitely left me torn wide open and had left me in need of some sutures at the very least.

I went home and I bled.  I didn't know where to find a doctor to close me up.  I sent a letter to my old counselor in Washington asking for some direction.  I also started looking online for help; reading articles and buying books.  I was desperately trying to find the right sutures to stop the bleeding.

I found this book and ordered it off of Amazon.  When it came I read 100 pages of it that first night.  I was holding in my hands what may as well have been titled "Understanding Karmen", because it was 400 pages of everything I had ever felt, thought, acted on, and didn't feel.  I was not some crazy, bad, mis-created person.  I was a violated person left damaged by the violation.  Everything I think, feel, and don't feel is common!

I always knew that to some extent, but to see it written down in black in white was freeing.  It was like finally having a diagnosis for my emotional ailment.

With the exception of the pre-pubescent abuse that I suffered at the hands of my friends father I never had clear memories of what had happened to me.  I always knew something had happened because of who I was, but without the memories to go along with it part of me felt as though I was making more out of it than needed to be made.

Sometimes, before a wound can be healed you have to open it up and get the infection out.

The weekend retreat had opened up that wound deep, and now that I look back I hadn't gone to the wrong hospital, that weekend was just the first step to prepare me for the surgery that I needed.  The infection had to be removed before the healing could take place.  And that infection continued to ooze out as I have written about in the last two posts.   Oozing validations that something most definitely had happened to me in my childhood that were justifying the diagnosis I held in my hands.

As comforting as that was I was still left bleeding and oozing. The infected memories were frightening and I was not in control of what seeped out of the wound or when.

In His complete mercy, God gave me a name, a diagnosis, for that black slimy blob I was holding in my hand; that cancerous slime called childhood sexual abuse.  But His mercy did not stop there.  He also gave me a diagnosis to hold in my other hand, papillary carcinoma of the thyroid.  It may not be the diagnosis to answer the three+ years of medical mysteries that I have gone through, but it was a validation that listening to my body is important.  (The story of how this diagnosis came about verges on the miraculous, but it will have to wait for another day).  I had decided that my body was just a big fat liar who liked to create pain and mayhem and this diagnosis let me know that at least sometimes my body was telling the truth.

He was answering my angry prayer from the few months before.  He was letting me hold the answers in my hands to show me that when He healed me it would not be from my own overwhelming defectiveness.  He was giving me reasons, tangible ones, and He was continuing to say, "Trust me."

(To be cont.)

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.

They are small, but they are mighty.

Sometimes the steps we take are so small that we don’t even realize we have taken them.

I wrote last about how I was still just standing still, but what I didn’t realize when I wrote that is that although I was indeed standing still at that moment, I was standing in a different place.  I had been moving all along and hadn’t even realized it.  When I wrote of the thorns I was thick inside of them.  I am no longer there.  Was I standing still in that sanctuary?  Yes, I was; but here is the thing I missed, are you ready for it?  I was out of the thorns….I was out of them and IN A SANCTUARY.  I was so focused on the standing that I forgot to look at my surroundings. 

When I was in the thorns I was so stuck because I felt so empty.  I felt like nothing .  I felt like I knew better and I did what was wrong anyways.  I knew God was waiting for me and loving me, but I was too ashamed to accept it.  For a long time, really until just this week, I felt as though my actions made everything that I had said about God and His love hollow and less believable to others.  This week I have been re-reading back through all of those early blogs.  What I am finding is that those early words have not been negated by my actions, but that God is using them, using my own words to remind me of the deep truths of His love.  And here is the really wooooo-eee-oooooohhhhh realization: the whole time I was struggling, the whole time I was writing down those words God knew what was coming.  He already knew the choices I was going to make. He already knew the words I would need to hear again and again to get me out of those thorns and He had me write them.  There is a kind of awe-inspiring peace that comes when you can see His hand throughout it all. 

I wrote very early on in this blog about a Healing Road .  In that particular blog I wrote how some roads are lined with brambles.  At that point in my life I was still on the road and the brambles I got tangled in weren’t even in my line of sight.  When I saw those words as I reread this week it just struck me.  It struck me hard that God knew what was coming even if I didn’t. 

So much is going on in my heart and my mind here.  Everywhere I turn now I see little steps; little heart steps, and life steps, and healing steps.  They are small, but they are mighty. 

If you are struggling to see past your hurts, your choices, your circumstances and you feel like you are stuck standing still let me tell you that I understand.  I see you.  I hear you.  But more importantly God sees you, hears you, understands you and even if they are small, and even if there is months between the stepping trust me when I say that one day you will look around and you too will find that your surroundings have changed.  Just keep breathing my friends and seeking God.  And it is okay if sometimes seeking Him comes in pain soaked sobs.  And it is okay if it comes in the broken sighs where all you can do is just keep taking one breath after another.  The one thing I can tell you, the one thing that I KNOW is that God loves you, friend, and He will stand on that road with you no matter how small the steps you take and no matter how long it takes you to start moving.  Just keep checking your surroundings.

linking up with Five minute Friday for "small" although this took me longer than five minutes to write.
and also linking up with Emily and her imperfect prose community.

 

and also with

An Open Letter to Pastor's Follow up

My sister asked me the other day if I ever got a reply from the email to my pastor. The answer to that is I did. It came just a few days after I sent him the email and it was a good reply. He addressed my points and assured me that he does not shy away from that topic and has addressed it in church before. I am not sure what I was expecting to hear, but his reply was not it. It took me aback a little and left me a bit speechless. It took me about two weeks to write back to him. There is a lot of underlying junk that goes with a letter like that and his response was basically an open door to address some of that junk. I suppose that is what threw me off guard and left me speechless. You get used to hiding junk, or pretending it isn't there, trying to deny the effects of it on you. Having someone ask you how to help clean your junk away kind of stops you in your tracks. Well it does me anyways. 1. Where do I start pulling from? 2. Do I really want to dig that up? 3. What will I do with that freaky empty space where the junk used to sit? and 4. What if I can't really get rid of it, so instead of a freaky empty space I end up with dusted off junk, no longer hidden in a layer of dusty neglect.

It is kind of like the people on Hoarders. Their houses are so stuffed with crap and junk you don't really know what is there. They just walk over it and it becomes background. Internally, I feel like that sometimes. I have learned to walk around the junk, on top of the junk, between the junk. It becomes background. I am used to it. I may not like it. I may be embarrassed by it, but it is my junk. M.I.N.E. The thought of someone coming in and picking up my junk, holding it, inspecting it, discarding it; well, that gets scary. So, the follow up is really that I am left looking at my junk deciding if I really want to invite anyone else in to help clear it out and organize it. Introspection and an invitation of help is not the follow up I was expecting. Life is rarely what we expect though is it?

I chose the above picture because I think it says more than a house full of garbage does.  Each book tells a story.  It is more than just paper and a cover.  Looking at it like this you have no idea what is inside of each book.  That is kind of like my junk.  There is more to it than what you see.  You have to do some digging, some reading, some study to figure out what is junk and what isn't.  It is all my story.  It is all 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

Five Minute Fridays (Rest)

Rest:

I want to hear the rest of the story Lord.
I want to hear it told to me like a Bible story in childrens' church.
I want to see those water color pictures of my life painted on white background.
I want the felt cut-outs on the brown background telling out the story of where I have been and where I am going.
I want it laid out in chronological order:
"In the beginning God created Karmen, and she was good in His sight."
I want to see that my wandering has purpose, Your purpose.
I want to see that promised land that You have said is waiting for me.
I want to know that I am a girl after Your own heart like David's heart was.
I want to be told where my lion's dens, fiery furnaces, and crosses are and be told how I lived through them by your devine G.R.A.C.E.
I want to see it written out in print, so that I might read it over and over again.
I want it to be read to me whispered quiet at night as I lay in bed:
"And God's hand was upon Karmen"
I want my story to be Your story. 
I want to know that I become that terabinth tree that you have emblazened in my heart.
I want to know that these seeds grow in me and that I don't stay just a sapling.
I want my story to end with:
"And Karmen followed Him all of her days."
I want to be able to rest in the hearing of the rest of my story.

Image from google image search for terabinth tree.


rest plural of rest

Verb Cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength. Remain or be left in a specified condition: "rest assured".

Noun An instance or period of relaxing or ceasing to engage in strenuous or stressful activity. The remaining part of something.

Synonyms verb. repose - relax - lean - lie noun. repose - remainder - pause - remnant - relaxation

I Love You, Too

Karson, my 2 year old, often comes up to me and says "I love you too, Mom."  His sweet little words of love to me express that he already knows that I love him.  There is no questioning in his statement.  My love for him is known and he is expressing his love back to me. 

Often when he says this to me I can't help but think of God and His love.  It is amazing to me how much my children can teach me about my relationship with God.  I should be saying "I love you too God".  Do I have that innocent, child-like faith that knows of a Heavenly Father that already loves me without having to question it?  Sometimes I do, but sometimes this world gets in the way of that.  I question His love for me.  I wonder if His love changes based on my actions and attitudes. 

If I look at how I love my son,  (un-conditionally, deep and unwavering since the moment I knew of his existence, without having to have him do a single thing but exist to obtain that love) how much more can and does God love me for absolutely no reason more than the mere fact that I exist?! 

If distance comes between God and I it is not due to a lack of love on God's part.  I think again of the relationship between parent and child.  When a child is 2 they are headstrong, defiant, and wanting to separate themselves from their parent.  The vision in my head is of a child running as fast as they can to some dangerous but alluring distraction.  I am that 2 year old.  I am running towards that dangerous new distraction, wanting freedom from the watchful eyes of my "parent".  Like a parent, God doesn't turn His back and run the opposite way.  His love doesn't lesson or move away from me.  I am the one causing the distance.  Depending on the situation, God is either standing firm in His same position, watching carefully waiting for me to run back to Him asking Him to kiss away the "boo-boos" or He is running towards me.  His love is running towards me trying desperately to spare me from whatever mortal danger I am chasing this time. 

So often in the church we hear that sin separates us from God.  It is true it does, but like in my illustration above, I don't think it is God who is walking away from us when we sin, it is us defiant, head-strong, easily distracted 2 year olds running away from Him that causes separation.  Un-like a 2 year old though, we forget what my own son knows about our relationship and that is that we can always walk back to God look up at Him and say, "I love you, too!"  We/I don't have to question if this time He will kiss the "boo-boos" my dis-obedience caused.  I don't have to question if His love for me has grown cold or if He has grown tired in the wait for me to turn around and run back to Him.  I need to have that innocent child-like faith that no matter what, no matter how far I run, no matter how long it takes, or how big the "boo boo's"  I can always come back to God and say, "I love you, too", because I should know that His love never left, changed, wavered, or moved away from me.

I can't help but think of the story of the prodigal son.  I always thought of it as a story for the non believer, but now that I think upon it, I am almost convinced that it is more so for the believers.  The child was already a son, he took his inheritance and he went far away from his father and his home.  He wasted his inheritance and lived in a way in which he should not have.  The whole time he was gone his father never moved, he stayed, waiting for the son to return.  When the son finally did return the father RAN to him, he threw a huge party, he welcomed him home.  Notice the father didn't stand there with his arms crossed, asking questions, saying "I told you so", or refuse to see him.  No, I will say it again, HE RAN  to his lost child.  WOW!  Isn't that awesome cool?!  The father never gave up hope of seeing his son return, he never grew tired of waiting, his love never dimmed. 

I don't know where any of you are in your lives, but wherever you are I hope you know that you can turn to God and in all confidence say to Him, "I love you, too!", because I hope you know that His love for you is already established, simply because you exist!

*Thanks God for that reminder, shown to me in such a small and powerful way through my own son. I love you, too God.  I love you, too.*

I Wanna Twirl.

At church this morning during worship there was a little girl in the front row.  She was adorable, dressed in her flowing, twirly, princess dress.  As we were singing she could not help but move out into the isle where she could have more room.  She sang, she danced, raised her hands in praise, and she twirled.  The twirling was her favorite I think.  Her little skirt raising up in the air as she spun.  She was fully engulfed in the moment.  There was no hesitation in her movement.  She didn't care who was watching, she was there to worship.  Every so often she would stumble over her feet, fall to her knees, bottom up in the air, ruffled panties peaking out.  The stumbling didn't seem to phase her.  She would just pop back up and continue dancing.

As I watched her I wished that my journey with God were like that.  That I could just let all of my inhibitions go.  That I would live in the moment, not caring if anyone was watching.  Arms raised, filled with so much joy that I can't help but twirl.  I wish that when I stumble and am down on my knees, exposed to the world, that I would pop myself back up and begin to dance again.  Oh to have the faith of a child.


*3/11/13

I wrote this almost three years ago as I was in the middle of a raging war of my mind and body.  I am still working on having this child like faith.  I want to be that little girl twirling and twirling with her Jesus. 

I want that JOY.  That blind J.O.Y.  that super imposes all the eyes that might be looking.  I want to love myself enough that when I stumble down and fall (and oh how I have stumbled and fallen since the original writing of this) that I pick myself up and search for the joy instead of berating myself for the falling and for the everything thing else that lies beyond that circle of twirling. 

God help me twirl despite the fears, despite the un-knowns, despite the knowns even.  Lord, just shine so much light that all I see is You and the rest fades away, because somewhere in this decrepit mind and body is a little girl who just wants to twirl with you and for you.

Linking up with Emily for her Monday Love Dare Series