Heroes and Damsels - 11-16-10

My mom sent me a video link by one of the speakers from The Secret about using the law of attraction to attract your perfect mate, how to understand it in the context of wanting someone back. I’ll watch it. I have no doubt it will communicate to me you can’t use the law of attraction to lure them back to you, to manipulate them into loving you, which I already knew. And tell me in one way or another he’s not coming back, which will hurt yet again. But at least I can say this. I’m not afraid of the pain.

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All along I’ve known I wasn’t afraid of losing him if God willed it. I loved God more. But I sure as hell was afraid of the pain that would inevitably follow. Oh, yeah. So that’s one good thing about wading chest-deep in the waters of grief and anger and pain – a little more pain won’t matter much. Just a raindrop in the flooded sea. You never feel the fortieth lash as keenly as you do the first. It’s the dreadful beginning you have to endure to get to the rhythm of the agony, you have to give the electrical current sizzling your skin right off a chance to settle into a steady hum over your body. I’m already on the rack; what’s another stretch?

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I’m sorry, truly sorry, for the wasted legacy of my choice to let it all go and have no more tries at this. And it’s not just my legacy which is tragic enough of a waste, though right now, that legacy doesn’t look like much, all chewed-up and frayed; it’s my parents’ legacy that is determined by my choice. I’ve gone through that sorrow before – understanding that they deserve for me to be married and a mother as much as I. This is not a recent revelation. But I don’t feel the full weight of guilt I always felt before. I have the conviction now of experience to know what I am doing and what I am losing by doing it. Or not doing it, as it were. But you have to understand, I don’t have any more of me to give.

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With just one man marked on my path, I am cocooned by pain, regret, foolishness, and anger. I am constantly reminded of what I thought I had and what some other woman actually has now. I can’t escape. I wish every time I see a Nissan Xterra that every one of them throughout the world would spontaneously combust and leave me in peace with no more reminders of him. I am captive, in bondage, curled up in my cramped cage of inward-aiming spikes of memories. An astonishing, obscene number of songs, films, TV shows, places, foods, you name it, has been sprayed with his scent. So you see, I quite literally can’t invite someone else in to leave his mark. I’d have nothing left. No refuges, no places to go from the pain. I can’t risk it not working, and quite frankly, someone else would just remind me of him more forcefully – someone who wouldn’t be as tall as he was, whose voice isn’t as rich as his was, whose hands aren’t quite so warm. No. No.

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The fairy tales are bullshit. Men aren’t heroes, and they don’t rescue us. Nor can we rescue them. There will be no rescue for me, except what God sends. And don’t get me wrong – there’s a certain quality to a rescue, an action by God that is epic, incomparable, moving. But I know how I came alive with the other one. The wonder with which I saw I wasn’t broken after all, that I worked just as I ought. And now I am quiet again, quiet all the way through. No one tells you that a kiss isn’t a fool-proof panacea for a narcoleptic princess. Sleeping Beauty can fall asleep again. So it’s hard for me to believe that God would be everything to me like he would for someone he called to singlehood when I so clearly am brought to life by romance. Earthly romance.

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So I will be rescued from this dead life by God and be grateful and still be discontented. Because they don’t make men like that anymore. If they ever did. They don’t notice or care about a sleeping girl, and the only hint that they are not following their design is a vague restlessness, a distant regret at their own nebulous failure. There’s no one to teach them to be men, to be heroes, anyway. They see a beautiful woman and they think they’d be a hero for her, but when faced with risk or masturbation, what do you think they choose? John Eldredge had the ailment right, but I can’t believe his cure.

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There is no hero to sweep me away. And I probably would not let him anyway because I am closing the door and going to bed.

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Those men. They’re so pleasant or organized or kind or goal-oriented, so good to their mothers and sisters, so reliable to their friends. And let’s face it – the “ man’s man,” the heroes, would probably just be brash and arrogant and annoy the hell out of me. They make me so angry, those men, all of them, but how can you not feel compassion for them? A towering, pointless compassion for their plight? They know they are not what they want to be, feel the same frustration about that that I do, and they just walk steadily through their days, doing nothing about it because they can’t. Poor babies. All those passive men who are better at running than fighting, and better at fighting than fighting for anything good or beautiful or worthy. They mill about and don’t notice all the tired women around them who are giving up the battle they’ve been waging alone and going to bed. All those Sleeping Beauties and their baby-faced, beardless princes lost in the brambles.

Deja Vu - 10-26-10

Déja vu. Didn’t I write that journal entry long ago that “I think it is done. I think I have finally given up”? Except this time I’m not giving into depression, I’m letting go.

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I can honestly say I wish I had never met him. Never knew he existed on this earth. I wish our worlds had never abraded each other’s. I wish I hadn’t come alive for a few weeks to feel the sting of death all the more bitterly. Except for the hope for a happy life someday with God, I feel the exact same as I did then. Why did he need to change me so much, to make me so much bigger than my life, when I would only have to shrink again, my skin tightening horribly, to fit it once again?

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I’m letting go of all the wonderings about the purpose of all those months, of what God intended from all that. I’m letting go of my love for that man and of my delight in the strength God was smelting in me. I’m accepting my own limitations and weaknesses, my humanity, acknowledging that I guess I’m not as stubborn as I thought, not as steadfast a warrior. I’m letting go of the horrible slithering question of letting down the people God gave to me, letting down my name. At least I’m in good company. How many times in the Bible do humans fall short and God does what he’s going to do for his name’s sake, for his own purposes?

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I’m just not getting any direction so I can only surmise God isn’t taking me anywhere right now. Still in the wilderness, but at least he brought me out of teaching. At least that hell is over. I really don’t know how I would have dealt with the last couple of months if I had to face that every day.

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It’s tough to leave all the questions and walk away. It’s tough to imagine God could possibly make this right. But he said he would replace the years the locusts had eaten, and they’ve eaten decades. I don’t know how anything or anyone could make all this wrong right. But if anyone is equal to the task, it’s God.

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But he’ll have to do it without me. I’m not turning my back on him or what he started, whatever that is. I’m just doing the only thing I can. I’m not certain of one way or another and therefore, I can’t breathe in or out. I’m just paralyzed. I need peace. And I know however God will work this out, it truly will be for the best, though my imagination fails me on that score.

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It doesn’t hurt, to let go. The prospect made my chest literally feel as if it was being broken from the inside, like a little beast was cracking my ribs. But it doesn’t now. It’s as if I’d been on the operating table all these months and my heart finally gave out that horrific night of August 26, and since then I’ve tried to keep my heart going, tried to resuscitate, massaged my heart, done chest compressions, defibrillated myself, and the jerking, jarring, unnatural rhythm has kept me from my rest, and now, after two months of this, I’m letting her go, this intense, tired woman whose heart is silent no matter what I do.

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He was just a blip on a flat-lining heart monitor, and now I’m still again. I won’t make any more efforts to find someone. I suppose it is tragic, but it’s certainly easier, that I don’t have a maternal bone left in my body, although I need now to start harvesting my eggs. I’m only a few months from 32, and I feel 72. I feel like I should give a press release to friends and family to tell them the patient is dead and we’re pulling the plug. There will be no more dating services, no flirting, no sidelong glances to size up prospects at church or the grocery store, no wondering how it will happen, no waiting for ghosts to come back to life. Because that’s what he’s been – a ghost – a virulent spirit clanking his chains and giving me no rest. Now all I have to do is wait for the echoes to die as well. But I won’t be in pain while I wait for that. And then the waiting will be over.

Faltering (Big Shock) - 10-15-10

It’s been a while since I wrote last and this won’t be a long entry. A lot has happened that needs to be recorded but it’s just been too daunting a task. I have to live it every day; I can’t bear the thought of having to relive it at night through my pen. Even now I pause and rally my strength.

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For Whom the Bell Tolls wasn’t whistling Dixie: it has been the best of times, it has been the worst of times and the not-quite-the-worst of times.

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I will start by saying despite my bone-rattling doubts and the horrible experience of having to tell my father I quit my job, despite having hope of starting at Central Corp early as a teller only to have it dashed, setting off a royal panic about my finances, God has provided. Truly he meets my needs every day – and no more. Some truly unexpected things have developed as a result of this ridiculous path I’ve chosen – I’ve realized I like setting my own schedule and working from home. I’ve realized with each passing day that I don’t want to work at Central Corp as teller or manager or at any similar job, and I am really getting into this internet marketing project (experiment, really) that cropped up in the void of a job and my hope as well. And it's such a blessing to have Mom give me work for this time when I get to pursue the information marketing for her, becoming so useful that she interceded with my father – put her foot down actually – and insisted she couldn’t lose me to a job just yet. I have until the new year to see what can happen with this. Oh, the grace. The next day after she told me that (last week) was the first morning I didn’t wake up with a ball of lead in my belly.

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And I will never go back to teaching. I would foreclose on my beloved house before I go back to slavery in Egypt. Often I am aware of the hell other teachers are enduring every day while I work on my couch in my sweats, and it’s a blessing.

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And my parents have really stepped up to make sure I feel supported in this. Even if my decision to quit my job was foolish to them, they at least understand I truly tried to make the right decision. I was conscientious to a fault and honestly believed it was the right thing for me to do. And as Mom especially has supported me through this and observed the path my feet have gone down, she’s even conceded, “Maybe you weren’t wrong when you thought you heard God.” Oh, the Balm of Gilead that was because I had doubted everything.

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How horrible this month and a half has been, with the doubts and the spiritual terrorizing. More than once in this shockingly brief span (has it truly only been a month and a half?) I have come to the point of being just. so. tired. So tired. Ready to collapse. It seems the longer I know God, the less I know of anything, including – maybe especially – how to withstand spiritual attacks and doubts. Before that awful, awful weekend when I despaired of my very life and my faith, I had dealt with my times of weariness, but I had had such faith, such pure faith that my desire to follow was enough and I would be led. I had far more resilience. And even though by this point I have examined again and again what it means to be “led by the Spirit” and my path fit the bill, I knew I was every day finding myself one step farther in a straight path toward B____. How many times did I ask if it was time to move on? How many times did I stand ready, pain ready to be unleashed in my chest but backpack zipped and boots tied, ready to follow? And I am certain that God would not have given me that sign had I not demanded it, and while I am aware of the valuable lesson learned about God’s timing, I can’t help but wish he had just said no. That he gave first-accident forgiveness the first time I really gave into my doubts in all these months of believing blindly in the impossible. And I am also just as certain that it was the Holy Spirit working in me to send that letter to B____ a week and a half before doubt slipped its hooks into me and the bottom fell out of my life. I would have gone on indefinitely waiting for God to bring B____ to me. In my natural self, I would never have thought it necessary or even appropriate to contact him. The conversation with Kelsey was the first nudge, the conversation with Jessica was the second. And then, that Wednesday morning when I was going to help Kelsey get her room in order at the new school, I was getting ready, and standing in front of the mirror I was really wrestling with whether or not this was the right thing to do. The best thing. The decision God would have me make, since of the three who would be affected, he was the only one who knew what would happen. And I felt this almost audible (but it was silent) sense of, “Yes. Do it. Do it now.” I was suffused with a peace, confidence, and sense of rightness, the same certainty I felt about resigning my job. That was not me. I wasn’t building on my good feelings and just trying to convince myself to do what I wanted to do anyway.

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And getting that sign that awful weekend was not attended by any good feelings, only bad. That’s not how God works when you haven’t been fighting him.

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But logic is a cold and unwieldy comfort in this case. I’m terrible now – so wishy-washy, so unconfident. I’ve struggled for a month and a half for some answers and been met only with silence. I finally had to come to the conclusion last week that just like you’re told when you’re a child and lost, to stand still or go back to the last place you were with someone, I had no choice but to go back to the last place I saw God. And that was right before that weekend. That was when I was believing whole-heartedly for B____. No idea how I would accomplish that, seeing as everything has changed, including me, but there I am. Still no clue. Still wondering if I’m back there in fact, if it counts when I don’t have the solid belief I had then.

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Don’t even know if I love him still in the first place. But I had to forgive. Realized that last Sunday. Realized I’d been unbalanced by unmitigated rage for weeks and feeling dreadful about it. I had been mostly angry at God, since B____ had managed not to have done anything wrong or dishonorable in this whole mess. But how do you forgive God? As blasphemous as it sounded to me, I knew that right or wrong I had developed anger, bitterness, and resentment toward God, as well as toward B____ and even my dog who ludicrously remains stubbornly un-housebroken. Who knew you could need to forgive a dog? For Pete’s sake, I had to forgive Faline for having accidents all the time in the house. I had to forgive B____ for being cowardly and weak not to even give me a real try, for going off and fucking some other woman and dreaming of making babies and plans and futures with her, and I had to forgive God most of all for my perception (even though I knew it to be inaccurate, I couldn’t convince my heart of that) that he had toyed with me, that he had played the cruelest joke to watch me languish alone, so alone, for three decades, then dangle like a carrot before me all I wanted, let me cling to that and then leave me desolate and utterly abandoned. Yeah, there was so much anger toward God. Still a work in progress.

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As am I, I hope. Because I have now, finally, become what I once was – not a woman, not a lover or a mother, but merely a female human, a female animal. I am ash. God has an unbelievable amount of restoration to do in my heart just to make me fit for my life, let alone for a relationship and a family. I’ve developed a habit of hurt. Pricks of pain have now lost their element of surprise and become commonplace. Everything reminds me of him. It’s not fair that six weeks – six weeks – should have such an obscene ripple effect. There’s music I can’t listen to, places I can’t go, shows I can’t watch, food I can’t eat because they have become nothing more than ghosts of him.

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And I’m stressed even more because I can’t find good feelings for more than a day to express my faith in a different future. I think it’s just that I honestly can’t remember how to feel good. It’s been so many years since I was a “happy person” that I no longer have the capabilities to get excited about things like a child, be thrilled or ecstatic or blissful. I try. Man, I try. I try all day. Try everything I can think of. I’ve cut out pictures to make a vision board, I have encouraging verses taped to my bathroom wall, I have oodles of verses bookmarked on my phone’s browser, I listen to motivational tapes, I try to dredge up gratitude and love. I can’t do it.

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I honestly wonder if I’m depressed. Laughable that I of all people can’t recognize it. I have hope that it’ll get better. It has to get better. Things have to be easier someday. It can’t always be this hard. There has to be some happiness in store that I don’t have to work and scrape and visualize so hard for. This can’t be as good as it gets.

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But oh, is it hard to feel that. I wonder if there’s something wrong with me, that God has shown me many kindnesses that I recognize during this time, that he has shown me such grace in my work that I have a chance to pursue this without the horrible dread of job-searching, and yet I can’t be grateful, I don’t feel appreciation, can’t manage to feel joy. It’s never enough.

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I’m stone in my heart, I’m enraged at petty annoyances, and I weep almost every day. And I couldn’t even say it’s just one thing. If he resolved the thing I’m crying about on Monday, I’d be crying about something else on Tuesday. Will anything ever be enough? I’m so tired of crying, I’ve started avoiding my quiet times with God because something about being alone in the dark with him just turns on the waterworks. I finally just had to excuse myself today. I had expressed everything, I had communicated, and I was still crying and that wasn’t doing either of us any good.

I’m so keenly aware of my shortcomings and imperfections, of my faltering heart and disappointing faith. I have to trust – blindly yet again – that he is as compassionate and patient as he says, to take my mustard seed and make it into anything at all. It has to get better.

Brooding - 9-2-10

This entry will not see the light of day. It will not be published on my blog. I will speak of it to no one. It is solely between God and me. I am offering it up to him and allowing him to test it fully for the slightest air bubble, the tiniest bit of dross.

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This week has been the worst crisis of faith I have ever endured. More than last June or December. More than my college years when after years of frustration with God’s silences said, “All right, God, you go your way and I’ll go mine, and I’ll see if there’s any pleasure, any relief in a vacation from you.” Worse than when I was sixteen and felt my beloved God pull away and leave me to stand on my faith and not feelings. Nothing, nothing has compared to this. This was so much more than facing the prospect of losing the only man I had ever loved and losing him for good. This came down to the elemental, the very building blocks of why I am still breathing on this earth and walking in hope that one day, one day, I’ll enjoy my life and be satisfied.

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If I had truly been wrong about the Holy Spirit’s leading down all those steps of faith that not only was it my purpose to pray for B____’s spiritual healing but also that, amazingly enough, he was meant for me – if I had been wrong about all that, after months and months of utterly humble and faithful service, then I couldn’t trust anything. If I couldn’t trust my changed heart and renewed mind to accurately test the Spirit’s guiding then that meant I couldn’t trust God to adequately change my heart to test the Spirit. And where did that leave me? It left me with the dismal picture of complete surrender for a very long time still not being enough for clear communication between my God and me. And that simply would not do. Nor was it supported by loads of Scripture. I knew – I would stand before God himself and testify – that I had not held anything back. That I had laid all of me open and not taken any of myself back without him handing it back with his own two hands. I had done everything required of me to come under the complete protection and guidance of God. And one of the things I was most insistent about was being led by him in all things and honoring his timing in all things, because it was the only way to be happy, useful, and have peace in my heart and mind.

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So.

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If I had indeed done all Scripture had required of me, then without doubt, God had as well. He cannot be less faithful than me. And the way he had ensured that we would be guided is by his Holy Spirit. That was the whole point of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. Why did he go through all that hell – literally – to cleanse us of sins and justify us before a righteous and holy God? Just so we would be clean and go on our way? And then what? No. It was so we would be a fitting dwelling place for the equally righteous and holy Holy Spirit. Of all the adjectives to describe the Spirit – powerful, good, godly, loving, compassionate, merciful, wonderful, just – the only word ever put to it is holy. Holy Spirit. And why was this done in us for the Spirit to have a dwelling place? Why not stay in the temple as he had done all through the Old Testament, with a high priest only to intercede for us. For relationship! That is the whole reason God has done everything he’s done with us, all through our history! And what kind of relationship can one have if one friend is able to communicate and be understood and the other is not because he won’t speak, lead, move, guide?

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I am a new creation and every hour I have spent in willing obedience has made more room for the Holy Spirit in me. So it is impossible that for all those months when out of faith in God I claimed B____ I was allowed to be misled. Why would there have been so much peace in my Spirit about that choice? There was plenty of time after I made that choice in the spring for my Spirit to have had serious objections, for me to have felt like it was just so hard to believe for this. There were definitely times I struggled, when I looked at my circumstances and saw how unlikely it all seemed. But every time I took my eyes off of my physical circumstances and turned them to my God and his unerring leading, peace returned. Now how is that possible?

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Well, a couple of things about this whole situation strike me as especially pertinent. On Friday night my parents informed me of the very real possibility of being transferred back to San Antonio. Now they’re all the family I’ve got and even though I’m far more independent and adventurous than I used to be and could see myself staying in my beloved Virginia alone, I just can’t imagine staying that far away from them for long. So it threw into my mind a host of questions about my future, specifically about how this thing with B____ would work out. So Friday night, I went for a walk as my crisis of faith was beginning, and I told God, “Okay, I haven’t asked you for a sign in all these many months but have been content to let you guide me as you willed. But I’m asking you for a sign of what you intend.” No sign or voice came, and by Saturday night I was in a right state, my insides all churned up. I narrowed it down to the uncertainty that dogged me the most: “Have I been wrong about B____?” I waited but no voice. Then after I returned from my walk and showered, around 2:00 am I thought on a whim, “What have I got to lose?” and looked B____ up on Facebook and the rest is history.

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It had seemed that was the sign I had asked for. But that brings me to my second pertinent point: when I had pondered and prayed about contacting B____, feeling in my Spirit freed to do so when for so many months I had not, I felt the exact same way in my Spirit about doing that with the letter Kelsey and I wrote as I had about resigning my job: my hands were trembling and my heart thudding, but still and sure in my heart. And I have no doubt it was the Spirit’s leading that saw me all the way to the public Facebook announcement of my resignation. So I can only assume sending the letter was as orchestrated by God.

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But here’s the question: why not just lead me to find B____ on Facebook and begin the journey of grief and acceptance on my own? Why have me send the letter in blissful ignorance? Why complicate B____’s perfect life if he was doing the right thing with the right woman? The letter was completely separate from the Facebook incident.

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So here’s what I’m wondering and this is why I am not making this entry public. What if sending the letter was indeed just the next step on this journey I thought I was on, to jolt B____ and make him question everything, and the Facebook incident and the resultant shattering of my world was only brought to me because I insisted? Because I did insist. I came boldly before God and, pointing to my months of faithfulness, demanded a sign. What if, had I not asked, God would never have let me know something so devastating but rather just continued his work? Because if B____ was really doing the right thing, why should he need to be brought to doubt?

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And I still haven’t gotten a response to my letter, which was written on the 18^th of August? Unless B____ has changed from knowing me, for the worse, from what he was all of his life, he wouldn’t just not respond. Last July, when our month-long silence turned out to be, of all things, a mere glitch of our phones – which kept happening that summer – he said, “How could you think that of me? I would never just not let you know if I didn’t want to see you anymore. I would talk to you and end it right.” So for him to know now that after almost a year and a half I’m still not over him, and not tell me he’s engaged and happy and for me to move on please with my life is unthinkable. I wonder if he’s having serious doubts now. And I know for a fact if he broke another engagement, he would have no confidence left in his decision-making ability or – even more devastating for him – in his honor. Something inside him would be broken. I wouldn’t be surprised in that case if I didn’t hear anything from him for a long time because he couldn’t make a decision one way or another. Maybe, when I heard in my Spirit that question, “If B____ is really what you want, are you willing to wait as long as it takes?” meant, good Lord, it would take a long time. There’s far more baggage and entanglements now that he’d have to muddle his way through.

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If he is indeed for me.

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See, this is the crux. I have prayed and stubbornly believed that B____ will be reserved only for the One for him – a woman who will reflect God to him from a place of credibility, who will support his spiritual growth. Now I don’t know this woman from Adam, but I do know she has not come near to fighting as well as I have for this man, and is she really more capable than I have become of reflecting God in her entire being for this man? After all, if it would do no good either way, if it wasn’t really that big a deal, why are there so many verses about one spouse being sanctified by the other, by an unbelieving spouse being led to God by a believing spouse. Now, I am not advocating missionary relationships. They seldom work. But neither will God ignore all my pure prayers and allow B____ to marry someone who will only encourage him in his lukewarm spirituality. It is God’s perfect will that B____ be edified in all ways – including spiritually – by his marriage. So whether I am for him or not, at least he is safe.

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I am the last person on this earth who wants to hold on to something just because it makes me feel good, just because I want it to be true. Which is why I am lifting this up to God more stubbornly than I’ve lifted anything up to him and trusting – against what physical circumstances seem to indicate – that he will move me away if it is not from him. He will not waste me.

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He will show me the way, and he will prepare either her heart or mine for the loss of him.

Engaged - 9-1-10

B____ is engaged.

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No response to my letter. Just happened to check Facebook on a whim.

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No greater crisis of faith in my history. And too many what-ifs on both sides for me to know what to think.

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The days since Saturday night have been rough. Pictures in my head. Questions I can’t answer. And the promise to myself I will suffer no longer for love. I have suffered enough. I have been through enough.

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This shook me to my core because as if B____ wasn’t enough to drive me yet again to my knees, this threw into question everything about myself and my God. What about all those promises God made that he would guide me and make his way known to me? Did I not offer myself to him as wholly and sincerely as I thought I had? Had I misinterpreted those words? Had I really not been led by his Spirit all those many months? Could I not trust myself to listen or God to lead in the first place?

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But I have spread the matter out before God, stated the case for my innocence. My journal attests to this fact. Not one move I made, not one desire I kept, not one path taken without seeking his counsel. I have done everything God himself said in his Word he expects of a person. And he said he was trustworthy.

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None of this is the result of my own folly or blind stubbornness. So this is all part of his perfect will. So then did he intend all along for our story to end in mist and silence after all?

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I have only questions and quail at the thought of what answer I may receive for them.

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All I have to stand on is my God. And I said it myself, put it in writing even, that this man is my Isaac, my dearest possession even though I never had him. My beloved. And I swore that I would lay him down freely, hands off, if God asked me to. I don’t know if he’s asking me to do that, but it is the only course left to me. I cannot be convinced he is mine or not with all the what-ifs cluttering my head. And I would not be a faithful honest friend if I did not do as I promised.

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But I see now that those weeks and months where I kept sacrificing B____ as my Isaac were nothing to doing it now. I had not yet given myself fully into the faith that God had made a promise of him to me. Now, though, I truly have nothing left. I have now, officially, sacrificed everything to God. My job seems a paltry thing beside this, my beating, bloody heart. But I have no choice.

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I am trusting that God brings great good out of this cesspool of my pain. It seems the very definition of cruelty, of abuse, to keep me waiting for thirty years, suffering and alone, only to show me like a flare of fireworks in the night what I had always longed for and believed in no more, just to steal it all away, leaving the night darker for my dazzled, burned eyes, and then for good measure, keep me in this mire of love and prayer and sacrifice for fifteen months just to say it has all been for nothing.

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I did not hold to him of my own will. I would never do such a foolish thing as holding to something that was never meant to flower when only pain would result. That is why I asked at every turn, upon every waking for God’s way, God’s will, God’s counsel and wisdom. I have held nothing back all these long months. Every door has been opened to him. I have done everything I needed to do. And my God is good and trustworthy. He is not cruel. Somehow, someday, he will turn this right and God Almighty, I will be happy one day. I will know what it is to see the good life after so many years in the dark.

You want impossible situations, God? Well, have at it.

Freedom - 8-25-10

I stand on the pier at my marina. The moon is full, the sky clear, and ice-blue light is washing the cooling sweat from my body. All alone, I gaze around me in all directions, every sight as well-known to me as it is well-loved. And as I stand here, so still, I’m reminded forcibly of all the full moons I took into myself two years ago, hungry and desperately unhappy, misery sealing every airway like a plastic bag. Trapped I was, on every side. I so clearly remember running here, bathed in the blessed heat rolling over me in waves. I was closed in. My miserable circumstances hemmed me in. I was in the thick of them, no immediate way out.

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I raise my eyes to the moon, aware of the dulled edge to my once-keen joy, made all the sharper because it was one of my only joys. Palpable unhappiness and an utter helplessness in it does that to your remaining pleasures – they are never so bright and rich as when isolated by pain.

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But now. Now. Everything is different. I am aware of all my friends getting ready for bed while I am running free, the weight on their chests growing imperceptibly heavier as they prepare for their last night before the prison doors open to welcome them back.

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And I am not one of them.

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I am awash in wonder. Their brief parole is over, the summer all gone away, draining like the last soap suds in a sink of clean dishes that are about to get dirty again. Tomorrow, they go back to their classrooms and their rules and their mad students and their merciless parents. While I stand here and gaze at the beautiful, beautiful moon. Has a moon every been so beautiful? Even last night when I ran to find a flooded marina and followed my desires and stripped and dove into the waters all alone? Even then? No. I think not.

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I wake up tomorrow a free woman. God, how many cloying days and claustrophobic nights did I yearn with all that was within me for release, for freedom, for rescue? How many tears did I cry, how many minutes spent with my eyes closed against my reality as I gathered the frayed threads of my soggy strength to face the next hour?

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And as I stand here, full of what I could not find for so long, it occurs to me just how far removed I am from that woman curled up on the pier. I dreamed of rescue from my current circumstances and could see no possibility for it than to marry the love of my life and be a stay-at-home wife and mother. After all, that was my long-held and cherished dream. I truly wanted that. So how could anyone but a man be the agent of my escape? It may seem archaic, but it was my dream.

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Who knew that two years later, long after I lost hope of every getting out, the man came. But he did not rescue Rapunzel from the tower where she was trapped. And who knew that the mother in me – the most lasting artery in my body which pumped the richest blood through me – would be dead now for a time? Who knew that no escape would come except by God’s own hand? In all the days and months and years I longed for escape, I never dreamed of actually quitting without a visible safety net. Only when I had experienced God himself for a year and a half and finally understood for myself what his Spirit feels like guiding my decisions and feelings could I take such a deep plunge. God himself has rescued me, has fulfilled in his own time all his many promises. My beloved ezer. My hero. No man did this. Nor I. It truly took all God is to do these things in my life.

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I will stand tomorrow a free woman. I will stand amazed at all God has done with his own hands and all he is preparing to do. I expect everything I have never known. I will not be disappointed. Because I am free indeed.

Weirdness + Weirdness + Weirdness = Peace - 8-25-09

Weird things have been happening, more in my own head than anywhere else. Even though I had let my principal and team members know of my decision to resign a couple of weeks ago, actually making it public last Wednesday really threw me for a loop. I was basically saying, “What the hell have I done?” I still had the sense of rightness about the decision, but there was a whole round of taking thoughts captive that I knew I had to steel myself for. And the thing that really gave me the most vicious uppercut was the thought of what my parents would say. I kept waiting for them to call me up in a panic but I guess Mom hasn’t seen my Facebook post or continued reading my blog because I haven’t heard anything. And it was making me insane. I had felt a moment’s relief when I realized I could tell them I wasn’t expecting anything from them. I wasn’t expecting them to pay my mortgage indefinitely, or “help me out.” My God can take care of his own. But that moment ended when I remembered they had given me the 20% down payment on my house, and what could I say that would answer their accusation that I was just throwing away tens of thousands of dollars? On came the weight again. I couldn’t really feel the glory of the freedom I now had because I just kept seeing the calendar lose pages and saw my last paycheck inching closer. I really did keep giving it up to God, but at this point, it just wasn’t clicking like it had been, and I seriously wondered, am I maxed out? Have I taken on so much faith and so many remodeling projects in my life at one time that I don’t have anything left and I literally don’t have any more strength? I kept thinking I just needed to “change my strength” like C.I. Scofield says in his sermon, but it wasn’t happening. And I was just tired. Like, in my brain. I couldn’t seem to hold onto any clear images of the outcome I’ve been believing for. So not only was I thinking, “What do I do?” about the job situation, but “What do I do?” about the faith situation. Honestly, I just wanted to stay asleep and not wake up. I wasn’t depressed and I wasn’t rethinking my decision. Every time I went through the thought process, I was always sure I had felt God’s Spirit guide me. It was just that waking up just meant taking on the work load again. I knew that wasn’t how it’s supposed to be. If you’re truly trusting God, he gladly takes that weight. But it seemed like work to figure out how to do that.

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Not real fun.

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And then it kept getting worse. When I made this decision to quit my job, I truly knew in my spirit that it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it. And at the time, I truly believed Central Corp. would work out. I’d gone through the whole interview process, I’d presented the possibility of getting a job there early before the training program, and I’d gotten such a positive vibe. I was just waiting until after Labor Day when the final decision is made. Then the head of HR called me last Friday. Turns out my resume had a typo on it: the wrong college info because I had used another woman’s resume for formatting purposes and had forgotten to change that info as I was overwriting with all of my information. Small thing, but apparently the president himself tagged it as he looked through all the resumes and he’s a stickler for detail. The HR lady and the head of the training program evidently felt foolish for having overlooked it. She was a little hesitant, to say the least. I sent her my corrected resume right away and in my email said that anyone who knows me can tell you I pay a great attention to detail. And I was just pissed. I was pissed at myself for making such a stupid oversight, but I was also royally pissed at the prospect that two years of diligent effort and enormous personal and professional growth would be jeopardized by something so ridiculous. And I snapped to my mother, who was there when I got the phone call, that if they rejected me for that stupidity, then obviously they weren’t the best thing for me and God has something better. And I’ll be honest here: I have to admit since I made the decision to resign, I’ve wondered if Central Corp. really is the best thing for me. What? How can I say that? I just keep getting an inkling – don’t know why – that perhaps they were just the catalyst for getting me to jump off the cliff but really, they aren’t where I can truly break free and be all I was meant to be. I do feel the need when I talk about that job prospect with people to qualify the choice: to explain how unique the company itself is even though it is banking. And I believe that. I believe that this particular company is unique and very special and I would be able to help people there. I would be so much happier there. But this latest thing has kind of put a bad taste in my mouth. I am a hard worker and very good at what I do, but everyone makes mistakes, and I get the impression with this company that even though there is a true sense of family, there’s probably not much grace given. I have already been bludgeoned for years in a profession where your slightest mistake is grounds for micromanagement and censure from students, parents, colleagues, and bosses. Goodness, I don’t need to feel like a failure or a disappointment anymore! I’m depleted!

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And, too, this time, this total risk, has seemed more and more to be the time to jump feet-first into my dream. The thing is I can’t really say for certain what that would be. Having only been in teaching, I am woefully underqualified to direct my own life. I’m so glad God is there to know where I would best fit because it is one of the hardest things I’ve had to figure out (and I still haven’t figured it out) to understand how all my many qualifications in teaching translate into a job I truly want. I don’t know what job would truly make me happy. So I’m not really worried about Central Corp. working out or not working out. I’m confident that God is in control of that. But it does stress me out to figure out what to tell people. Most people are under the impression I’ve got a job at Central Corp. because I’m speaking out of faith, and in the beginning that faith was stronger. But where is the line between lying and speaking in faith? It doesn’t sit well with me, especially since I’m wondering if Central Corp. is in my future.

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And things still kept getting worse. I love my dog, honest I do. But this housebreaking thing has put me squarely at my wits’ end. Nothing has worked. To the point that I had to keep doggie diapers on her at all times. And then I’d take her for walks and young thing that she is, she’d be wanting to dart everywhere. She’s not the worst leash walker I’ve ever seen, that’s for certain. But even what she would do would just make me snap. I’d haul her back on the leash, practically strangling her and feeling horrible about it. I just had no patience. I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve felt a plume of anger spray out of me and said out loud on my walk, “I cannot have children.” To the point of saying, “I don’t think I can ever have children. I just can’t!” More thoughts I had to take captive.

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I realized I felt like a failure as a teacher, now a failure as a dog owner, and I already feel like a failure as a mother. What kind of mother would I make when the slightest aggravation makes me snap? I already realized that this was an area of healing for sure. No doubt about that. And that healing couldn’t start if I kept claiming that identity as a failure. But boy, did I feel like a total failure and feel like I would always feel that way. Lots of taking thoughts captive there, and quite frankly, God, I’m tired. Two nights ago, on my walk, I stopped in the meadow, the moon full above me, no one around, and I just yelled out, “I. Don’t. Want. To feel. Like a failure. Anymore!”

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I’d already been thinking that the most effective thing to do during this stressful time was to praise God. Praise him for who he is, for what he’s done for me, for what he is doing now for me. For the future he has planned for me and the ever-present help he offers me. For the freedom that is mine now. But when I would praise him in my prayer closet, as awful as it sounds, I just couldn’t think of a lot. I was just so damn tired! Then it occurred to me to pull out my praise and worship CDs which had been collecting dust.

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Now, I’m pretty picky with my praise and worship. So often it just sounds corny or overwrought. But I found some I remembered liking and put them on and just listened to them as I got ready for bed. Next day, after volunteering at the Georgian Manor, I went ahead and drove around like I like to do listening to music. Well, three hours later, I honestly felt better. Clearer. More hopeful. Less burdened. Thank the good Lord above, it was about time! And who knows why during that long drive, I got the idea to write a Bible study on surrender. Huh? But really, if I had to choose between Central Corp. and a job where I talked about what God's done in my life and mentored and helped other young women, dude - no contest.

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Well, [another] weird thing happened. Last night I had the urge to go for a run alone – hadn’t been going much to tell the truth, because I feel bad leaving Felene behind and sometimes I don’t want to deal with her – and who should I run into but Kim Fuller, who lived next door to me back when I lived in this neighborhood with my parents in my teens. I had run into him walking his dog two years ago right after I moved in and fecal matter hadn’t collided with the fan, and in two years I hadn’t run into him at all, even though we both go for walks frequently and at the same time of day. But I did last night. Weird. And almost right away we started talking about jobs and God. How did this happen? I don’t know. I had been feeling like I just wish I wasn’t still alone in this journey. Even though there’s no better teacher than God himself when it’s just you and him, it can still get lonely when you start thinking about all the people who aren’t behind you. And I thought if I could just have another human being hear my story and tell me they thought I was doing the right thing, it might make all the difference. Nothing like support right there beside you. Nothing like it. By the end of the walk with Kim, it had become evident that this was a divine appointment for the both of us. And he said something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. He was reflecting on a preacher whose testimony centered around being embroiled in a couple of lawsuits and God made it all work out, and he said compared with that, my testimony would really be something. To do something so risky, and in this life, he said, you can’t avoid risks, would really show what God can and will do. He said in his life, looking back, he can pinpoint certain times in his life that make him say now, “I wonder what would have happened if I’d just . . .” As he has been feeling frustrated in his work now, finding himself without the security he had expected to find after 29 years, I couldn’t help feeling that maybe he might be a little inspired by this decision of mine. Because it is risky. I am single, it is just me. No one else will pay my mortgage, no one else will pay my car payment, no one else will buy my groceries. I’m it. So to do what I’ve done is beyond risky. It’s just foolish. But as John Eldredge says, “In the past year or so I’ve made a number of decisions that make no sense unless there is a God and I am his friend.” Amen, brother. Amen.

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I cannot adequately express just how wonderful it was to hear Kim share his perspective. Oh God, there is nothing like not feeling alone. And as I continued to praise him, it became exponentially easier to take thoughts captive, to catch myself thinking negative thoughts and turning them around. It became easier not to have the negative thoughts in the first place. I no longer felt stretched thin, no longer felt resigned to waking up and going into a whole day of thoughts. And I began to see the truth: that this really is just God and me, and that’s enough. I realized for real, more than just my declarations and my tired eyes, that my spirit hadn’t objected to this decision about my job at all, even through this roller coaster, and that my God is mighty to save. He does delight in impossible situations. My situation should not work out. It should be impossible to find a job in this economy where headlines blare thousands of jobs lost. It should be impossible that my needs should be met when I have no – read it, no – income. But as I told Kim, it is only in the impossible situations that there can be no mistake that salvation came not by human effort but by God himself. And I find I dread less the confrontation with my parents. I can leave the anxiety and anger with them and reply calmly and joyfully that they better get ready because they’re going to see a light show soon to rival 4^th of July.

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I am (impossibly) full of expectation for this amazing life I want to live, where every day has something to delight me and sink my teeth into. I am confessing here and now that I believe in all 7,000+ promises of God in his Word. They are true. And they will be true for me.

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Weird, huh?