Not sure even what to say here. Been a long time since I posted - life has been nuts. Christmas was very stressful. I have much to think about...

It occurred to me that most of my stress is related to trying to please my step-father the way I tried to please my biological dad. And it also is coming back void. And I'm really feeling the loss. And I'm trying to figure out a way to convince myself I don't need a father. I'm 36 - there is no real purpose he would serve except as moral support. I guess I just need to learn to live without that from a human father figure. It's a hard reality to accept. I've longed for this for so long - to just give up hope that it's ever going to happen is not an easy thing.

And as much as I love my God, there's still a void left even with His help.
I'm praying that God helps me walk this.

Guess that's all I had to say - just feeling the loss and trying to recover from Christmas - I literally spend many sleepless nights coming up with something to give my step-father for a gift that would meet his approval only to have him not say a word - he looked very disappointed. He made this huge deal about doing gifts according to the "love languages" and then reality was opposite - we gave exactly what he asked for and yet he could care less. Everyone else gave traditional gifts and he gushed over them. That hurts. Never ever being enough really hurts.

God, how do I let go of ever getting this kind of approval? Your Word is filled with comments about helping the widow and the fatherless - please be my help! My heart is broken...

Grace

Been such an emotional week. My counseling homework has been on trust and control. Halfway through, they told this story about this woman who thought she'd had this amazing faith and was such a Godly person and suddenly she had this revelation that it was only because everything was under her control and that she had actually never left room for trust... that is soooooo me. Here I am thinking I've got it all together, serving in ministry and just having my own personal issues on the side and it turns out I've messed everything up. I've always believed I had to keep juggling, that I was letting God down if I dropped a ball. Never understanding why He required me to run like this while everyone else could have lives of their own but quietly tap dancing my little heart out thinking that some of us are just the exception to the rule... I totally broke down in counseling today trying to explain how much I've failed God and how I just can't do it anymore and she had this amazing comment...

She said we're not called to be worker bees always buzzing around - this is not the heart of God. It's about relationship. It's never been about what we do, but WHO WE ARE. Of course this set me weeping like crazy - who I am has never, never been enough and never will be - this is why I do what I do - I need to make up for all of my shortcomings - try to make things right to make up for what I'm not. She so gently reminded me that I was right but that I'd forgotten that this whole thing is all about grace. I'm not supposed to earn it.

How can I miss something so basic? So fundamental to all of it? I don't know - just drilled into me since day one, I guess.

So today, I'm trying to process that none of what I've ever done is important. That it's only what God's done and that's it. That I don't have to earn anything. That He could really love ME that much when I know who the real me really is and what she's endured... It's still so much to try to take in...

Pray I get it. Please pray I get it.
I still feel like this worthless piece of trash that's messed up the whole world and isn't even worth the time of day...

Ignore me, I'm stupid

Okay, I should know better than to let myself get so emotional and exausted and then post something and expect it to be anything but panic and fear. Ignore me, I'm stupid.

Now that I've had some rest, the world is more manageable. Not that I can do anything to help my friend or that my anxiety level has changed, just my perspective in the midst of it.

How God is going to work things out, I have no idea, but I'm so glad it rests in His hands instead of on my head.

What do you say?

Just got home. It's way late at night and I should be in bed but I'm grieving for a close friend of mine. I just got back from sitting with her while she wept because her husband is leaving her just in time for Christmas. She has no predictable income without him - her employment is part time temporary - she has 3 teenage boys to look after and she's beside herself. Not only that, but the bum is so mentally off balance she has reason to believe he may do himself in. And I can't console her because I know what it's like to deal with a man that way and there really are no guarantees - sometimes they do follow through.

I wish I knew what to say. How to comfort her. How to promise her it will be okay when everything around her screams otherwise.

Why does life get unjust? Why is free choice allowed as much leash as it is that it has to leave people devastated that way? Why are there so few ways to make it better?

I'd go through everything to spare her the pain. I have my own set of issues to deal with - been flashing back every time I shut my eyes all evening. (Do you know how hard it is to be in a prayer meeting and not close your eyes? Or to sit there and not freak out when the world spins and screams around you but you know you aren't supposed to leave?) But none of my junk helps her or anyone else. If anything, her stuff helped me because it got my mind off of it for a little while. But now I'm benefitting from her pain - how wrong is that?

I just wish there was something I could do or say. Or that by praying I could convince God to do something to make it better for her right NOW.

I'm so stinking powerless it's driving me nuts.

Why, God?! Why is life so hard? How are we supposed to do it?

I wish there were answers.

Question

Question for my counseling "homework"...

What does "trust" mean to you?

I'm supposed to ask my friends for input.
Okay friends, want to help me out?

Amazing

Okay - I have something amazing to share. Well, if it's not amazing to you, tough - it was EXACTLY what I needed today...

Been feeling hopeless (what else is new?) and sad and very alone. Had some surprising and scary news last night that knocked me off my feet. This had the potential to turn my family's life upside down again and I'm just now starting to get on my feet a little so it really freaked me out. I worried about it, expressed my huge reservations to my husband about it and all that stuff.

Woke up exhausted this morning. Didn't want to go to church but I've missed the last two services and we ARE staff so it's pretty important for me to show up so I pushed and went anyway. I'm so glad.

So church starts and I'm sitting in the Sanctuary, exhausted and wishing I could go home, talking myself into staying and not just leaving, and praying. I don't normally pray this way, but given our call last night, I was desperate for an answer from God. I asked Him, "If this is something I don't need to worry about, please have someone say - 'God is with you' - during the service." I immediately felt really guilty, like this was too much to ask but I really needed this. God impressed on my heart that He was with me either way the decision went, but nonetheless, I requested confirmation. I'm so glad He's so patient with me. Here's what happened:

The very next worship song was one I had never heard before but it was filled with "God is with us" and to top it off - it was called "Emmanuel". It's like God said, "I'm so with you that it's part of my being enough to be my very name." Obviously, I started weeping. The next few songs were like that, filled with "I'm with you" verses and then there was a move of the Spirit where they reassured His presence, a Word given that confirmed that, a friend who came to pray for me that way. Then the sermon was on Luke 1 where Gabriel came to Mary and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored - the Lord is with you."

It was like God screamed it for me just when I needed it most. Reiterating it over and over and over and over and over again.

God is with me. I am not alone. He is so with me that it's his very name. He feels my pain so very much that He came to do something about it. Yes, He's with me.

Praise God.

Lonely

One of my issues right now is allowing myself to be happy. To have a good time without feeling guilty. It's stupid, I know, but I just can't let myself do it. I feel very selfish if I do anything for me... feel like I don't deserve it. Feel bad feeling good.

So I was at a church dinner last night. I've been sick so I understand no one wants it but I wasn't prepared to sit all alone. I was the first one to pick a table and sit down. And NO ONE sat with me - not even at my table on the other side. (Darin was home, still sick) Talk about rejection! Finally, someone invited me to join them at their table, but it never ceases to amaze me how I don't fit in. How I can be so alone in a room filled with people...

It ended up being a good evening, but I'm still feeling alone. Like walking through life in a shell - doing everything and participating - but just doing it as an empty, hollow shell - going through the motions. No one gets this pain. I'm so alone.

Will I ever fit in? Will life ever come naturally for me? Or is this just the way it is - you learn the choreography and do the dance but deep down inside you're limping. Do we just loose the pain of the limp or do we ever learn to dance inside and out? Dare I hope for that? I'm so afraid to...

There's a saying - it's better to have loved and lost to have never loved at all. I hate it. I don't know if they know what loss really is... maybe it doesn't apply to such extremes... I don't know. I just have trouble seeing that there will ever come a day when it's all hunky dory and that "happy" will ever come naturally for me.

Today, I'd be happy just not to be so alone.

It's raining

It's pouring outside. I have the flu. I didn't sleep much at all last night. I'm so whiny today I just can't hardly stand to be near myself.

I'm feeling conflicted. I have so much to be thankful for - my husband, my children, my church, my close friends who have been so supportive of late... and yet I still hurt so badly and nothing seems to make it quit.

I know the sun is still shining above these clouds, but it's so hard to hold on to in the midst of it all. Facing all of this and dealing with it is the hardest thing I've ever done. I never banked on it taking so long and being so hard and feeling so dark. I feel like I'm walking blind, just hoping there's another side. I know my Guide is the best there is, and He guarantees me there's another side, but that doesn't make it less scary or painful.

The Bible says that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Oh what I wouldn't do just to glimpse a little bit of it to garner the strength to hold on through this. It calls our present troubles light and momentary - oh how great it must be if it can consider this darkness "light and momentary" and also "not worthy to be compared"...

Lord, how 'bout a break in the clouds - just for a minute? I know faith is the evidence of things hoped for and not seen, but walking blind is HARD... I believe - help me in my unbelief!

Filler Post

Okay - this is a stupid post. I've just given out my blog address to a new friend and I'm embarrassed that I've not posted this week. So here we are.

In a nutshell, I have the flu AND I have PMS - I'm a basketcase. But I'll get over it. Such is life.

Okay, now there's a post.

Will write more in a few days when the world stops spinning... Ugh.

Welcome, new friend. If you still want to be friends with me after this lame post, I'm impressed. lol.

Feeling bad

Been a loooooooong week.


Survived Thanksgiving alright - with only minor speedbumps with the family. My stepdad drives me crazy, what can I say? I don't do well with men on power trips.


Still riding the emotional roller coaster. Tuesday before Thanksgiving was a breakthrough day but also a setback day because I pushed too hard. So it was a quick crash and it really hurt. Still recovering. Feeling bad about it - guilty because I should have known better.


Dealing with that now - was feeling very powerless until this afternoon - my dogs went missing and it seemed like everything in all the world was centered around me not being enough to make any of it function right. But God had mercy and let me find the dogs today, so it was a good victory and reminder that not EVERYTHING is hopeless.


I'm glad to have my dogs back. Just a little message of hope from God when I needed it most.


Still feeling defeated, though. I see how huge this mountain is and Tuesday really showed me how very little I've moved in the last few months. And I've put forth monumental effort. I just don't see how I'm going to finish the journey. I lack the strength to go that far.


So here I sit on my pity pot. I just need some time to snuggle the dogs and regain a little strength. How I'll do it, I have no idea. Today, I don't care. I just want to sit here and cry and hug my dogs.