Running

Sometimes I still find myself running towards the lies. Believing that I am truly way down deep inside unlovable. People I love, that I deeply respect and admire have gone to ridiculous lengths to convince me I am in fact lovable.
Even on wonderful fanfreakintastic days I hear an echo of long ago and long since dead voices telling me I am a nasty selfish girl that no one really loves.
I hate that echo.
I've tried to drown it out, smoke it out, cut it out, sweat it out. I've tried to kill it with food and I've tried to distract it with shiny boys. But still the voice remains.
I've tried to silence it with loud angry music or the blaring TV. I've given it over more times than I care to count to a God that has shown himself as nothing less than gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. But still it returns. The echo, always there in the deepest part of the night and the brightest time of day.
You are not lovable it hisses and slithers. I don't know how to make it stop. I don't know how to stop attributing that echo of long ago voices from over taking me. I don't know how to stop from thinking, "Any day now. Any day they'll figure out that I'm a fraud, that I'm unlovable"

I hold my breath, waiting for the hammer to drop. For you to figure it out. I find myself terrified and tongue tied when I try to pray because I don't want Him to find out, or more so I don't want to remind Him how truly unlovable I am.
The contradiction is found in knowing it is a lie; but still believing it's true.

It's prideful, this obsession that I can truly be that unlovable. The idea that I can have information that God does not already know inside and out. The idea that I am beyond the redemption of a God that created the universe. This guilt is not well founded. This shame is not from God.
I'm just working through some things people. I'll be just fine. But sometimes this junk just needs to get out of my head before it drives me batty.

Posts that may only be slightly related:
Pride
I was Afraid
Jesus

Knowing the Truth; Believing the Lies

I'm reading Learning My Name by Pete Gall. It's a really intense book for me and I'm having a hard time reading more than a few pages.
I started it right after reading another really intense book and had to put it down. I just couldn't do it anymore.

But I dog sat this weekend and decided to give it another crack. At the end of the intro and each chapter there are questions to answer and reflect on. I'm only partly through the 1st chapter. Because I just can't push through this book. It's challenging my views on forgiveness, healing and redemption. I realized with a tearful start that I still believe a lie. Lies that had been tattooed on my heart for years I'm still finding them holding on in the deepest corners of my heart and mind.
I know they are lies. I know they are lies. But I still believe them to be true. I choose their sharp broken edges over the loving embrace of a God that has never harmed me.

The question was "What do you believe happens when God forgives you?"
I know what happens, I've read about it in the bible, what happens when you ask for forgiveness. I know the truth. But my mouth opened and out of it came this damn lie that He patronizes me, says "yes yes I know you'll try to do better, just like the last hundred times" Out of my mouth and the dredges of my heart came the characteristics and habits of people that have hurt me, lied to me, used me, abused me...and my very own broken and damaged character came out. That forgiveness isn't true, it doesn't exist. There is no redemption for this horrible nasty girl.
I can't even explain really what happened after that. I wrote and wrote and wrote in my journal. I prayed, I cried I begged for this to go away, these lies.
I know these are all lies. That no one, myself included is beyond redemption. I know that when you ask for forgiveness you are granted it immediately. But I don't believe it. I don't trust that it could really be true.

It's infected my relationship with God to the point of infecting my time in prayer with him. It's is a brick wall that I've built between us that I'm tired of ramming my head into. It's a battle that is raging that is whispering to me that God merely tolerates me and my antics because I'm useful to Him in some way. Which is the same battle that rages in my heart about my relationships with other people.
It's terrifying and reassuring, this realization that these lies exist along with my knowledge of the truth. It's terrifying that I can have known God for so long, that I have seen Him do amazing things and that He has delivered me from so many things but I still don't seem to trust that it's real. It's reassuring because at least I know the truth...which is someplace to begin.

Because I know, that we are all redeemed freely through grace. That it is not what I do, the tasks I accomplish, the words I do or do not say, the actions I have taken in the past or the actions I'm taking now that will earn me grace. It's free. Completely unearned and completely amazing. Now I just have to find a way to truly truly believe it and allow that grace to heal the scars the lies have left etched in my heart.

Romans 3:22-24
22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.


Posts that may only be slightly related:
Beautiful Idol
Thud of Grace
Still Broken

The Thud of Grace

I read this here.
You have to read it. I cried. It was exactly what I needed today.

I often wonder how she felt.
Standing there, caught in her shame, there was no way to hide.
No chance of passing the blame – she was caught in the act.
No chance of getting out of punishment – these guys meant business.

But, so did He.

He already knew her. He knew her habits, her vices. He also knew her dreams. Her secret longings. Her desire to be beautiful and to feel beautiful. Yeah, he knew all about her. And he still loved her.

I often wonder how she felt; humiliated and scared out of her mind. Her eyes darting towards the jagged stones held by the hands of men – many of whom she had already met before. Many of whom she had already…known before. The cat calls and hissing of men and women in the crowd, the plea for justice in the form of stone against flesh, none of these could distract her attention though of this man standing next to her.

Majestic yet simple.
Fierce yet serene.
Jealous. Oh my, he was jealous.

A voice cried out, “Abba! We caught this woman having sex. Adultery! Fornication! It wasn’t even her husband! According to Moses, we should stone her.” The man, silently remembering his own indiscretions with the targeted woman, threw a furtive smile towards his friends. “What say you, LORD?”

Silence.

A few chuckled. She groaned inwardly. They had him now. All he had to do was mention this thing of…grace and they would have him trapped. She was a slut. A whore. A good-for-nothing piece of trash who gave away her body for a few scraps of bread and measly change.

Every one waited.

Quietly, he stooped down and wrote in the sand.

She braced herself for the first stone’s impact.

His voice shattered the silence, “Okay. True. She has sinned. But. Let the one with no sin throw the first stone.”

She closed her eyes, tears making rivers down her cheeks.

Thump.

One stone hits the ground with stunning finality. The man who dropped the stone, shoulders slumped, turns around and walks away.

Thump.

Another stone fallen; another man turns to leave.

One by one, the stones hit the dirt. The woman – was she amazed? Did she have the strength to stand under the weight of a sin forgiven?

Quietly, without much ado, the men left . Only One was remained.

“Where are your accusers? Did no one throw a stone?”

She managed a whisper, “No, LORD.”

He smiled. “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

I often wonder how she felt.

With the thud of grace ringing in her ears, did she dance? Did she sing?

Or did she cling to His hand? In desperation for love and acceptance, did she for the first time feel beautiful? Did she see her worthiness as far more than pearls as He gingerly wiped tears from her cheek?

I’d like to think she did a little of all of these. I’d like to think that humbled, she fell at His feet and wept the bittersweet tears of redemption. I’d like to think that when she was done, she finally felt what it was like to be forgiven.

To be free.

Climbing Aimlessly Over These Hills

I kept hearing this song on the radio lately. But I hardly listen to Christian radio so I can't have heard it much. The lyric, "Whatever you're doing inside of me it feels like chaos" has been looping around and around in my head.
Because it does.
I've been chatting with God over the last several years about change. Change who I am, how I feel about myself, my physical appearance (as in getting healthy), how I treat others. I've begged him for passion and motivation to do something worthwhile, anything at all that isn't focused on my own comfort. He's patiently pointed out a few areas in my heart that needed swept out, cleaned out and purged. He's gently knit back together the shards of my heart I used as weapons against others. He's waited patiently through my tantrums and deafening silences and curled his arms around my stubborn turned from Him back.

It's all been very exhausting.
Now, now he's seemingly trying to show me that the healing is done enough for me to move. Take action. To let my direction determine my destination (Directionationism) and it feels like chaos. It feels paralyzing. It feels overwhelming to dream big and seemingly impossible dreams that to others might not be that big of a deal. But they are to me.
I've cleaned this old house. I've purged, cried, screamed, whispered and whimpered it all out. Now is the time to move instead of climbing aimlessly over these hills.
But I still feel so paralyzed and overwhelmed. I still am finding the habits of living based on lies so deeply ingrained and scarred on my heart hard to overcome.
So I shut down and shut up and try to not address it directly.
But if there is one thing I've learned about God, it's that he doesn't go quietly into the night. He's poking and prodding me to keep it moving.
When in doubt, when scared I try to stay very very still as if I can somehow disappear into the stillness. But God keeps stirring it up, my heart.

Some days I just don't know what to do with that. I don't know what next step to take. Some days I do, and I'm just so scared to take them.
A lot of days lately, I've just been sitting with it. Holding it in my heart and letting myself hope for something larger than this life. Something Heavenly.

Posts that may only slightly be related:
Some Days
Kind of Girl
Shut Up Just Sit Right Back

It's time for healing time to move on
It's time to fix what's been broken too long
Time make right what has been wrong
It's time to find my way to where I belong
There's a wave that's crashing over me
All I can do is surrender

[Chorus]
Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
but I'm giving in to something heavenly

Time for a milestone
Time to begin again
Reevaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow your will
or just climbing aimlessly over these hills
So show me what it is you want from me
I give everything I surrender...
To...

[Chorus]

Time to face up
Clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out
That I've wanted to say for so many years
Time to to release all my held back tears

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but I believe
You're up to something bigger than me
Larger than life something heavenly

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but now I can see
This something bigger than me
Larger than life something heavenly
Something heavenly

It's time to face up
Clean this old house
Time breathe in and let everything out
Sanctus Real Whatever You're Doing(Something Heavenly)

The Truth of a Thousand Lies

My face has been in a lot of pain lately. Seems I have a bum tooth thanks to an almost 20 year old silver filling that is shifting and allowing decay to get underneath the it and into the nerve of the tooth. The pain intensified Thursday morning and it woke me up to seeing colors at about 3am.
I went to the dentist and got it all taken care of and was commended for the care I take with my teeth, brushing, flossing, mouth wash etc. Which was odd, because I was pretty much ready to stop flossing because I blamed the flossing for my bum tooth.

On the way to the pharmacy to fill my prescription I started thinking about why I thought it was the flossing that gave me the tooth decay, because it clearly isn't. I realized with a start that when bad things happen I blame the good things for them.
I don't think about my decisions to live on a diet of solely Mt.Dew. chocolate and high sugar fruity adult beverages. I don't think about the years I didn't brush my teeth a lot and certainly never flossed. I blamed the good thing, the flossing and the good habits I'm developing now. I automatically decided that I shouldn't even bother flossing because all it does is cause the decay to happen. It didn't occur to me without a lot of thought that the flossing only brought out the hidden decay that was already there, just below the surface. Decay that would have come out eventually even without the flossing.
I do that with a whole lot of things. I used to never wash my face and I rarely had acne. When I started washing my face I broke out so badly and it was super painful. So I stopped washing my face again. Until a friend told me that I was breaking out because the face wash was bringing all of the junk hiding below the surface of my skin out to wash it away. If I would just stick with it through the pain and break outs my skin would clear back up and I wouldn't have that much acne again.
I thought of that on the way to the pharmacy too.

I thought of how working out has caused my knees to hurt, my arms to ache, my head to throb and how I almost threw up after working out that one time. It makes me want to quit. Because I blame the working out. I don't consider all of the junk I've stuffed into my mouth for 30 years. I don't think about all the lazy days spend lounging in bed drinking soda and eating chips that caused all of this weight to be stressing my joints. I blame the good thing, the good habit for the current pain.

I thought about my relational baggage. How I blame every single less than exactly how I wish they could be fella for the shortcomings of the one I really want to be with. I don't think about the lies I was told, that have become so ingrained in my heart that I don't hesitate to believe them. Ugly. Fat. Worthless. Stupid. Unlovable. Selfish. I blame the fella. I call him shallow when that isn't really true. I seek out his shortcomings and orchestrate his downfall in my mind before he finds the truth of a thousand lies I've engraved on my own heart. I blame the fella for the intentional bad choices I've made in relationships, for the repercussions of such things.

I blame the good things to avoid dealing with the bad.
I thought this morning as I lay in bed nursing the left side of my wounded mouth about how surprising it is to me that I still believe these lies. The liars have been revealed. The truth is out, they were full of shit. But still, years have passed with me still believing their lies. I believe the slithery lies whispered in my ear in the dead of night.
Don't even try, you will fail.
Don't speak up about these things, no one wants to hear them.
It's his fault, not yours
You don't deserve this
They're better off without you

But I'm realizing that this is all the decay. The decay of a thousand lies told to me by the enemy and by people that should have loved me. The decay has always been there. It's always been just below the surface. Talking about it hasn't caused the decay it's only healing it. But still I dodge, deflect and demur. I blame the talking about it, the being open about it as what causes this pain.
So today I'm trying to remember, that the pain, the junk, the decay is not caused by the good thing. It's not caused by the moving forward, moving on, airing of the hidden lies. The pain is a sign that it's working. That the infection is being attacked and healed and that one day it will be as it should be. I'm holding on to the promise that mercy will come and wash all of this away. That in the end this interim pain and struggle won't matter anymore because it's the good that will come from it that matters.

I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised

It got so far
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me in the end

You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all

Posts that may only be slightly related:
Stephanie
Liars
Invisible

Change of Plans

"Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."

Frederick Buechner

Especially when I have a way events will go set in my head it is difficult for me to change plans under the best of circumstances. I spend a lot of time thinking about how something will go, the conversations that will be had and my responses to any possible tension, conflict, whatever.
Even worse is when I have a set time that I would like to arrive. I hate being late, I hate it. I've had huge fights with dear friends about being late. My tendency is to just throw people out of my way and get moving already so we can get somewhere on time. The ironic thing about that is I almost always get places early, I panic about being late and leave way to early and end up cooling my heals for awhile until whatever I was arriving for begins.

Friday I was going to a book reading by my house. Before I got there I needed to go to West Chester and pick up my friend Claire, who doesn't like to drive at night. I left work late because I was fussing with my hair in the bathroom and reapplying makeup (because I may or may not have an awkward and obnoxious crush on the author that was speaking). I was frustrated because I made myself late. Traffic was annoying because it was raining during the drive from work up to West Chester. It's really only about 30 miles total but traffic makes it take the time of about 50-60 miles, especially when it rains.
I had in mind I was going to pick up Claire, run to my house to pick up said authors book that I forgot at home and then head to the venue all by 630 so I could get good seats. Logically speaking I knew that there would be plenty of good seats to be had but I was all wound up about it in my head.
I was also worrying about money, because I'm totally broke. I mean, I'm not broke but the amounts of funds I have to vicariously spend frivolously is less than zero. Which is fine and my bills are being paid but owning a house by myself is expensive and hard and it's just catching up to me lately. So I was calculating and budgeting and wrapped up in my little world during the drive up to West Chester.

As I drive up the exit ramp to Union Centre I see her. The woman standing on the ramp holding the sign, "Homeless and Hungry. Anything Will Help" I immediately thought, "I don't have anything lady I'm flat ass broke" But I felt bad because I like to help, I know that even a smile and a kind word might help but this womans belly would still be empty and she would still be homeless. So I smile at her as I drive by and try to move my mind on to the subject at hand, budgeting, getting to the venue on time, what I was going to do the rest of the weekend. But my heart wouldn't move on.
My heart started telling me that even as broke as I am I am one of the richest people in the world. My heart told me that I had a car, a house, clothes, heat, family and friends that if I really needed it and was in trouble would bail me out no questions asked. I had food in my cupboard, my stomach was bulging with the results of our pot luck at work. My heart told me that my schedule, my plans, my idea of how things should go that evening was wrong. That I shouldn't be so worried about getting somewhere 30 minutes before an event starts that I sacrifice compassion for someone else. My heart sounded a whole lot like my God.

I turned to look behind me as I switched lanes to prepare for my turn and I saw it. The crock pot, still warm, filled with homemade rigatoni from the pot luck at work. But I immediately dismissed the idea because in order to give her rigatoni I would need a container, disposable silverware, time, energy and motivation to give it to her. All of those things I was running short on. But God reminded me again of how rich I was, of how much I had, and how a little inconvenience on my part wouldn't kill me. God reminded me that whatever I did for the least of these I've done for Him.

So I call Claire, and ask her if she has a container that she would be willing to not get back. She did. I stop at her house, spoon the rigatoni into the container elated that it was still so warm. We stop at a gas station to pick up utensils and we head back to the 75 overpass. I obviously can't drive down the off ramp, so I park on the overpass and jump out of the car. I realized I had two umbrellas in my car so I grabbed one of those. I walked down the overpass and up to the woman still holding the sign and said I had food and an umbrella for her. We chatted for a second, hugged, then I walked back to my car. I was damp, my carefully straightened hair was starting to frizz and I'm pretty sure my eyeliner was smudging. But the turmoil was still. My heart was calmed.
I told Claire that I was pretty sure I wasn't going to actually enjoy the evening until that task was accomplished, because how could I?

Even now I wonder where that woman is, what she's doing, if she's safe and warm. I wonder what else I could have done. I know that what I did was good enough but it doesn't feel good enough. It doesn't feel good enough to me that there are people that have no homes when I have a large home for just one small person. It doesn't feel right that people are starving when I'm eating myself to death. It's not comfortable, this knowledge of poverty in the world.
I get caught up in my everyday life, I get distracted and inward focused and I may even forget for a little bit that this other world exists because I'm so cozily ensconced in my world. I'm not saying that we should feel guilty for what we have, but maybe we shouldn't hold on so tightly to it when others have nothing.

It's not comfortable, living in this tension between how I wish the world was, how I wish the world worked and what is actually happening. I'm grieved with the knowledge of what is wrong and the knowledge that it will never be truly right until we're reunited with our Father in Heaven. I long for that day.

Matthew 25:35-40
35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Picking

A simple conversation, not on the phone or face to face, leads me to spend days picking at the wound that I never let heal.

Just for a moment I'll think, I'll pretend it could be right. Maybe if I just pick at this corner the rest of the wound will remain sealed up tight.
No matter, it all comes undone with a whisper of the dream, with a hint in the deepest dredges of my heart of the dream that goes unfulfilled.

I know it happens, that it will happen, every single time. Yet I can't stay away, like a moth to a flame. The cliche so overplayed and melodramatic yet it fits this melodrama raging in my heart so well.

It's exhausting, this constant vigilance, to not long for it so deeply, to not look at it to closely, to not want the dream so badly. This longing that finds me in the deep darkness of the night when I sleep, when my defenses are down.
It finds me waking to the shrill alarm clock, stumbling into the cold bathroom with tears on my face.

How long? How long? How long will it be until this is healed, until I stop picking at the wound I don't let heal. How many more moments will there be when my breath catches in my throat at the very thought, the very hint of a life spent, I can't even say.
It's to much, to hard, to painful to imagine it without the possibility of it becoming true. This hope is foolish to hold on to, it is to much.


Posts that may only be slightly related:
I could never be your woman
Wrap Me Up
Today This Ends