what I know today

I know that pride kills my relationship with Christ.  Anytime the “I” or “me” is primary in my thoughts I am probably in the wrong in some manner.  I know that I see things primarily through my own eyes and while I am often certain of my own perspective, the world is complicated and my perspective is not the only one that is valid.

I have struggled greatly over this past year in particular in my relationship with my husband.  I struggle because he does not meet my many of needs.  We are often talking and acting past one another because we do not speak one another’s love language and neither of us try hard enough to bridge that gap.  I believe (rightly or wrongly) that I feel this gap far more than my husband does.  I am deeply convinced that I am "more right” than he is on most of our issues and believe that the things I request from him are so small that it could possibly be cruel as to withhold them from me. 

My woes led me dangerously close to divorce and what stopped me from crossing that line is the belief that I would gain nothing.  I would gain only the 'loss of expectation' that things would get better.  This could also be phrased as the HOPE that things would get better.  I’ve just chosen not to go there.  I’ve sided on my pain and emptiness.

That my marriage has not turned out as I hoped and planned ultimately led me down the path of questioning God.  Not His existence because creation keeps me grounded there, but on who He is.  The personal-ness of the Jesus I always knew.  I’ve been blessed with the gift of faith and of often of optimism and that saw me through much.  The ultimate disappointment I experience in my marriage struck hard and deep and I believe has been used by the enemy to bring my walk with God to a crawl if not a halt.  It was brewing for years but my encounter with evil through the movie "Food, Inc." added incredible fuel to the fire.  The blaze of WHY has burned quite bright this past year.  My encounter with evil so clear and unnerving that I’ve been rendered almost helpless.  The evil is so big and I am just one; how could anything I do make a difference?

This same train of thought has carried me through in many other areas of life.  What is the point of so much suffering?  When I look at my Mom and see that while, yes, she has brought some of life’s ails upon herself, the most offensive of them were without her control.  These events in her life have forever transformed her into a deeply broken person who often despairs of life and struggles to cling to God.  What purpose is there in such suffering?  I always wanted to be like Joseph who, as far as we read, did not ask “why” of God though he was taken from his family, sold into slavery, rose to power, wrongly accused and thrown in jail where he was left to rot, then brought out again to ultimate glory in being present for God’s will.  I love that we don’t read him asking why.  Here I am now, asking Why and I hate it; but I cannot stop.  I must go through this if I ever hope to come out the other side.  There is still a part of me that trusts there is more though the doubt in my mind would seek to smother it.

I’ve tried to step back from the immediacy and emotion of my wants in my marriage and instead look at what I have.  Look at and appreciate the good I have.  Though we are cautioned against comparison, we humans do love to compare ourselves to one another.  When I compare the man Adam is with many other husbands I know of, he does stand tall.  He is a good man, with high moral character.  He works steadily, often at jobs he truly dislikes, and provides financially for our family.  He handles our finances with little complaint, though I do give him cause to complain more often than I should.  He is a good father who cares for his children and does seek to give them a good life.  He spends time with his children and while he does things in a very different way than I do, I appreciate that he is a father, not a mother, and I need to respect our differences.

My husband does most of the cooking and keeps things in our home from falling into complete untidiness, including doing most of the dishes.  He doesn’t ask much of me, doesn’t ask me to do his laundry or clean his bathroom.  He gives me the freedom to serve as often as I want and has allowed me to attend a church I prefer over our old church, though I believe his heart is still back there.

The separateness is not necessarily a rejection of me, though certainly I often feel it as such.  It can also be a coping mechanism for living in a life that is difficult (if only by first world standards).  In a world that seeks to rob us of our faith and beat down our hope, to exhaust us and keep us from shining a light for Christ.

So, today I know that I am not always right.  That there is always another point of view and even if I don’t share it, I do not ultimately decide the validity of the truth…God does. 

This weekend, I hope to spend some more time contemplating this and seeking reunion with a God I don’t always agree with.  A God I don’t understand.  To rekindle the hope that comes from knowing a God big enough I cannot grasp all of who He is.  To allow the reinstatement of my trust that He knows best.  That evil will not win.

computer virus edition: what is the point of suffering

So I talked with my Mom last night and that was helpful.  She has lead a very difficult life (before and after becoming a Christian).  One of the questions I have banging around inside my head is:
If someone is so deeply depressed that they can't even go grocery shopping and barely have contact with the world, what is the point of such suffering?

Mom said, she still felt it was worth it, but that she finds herself asking the same questions.  Which I think is fair to ask.

The first thing that comes to mind is the idea that my faith is only important outside myself.  That if I'm not impacting the lives of others, my faith is useless.  However, I see that there is error in this thought, for God did not save me only to have me share with others.  He saved me to have a relationship with ME. 

So I go to:  Why must there be so much suffering?
And the very next question I hear is:  How much suffering would be acceptable?

I don't have an answer for that.  Because if I say half, my measuring stick changes and half of today's suffering will soon feel like too much. 

Then I think: 

• How much suffering have I been spared from?
• Is this all just a first world problem and I am complaining about not having "enough" when I actually have "abundance" according to the world's standards.  (example:  I'm completely stuffed from a potluck and eating out today.  Certainly this is not a 3rd world problem where every day could mean the difference between life and death.)
• Is all the "stuff" of first world living actually a kind of curse because it changes my expectations of God?

Just a little light conversation for today.

lonely

I am so lonely.  I want romance!  Not flowers and chocolates romance, real romance.  Falling in love or being in love, feeling in love.  Looking forward to sharing my day and my thoughts with somebody who cares.  Everything seems so basic lately.  I feel like there is no depth in my life.  Am I just playing at living right now?  It's not that I'm not present, because I am.  Oh this makes no sense.  I'm just rambling, but then, this is my ramble blog.  Nonsense and deep thoughts and ranting when needed.

I am lonely.

My marriage is a shell.  We are roommates and parents with occasional benefits.  I am the one doing the pursuing and I so want to be pursued.  I want to be... wanted.  To feel pretty and loved and interesting.  I want to say "I deserve" to feel these things, but I don't know that I believe life is about my happiness.  There is certainly happiness to be found in life, but I do not believe it is the goal.  There is more to it than that.  

I guess I am just lost with my marriage in trouble and my husband tuned out and here I am feeling better about myself than I ever have and "nobody" to appreciate it.  It doesn't seem fair; but then I tell my children constantly... life is not fair.

I am hiding in romantic stories of fictional men who care.  Right now I am no disallusioned by relationships.  I give too much and so often that I think I have trained others not to give back.  So foolish.  I wish I'd learned to balance this all better.
sigh

Maybe I can sleep some of this off.

ouch

This past weekend was a bit rough for me.
I'm glad it happened because I desire truth and know without it we can accomplish little.

Life has been pretty stressfull in our home.
My husband was just laid off and while there are some good things to that (he's not stressed about work, he does all the driving for the kids to and from school and the house is really clean!!) it also comes with a down side.  Not having enough money to pay everything being the primary one.  Looking for a job when there really aren't any.

On top of that, our marriage is broken.  Not irreparably so (in my humble opinion), but broken all the same.  I've been asking (telling) my husband that I really need more from him and that I'm not going to last much longer without more.  This is a conversation we've been having for years.  I cycle through not being able to stand the loneliness anymore and then we make a few improvements and that placates me (and him? I don't know) and I can go forward again for a while.  I'd recently had this "please talk to me" conversation and last Friday my hubby decided to... talk to me.

Except, it was a really bad day.

I was PMSing in an almost criminal fashion.  Lack of sleep and had a bad day at work.  On top of that, I was feeling neglected by friends and getting kind of angry with all the people in my life that weren't living up to MY expectations.  (harumph)  Ever been there?  Yeah, not fun.

So I come in and sit down ready to lose myself in a tv show and pretend I don't feel like I do.  My husband doesn't let it go.  Now this in itself is fairly miraculous.  He would normally try once and then say "OK" and go hide in his mancave.  This time he pushed.  We ended up going outside to sit in the car in order to have a little privacy from our children.  There we talked (I talked) about me feeling strongly that he doesn't like me much.  Telling him that I am the same woman he fell in love with and married.  I still care about things and want to make a difference.  I still want more out of life.  I still love him and our kids and want to create a wonderful home for all of us.  But I am lonely and it hurts and I am reaching a breaking point.  Long story short, my husband admitted that he doesn't like me much (but does love me); that I can really make him nuts.  That he has changed and he doesn't think there is much more to life.

Thinking over that conversation... I cried for 2 days.  I even woke up at night crying.  It was rough.  But... I was also relieved.  This truth I can work with.  There is something here to work on.  So after the initial waterfall of tears, I was able to think more clearly.  Gosh... it sounds like my husband has lost hope.  He doesn't have anything to dream about.  Man, I'd be miserable too if I felt that way.

So, in moving forward in our relationship, we are now spending one night a week together to work on things.  My only issue now will be not to try to make all the changes I"m hoping for at once!

Looks like my husband is stubborn too.

Rejection

I was talking with my Mom today about rejection.  Actually, she was talking to me about rejection.  She recently broke up with a boyfriend we both thought was going to marry her.  It was one of those very strange break ups where we are both still flabbergasted and confused.  He'd asked her to move in for months and when she finally did, he flipped out.  It got ugly.  They are now barely friends.  Note: I am not excited about the moving in without marriage thing, but she's 65, knows better, yet often does mostly what she wants.

This isn't the first breakup.  It's been hard watching her date and worry about her getting hurt.  My Mom is pretty nice, and crazy, but we all have our baggage and the older we are, the more baggage we carry.  I would have said she has more baggage than most, in fact I planned to type that next; but when I think about the recent ex boyfriend, I'm just not sure that is accurate.  He did a 180 AFTER she got all her stuff in the house and then tried to just throw her out.  That's a lot of baggage!  That as a rational (guessing here) adult who at 65+ should know enough about them self to know that he doesn't want to live with a woman...to behave that way.  My Mom may not be as crazy as I initially thought.  Or she just fares well in competition to others her age.

So rejection.  She's hurt - who wouldn't be. She is now thinking that she shouldn't date.  That dating is a frustration in dashed hopes of being loved.  I want to tell her this isn't true and hope springs eternal and there is somebody to love everybody; but I can't.  It isn't true.  She may not have another.  There is a lot of rejection in her life.  She talked about being in pain.  Agony kind of pain where the only salvation is to find a way to get out of yourself and travel someplace else to escape it.  (she is disabled)  Sharing that experience she said the only place she could go was to go to God.  To spend time with him away from her pain.  The only way to survive is to totally surrender to God and accept that if this is where her life is; she's OK with it because God is with her.

Fast forward to this evening where we had our final Rooted Bible Study celebration.  We talked about how to live the Christian life.  How did Jesus live the Christian life?  He was totally surrendered to it.  He surrendered His Godhood to become incarnate in a body.  He will never leave the body He's in.  He gave up that ability to be everywhere physically to be our sacrifice.  Surrender.

I wrote down that I am not surrendered.
I am not surrendered in my marriage.  To God, to my husband.  I am angry and still think "I" can do something about it.  I'm not sure this is the lesson and yet letting go makes me hopeless.  I'm a doer.  Perhaps part of this lesson is for me.

I am not surrendered to God.  I still think I am in control.  I'm not, but I'm still striving for control.  When I think about it intellectually, this is funny because I'm not in control of anything.  I'm a force of nature going about my day touching ground occasionally.  I'm interrupted so many times throughout the day and that would be OK if I didn't have other work to do; but I am so not in control.

So this weekend, I have some spiritual work to do.  I need to do some surrendering to God.  I do trust Him so the intellectual part of it is OK.  I'm part of the way there.  I have stopped short of actually behaving in trust though.  Wonder if I'm going to find that I don't trust God as much as I think I do.  I sure hope not cuz that would be so much harder to deal with.  Just the idea of surrender is hard.

I think that perhaps now I am going to surrender to sleep.  My body is weary and I have much to do tomorrow.

Blessings on you all.

Tomorrow...and daily... let's start our day by telling God it's all His anyway and we acknowledge that.
You are God and I am not.
Lord, today, not my will, but Your will!

Depressed anyone?

I am generally very good at avoiding depression.  I lived with a major depressive (mom) and I hate depression with a passion.  A few years back, I put myself through therapy for a year because as good as I am at working out my own crap (with special thanks to good friends!!)  I had hit a wall I couldn't seem to climb.  Digging deeper and deeper into a rut with a need to find a way out.  I turned to therapy.  We did make some major progress and I learned some things I still practice and share with others today.  

(2x4 Moment:  Yes, I made progress in therapy but only after arguing with my therapist for 3 months about how this would be accomplished.  Finally, in what I can only imagine was exasperation, he looked at me and said, "Who has the degree?" (pause) So I let him run things and we started making progress.  Imagine that!)

A friend said something recently that made me stop and think.  Do I discount how much stress I am under and overestimate my ability to deal with it?  I see this in other people, but her comment made me think perhaps I need to see it in myself as well.

She (I'll call her K) commented on my sharing that noise really bothers me.  It never used to.  I can remember being the teeanager with the music blaring and my parents telling me to turn it down.  (talk about hearing your mothers voice come out of your mouth, it's my turn to say this to my kids!)

So, K told me that being bothered by noise is a sign of depression. 

Truth sometimes hits you square upside the head.  There was just truth in that statement.  So now I have to stop and look...am I depressed?

I'm still working out the details of how this might be effecting my life.  I personally have a major fail in the personal caretaking of me category.)

If you're interested:
These are general symptoms of depression:

difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions

fatigue and decreased energy

feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and/or helplessness

feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism

insomnia, early-morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping

irritability, restlessness

loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex

overeating or appetite loss

persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment

persistent sad, anxious, or "empty" feelings

thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts

I find a few of these interesting.  Things I have attributed to aging, medication and my own general nuttiness.

• difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
• insomnia, early-morning wakefulness (I wish), or excessive sleeping
• overeating or appetite loss (again, wishful thinking on appetite loss)
• persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment

See, many of these would pertain to me anyway, so it's easy to write them off.  I'm slowly going down a path to living more healthy.


I'm wondering if these are also symptoms of stress.  (According to the Mayo Clinic they are.)  Could I be struggling with depression in ways other than the typical mope around the house with a little black rain cloud over me? 
Guess I need to sit down with God and work on this stress and depression.  Do a little self care, something so many of us are truly bad at.  


I started today with a pedicure...but I should have spent more time being quiet and still and praying than looking at trashy gossip magazines, I would have felt better.  I don't want to keep seeing "should have" on my list.  I need to make better decisions.  Starting right now, I'm going to do that.  I'm going to shut down and go to bed 1 hour earlier than I have all week.  That sounds like a positive step for now.  

How do you take care of yourself?