Hating Waiting

I hate waiting.

That's probably why I spend so much time doing it, I joke. But the joking is wearing thin right about now. It seems that the last few years, all I have been doing is waiting: waiting for the next university course, the next blood test, the next phone call, the next email. 

It wears me down. Especially lately, now that I am waiting for any word of any agency that is willing to work with me for my counselling practicum this coming September - and while I wait, my university's non-negotiable deadline (for submission of a practicum proposal) of April 30 ticks away. 

It was less irritating as long as I was doing something (like sending out literally dozens of feelers since my best option pulled out two months ago), but I've exhausted every option, receiving rejection after rejection, and all there is left to me is the waiting. And of course there is the "not knowing"... and all that implies. It is hard to get motivated to do much of anything with that hanging over my head. And by "that" ... I mean whether or not I will be even DOING a practicum this year, or postponing it yet another year while the mental health care system in my province tries to figure out what to go do with itself. They (whoever "they" are) say they are crying out for counsellors, but they want trained ones, people who already have their certification. They don't have the space or time to invest in someone who is perfectly willing to help them - because they want pre-qualified people. It's supremely frustrating. 

I have pretty much exhausted all possibilities in my province. I know it is the smallest one in Canada, but still!! Anyway, to that end, I have expanded my search to include sites that are out of province, yet still close enough to allow for relatively easy visiting. I have been looking at apartments for rent in some of these places, thinking that I will need to move away - if temporarily - to make my dream come true. That it has come to this is rather upsetting, but I see no other way for it. 

My friends and co-workers have been very supportive and I have had many suggestions from a lot of people, and I have followed up on each one. However, it has all been to no avail. Either the sites don't have enough work for me (they themselves are part-time), they disagree with my university's requirement to allow recording of some of my sessions for evaluation purposes, or they just don't have the space to put me.

Photo "Opening Door Knob" courtesy of
sixninepixels at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Hopefully, I will be able to navigate these rough waters and come out the other side at least holding onto a life-buoy. it is hard to hold my head above water - and the sense of panic is very real at times. There have been times this last month when I have been so close to giving up and dropping out.

My professors tell me I will rock this counselling world - but they are not here with me to see the state of affairs. My family and friends tell me that they believe in me, and I appreciate that, but my fate lies in the hands of those people who are (pardon the expression) looking for their pound of flesh too. 

I am expecting a call from a couple of prospects (out of province) sometime this coming week. Whether that will result in me obtaining a placement is anyone's guess. I have learned that I need to be flexible, and i have the loving support of my amazing husband and daughter for whatever I will need to do to make this work. I have begun to consider options I never thought I would have to consider, options that scare me half to death. Yet here we are.

So for now, I take a deep breath, take one step at a time, and put one foot in front of the other. I have come too far along this path to stop now ... but it's just that .... I hate waiting.

Learned by crocheting

The last couple of weeks have been rather stressful at our house, due to one daughter having surgery and another working through some interpersonal problems surrounding boundaries and freedoms, trust and respect, and rights and responsibilities. We as parents have also learned - or perhaps relearned - some old lessons. 

To de-stress, I decided to try something my [temporarily] disabled daughter has been doing to pass the time: crocheting. A friend came over one night to show her how - and I watched. After she had made a few simple items, I decided to try my hand at it - and was (pardon the pun) hooked! 

After spending the last week crocheting, I have learned that my fingers do indeed have muscles (they told me so in no uncertain terms!) and that I can keep away from other, more fattening pursuits by keeping those fingers busy (and it doesn't hurt that I don't want to get crumbs, or grease, or gunk, on my creations!)

I already know how to knit a little bit, and even though I had learned some lessons the hard way in knitting, it surprised me that I had to learn them all over again in crocheting!  I mean, not just about the skills required, but about the whole process. 

"White Glove" courtesy of nuttakit at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

As I learned - or relearned - how to work with yarn with respect to the art of crochet, I found myself humbled by the failures and having several of those "aha" moments along the way.

Here are some of the lessons I mean - and as I write, I find that I'm not just talking about crochet, but about life. Relationships. Setting boundaries. Letting go.

You will see what I mean:

Don't hold on too tightly
Hold the yarn, the makings of the masterpiece, lightly. If you hold on too tightly, the work will get all bunched up, lose its softness, become stiff and hard to do anything with. You'll lose your place, skip a stitch, and you'll work much harder than you need to work in order to make the next stitch. And the next. And every stitch after that. And to be honest, you'll end up hurting yourself by repeating motions over and over again while you are all tensed up. 

Let go. 

I forget this when it comes to people, especially people I care a lot about. I want so much for them to succeed that I tend to grab on to them too tightly... which only serves to reduce my ability to interact with them. Tensions build. The relationship becomes strained, stiff, unnatural. People can't breathe around that kind of clinginess, which is tantamount to controlling. 

Give yourself a break
Learning a new skill and seeing some progress with it is intoxicating at times. When I'm doing a project, I can't wait to see the finished product and sometimes I forget to take breaks. And then I wonder why my eyes can't focus on things across the room, or why I have pins and needles in my fingers from sitting in one position so long (especially when holding on too tightly) and thinking ever so quietly (and stubbornly) to myself, "Just one more row." 

It doesn't work like that. When life is out of balance, other things suffer. Taking a break to rest - or to do other things - can really give enjoyment and perspective to a task (or a bunch of tasks) that sometimes - especially in relationships that are strained - be very draining. 

It doesn't need to be much. For example, last evening, my husband had somewhere to go and I had the choice of staying home and crocheting ... or going to a local department store for an hour. I opted for the store. I hadn't had an outing "just for me" in months. And I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I even stopped at a nearby McDonalds for a small soft drink, and on the way back I got a smoothie to take home to my oldest, who can't get out of the house just now. It made her evening! And mine too: I ran into a young fellow at the McDonalds whom I hadn't seen in years - we caught up on the latest news and he even hugged me ... in public! The pièce de résistance was seeing the delighted look on my daughter's face after a particularly trying day, as I presented her with her smoothie. ☺

It's okay to do a "do-over." 
Frustrating as it is to get half-way through a piece and realize you've been doing something wrong the whole time, it's better to unravel the entire thing and start over than it is to muddle through and end up with something that doesn't fit. (Yes, I did the latter. Oh well - the hat will fit a child. Sighhh.)

It's okay to start over again. It's okay to admit mistakes, even if by doing so the end result takes three times longer to do, than it is to blunder ahead and have to apologize for all the holes and tangled mess you made. (And yes, I've done the latter - with my kids. Dozens of times. Sighhh.) I'm learning to stop before it gets too far, to stop dead in my tracks and to admit my mistakes, go back to where I went wrong and start over.  This has so many applications: ground rules that don't work, parental overreactions, and making concessions that get out of hand, to name but a few. 

Stitches make rows; rows make a work of art
Getting blasé about the little things makes for bigger mistakes later on. Stitching every stitch, not skipping stitches unless instructed to, leaves holes that look like blemishes in the piece. Even such a small thing as forgetting to add a stitch at the end of a row (or a round) that is the same height as the rest of the row (or the round) can make the finished work look amateurish and crude. 

Little concessions made, boundaries not set (or not enforced) make way for bigger concessions and more broken rules (and hearts) later. It's so much better (even if it's harder) to pay attention to the little things. Such a simple matter as saying please and thank you (and meaning it) - or little courtesies such as turning off an appliance (or light) that you turned on - or a decision made to treat the other person's feelings with respect by not criticizing or belittling (even in jest) can make the world of difference in the fabric of our lives, and the lives of those with whom we are in relationship. 

Trust the designer and follow the pattern
On my first major project earlier this week, (I referred to this earlier) I looked at how my hat project was turning out, and I thought, "That's not right. It'll be too big." So, I started to narrow the work beyond what the pattern said. 

And it ended up being too small. 

Duh-h.

Lesson learned. All was not lost; I could give my finished hat to a child or a really petite adult. However, my plan to give it to my daughter (whose head is just as big as mine if not bigger, apparently) was foiled. 

Sometimes I just have to trust that the Designer really knows what He's doing and just concentrate on what I'm told to do next. Even if it doesn't make sense at the time. Even if I think it won't turn out right. The moment I start thinking I know better, that's when things take a turn for the worse. I can't control what someone else says, does, believes, or thinks. When I try to control it (or the other person), my effort blows up in my face. I've proven that time and time again. 

You'd think I would have learned by now. 

However, one thing I will say: Experience is a great teacher.

Taking the red pill

I was reminded one evening recently, through something someone said, of the premise of the movie called, "The Matrix."  Okay that was a REALLY freaky movie, but it has almost a mythic truth to it.  There are so many applications ... but they all have one thing in common: stepping from a life you thought was genuine, into a whole new world that represents reality the way it is, even though that might be something totally opposite to what you thought was the way things were.

For those who haven't seen the movie, our hero, Neo, is a computer hacker, and one day he is kidnapped by some really strange people who take him to see an even stranger individual.  This person tells him that the world he knows is not the real world.  He has suspected something was amiss, but he's given a chance to find out for himself.  His contact from the real world gives him a choice: take the blue pill and wake up in your bed and never remember any of this bizarre experience, or take the red pill and find out the true nature of existence.

Neo takes the red pill - and is instantly and literally plunged into reality - a very disturbing reality which is far beyond anything he could have envisioned.  

He learns that human beings are actually "farmed" by a master alien race who provide a virtual reality dream-state for them to experience (the Matrix) while all the while, the life is slowly sucked out of them; when they die, their bodies are converted to fuel to feed the other humans who in turn feed the aliens.  The whole concept is very disgusting; it goes against everything we hold dear.  

The moment that Neo wakes up in the real world and sees how incredibly helpless he and his fellow human beings are in those little pods of slime, he is totally confused and doesn't know who to trust.  Fortunately his link to the "collective" is severed ... and he is again rescued by the one who opened his eyes.  He is nurtured and re-educated, allowed to rebuild his atrophied muscles, and given the chance to join a resistance movement to free his fellow human beings, one at a time, from this unwitting bondage.  He has to learn a whole new way of living, a whole new mindset, to be able to re-enter the Matrix (knowing that it is only an illusion), and to overcome the aliens and their allies through a computer interface.  

That period of transition, which starts with a willingness to be shown the true nature of living (taking the red pill), is always confusing and usually painful ... at first.  The new way of living feels unnatural, uncomfortable.  It takes a while to get used to and we are constantly in the process of un-learning and re-learning things we thought we knew.  Things we thought were true, aren't. Things we thought were our imagination turn out to be real.  We need to learn new boundaries, venture out toward new frontiers. 

It's not easy.  There are bumps in the road, and there are those who have been on the path we are on, who may have been there so long that they have become bored with or tired of the struggle - and they sell out to the evil entities  who would blind us to their existence and lull us back into that dream-state.  These changing allegiances is also part of the experience, though it is a painful one; only a friend can betray a friend - a stranger has nothing to gain (as one songwriter said).  Learning to deal with and then let go of those things is part of the new reality.  

Finally, when we "take the red pill" - we learn three important truths which remain, no matter how our world changes around us in the new reality.  (1) We are born into a world at war. (2) Things are not what they seem.  And (3) we have a vital part to play in waging that war.  

It's scary.  But we are loved, we are treasured, and our Rescuer believes in us and will never abandon us.

On the Cusp

In a discussion with my hubby last night, I told him that I felt like I was at the beginning of a new phase in my life.  I outlined some of the things I mentioned two posts ago - how there are changes happening in my life and I'm not really sure where they will take me.  

I feel as though I am on the cusp of a transformation.  

It's exciting. It's uncomfortable.  It's terrifying.

I like the word "cusp" to describe this feeling because it means "sharp point" - and carries with it the idea of (1) not being able to go back, (2) not being able to see what's next, (3) not being able to stay still (since it's sharp, it's not all that comfortable a place to stay), and (4) requiring a great deal of faith to take the next step into what appears like nothingness.  
 

Photo taken from this website:
http://andrewsidea.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/
indiana-jones-and-the-last-crusade-new-testament-imagery/

Like Indiana Jones did in The Last Crusade.  The defining moment in the film for me is when Indy (having passed two of the three challenges) takes off his hat, clutches it over his heart, takes a deep breath, puts his foot out in mid-air, and takes a step out into what appears to be a deep chasm.  

Talk about a leap of faith.  All Indy had to go on was a dusty old book with some cryptic instructions as to how to safely reach the room in which the Grail was kept.  "Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth."  

It's hard to escape the symbolism - but I won't go there today ... ;)

It is a scary and somewhat heady feeling, being on the cusp of so many new things all at once; I've noticed that at least in my life, this is what God does.  He lays groundwork for months, sometimes decades.  Then, as He gets closer to putting it all together, there's a feeling of anticipation, of uncertainty.  One step of faith at the right time, and then bang-bang-bang - all of a sudden I'm facing in a totally different direction than the one I thought I'd be facing ... and marveling at how He has caused things to fall into place.  Well, I am pretty sure that very soon, things are going to be at the leap of faith juncture.  I can feel the anticipation, the hesitation, the sense of not knowing how it will all turn out. Before, that feeling would drive me NUTS because I had to have things planned out 5 years in advance - and the "not knowing" (lack of security) was quite maddening.  In the last couple of years though, by means of this process of healing that I've been going through, my faith factor has increased.  As I trust God more, I find I'm better able to let go of my need to control the outcome - even if I AM scared.

I guess I don't need to know what's ahead anymore.  But I'm sure glad He does.

Talking and Listening - and Dancing

Much has been said about the topic of prayer.  Books have been written, entire doctrines have been postulated about the proper posture, format, attitude, and even the words used when  praying.

When you boil it right down, all prayer is, is a conversation between two people when one of them just happens to be God.


Yes, He is omnipotent.  Yes, He is holy.  Yes, He is the creator of the universe and the judge of our motives.  Of course!  But He's also a person.  He created us to be persons so that we could communicate with Him.  He desires to communicate with us.  So when we pray, we tell Him what is on our minds, thank Him for listening ... and then (something we may miss) we listen to what He has to say.  The better we become at listening, the longer the interaction lasts; it spills out into the day as He goes with us.  The prayer becomes a constant conversation.  Hearing His voice gets easier to do.  We get to know what His will is, and we do it out of gratitude to Him.  The more we let God do His will through us, relying on His strength alone, the fewer mistakes we'll make, and the more confident we become that He is listening and will do what is best: in us, through us, and for us as well as for those other people (whoever they are) for whom we pray.

It's like learning to dance.  You don't get it perfect the first time.  One person leads, the other follows his lead.  

I was talking to my mother yesterday and she reminded me of one of the activities that she and Dad used to do together - they used to go to barn dances.  There was a fiddler and a square-dance caller and everything!  They took me along once; I would have been about 12 years old, I guess.  It's one of my better memories growing up.  I even got to dance!!

At a certain portion of every barn dance, the group dancing (square-dancing) was over with and the waltzing would start.

Dad would ask Mom to dance with him.  And it was awkward for both of them.  She didn't know the steps; he didn't have the patience to teach her without getting annoyed.  She felt stupid and he felt frustrated.  Eventually he just took her to dances but danced with other people while she watched ... and then he just went and sat the waltzing part out. After a while they stopped going altogether.  She told me, "I didn't mind going to the dances at all, and I wasn't jealous of him dancing with those other women.  I just wished he would have told me what he wanted." 

I grinned at her.  "You know what the problem was don't you Mom?"  She shook her head.  I continued, more of a statement than a question.  "You tried to lead .... didn't you."  She kind of looked sheepish and I knew that was it.  Letting him lead was how she could have learned how to dance.  

One learns by doing - in dancing - in prayer - in life.  

Dad was a novice dancer and he didn't know what was wrong; he just knew that whenever he went one way, she went another. They ended stepping on each others' toes. And after a while that can be very discouraging.  Letting someone lead implies you trust  the person to never lead you astray.  Mom and I didn't go there in our conversation. She continued on to talk about other things.  But it got me to thinking.

I heard guidance described in this way before - it's a dance. The GUI at the first stands for God, U and I.  So God, you and I dance.  It is a great analogy for prayer as a life-conversation.  In connection with Him, close enough for conversation and taking cues and leading from Him.  (Of course when WE try to lead we get frustrated and end up looking and feeling foolish...)  But as we let go of our need to control every situation and let God do it - we get better at it.  

And God can take us places in Him we never thought we'd go.  All we need to do is accept His invitation ... and let Him lead.

Pursue Peace

I was talking to someone on the phone earlier this evening. She'd asked me to do something for her, which I had done. Then she started finding fault with it. She wanted this thing changed, then that thing changed, then the other thing. From the very beginning of our association I had felt she was only asking me to do this thing so that she could find a way to control me. Finally I said, "Do it yourself," and hung up on her.

It probably wasn't the best way to handle that situation. Later, as I pondered what to do next, I realized that I had expected too much from the interaction, and that I had not listened to my instincts from the get-go. My instincts initially were to allow this person to do whatever it was she wanted to do without me getting involved.

The issue of getting along with other people has been one that I've had many misconceptions about. I used to think that if I didn't get along with someone, anyone, then I wasn't a "good Christian." As I've grown as a person, and can see my own weaknesses, I've come to realize that people do things for all kinds of reasons. I've learned to recognize when I was controlling others (or trying to), and that made me more aware of how others sometimes manipulate people without even knowing it, and are not even aware of their compulsion to control others. Or if they are aware, they use their tendency to do that as an excuse to keep from trying to change. "I can't help it; I'm just that way."

This realization has led to some rather painful but liberating results. When I realized that I was in a poisoned relationship with a person I thought was a friend for many years, I knew I had to end it. This person excused her efforts to control me by saying, "That's what friends do - they don't have to watch what they say around each other." It tore at me every time she would criticize me, make me feel so small and insignificant, as if I didn't measure up to her standard, and then one day she said something to me that made me understand that these things were boundaries that should never be crossed - and they were always there, but I never acknowledged it. That's when I ended it. The relationship had been robbing me of something I had come to cherish as I healed from my past: my peace.

As for today's conversation, I had to come to the place where I just let go of my need to be right, and let her go ahead and do whatever she wanted - because she was going to do it her way whether I liked it or not, and my peace was too important to me to sacrifice it for anything.

What am I going to do now about it? I'm not sure yet. I do know that if she tries to force the issue, she may end up not getting what she wants at all... at least not from me. I've also learned that if I rush too quickly to "make it right," I might end up back in the same situation I just extricated myself from, feeling subjugated and patronized. That's not peace.

Paul said, "If it be possible, as much as lies within you, live at peace with all people." Okay, have I done everything possible? I'm starting to realize that perhaps the reason why relations have always been strained between the two of us is not because someone else's decisions kept us from connecting, but because I was tired of being treated like I didn't matter. Every time I tried to re-connect, my personhood got trampled. My peace suffered. It still does.

I still don't know what I'm going to do. But I know Someone who can show me.