Unspoken

A year ago today, my world got rocked. 

No, I don't mean in the way that someone made my day or anything like that. I mean, it was rocked. It was hit by rocks, knocked off its moorings, blindsided, and so much so that for weeks, even months, I was unsure of anything anymore. 

I have thought about the experience often since then, painful as it is to do so, and all I can figure out is that I was a victim of - or more likely a participant in - a miscommunication that destroyed a promising friendship. And it all came down to expectations. UNSPOKEN expectations. 

You see, I had planned to stay a few weeks with this person while I was out of town. I was willing to pay for the cost of the groceries I would be using, and I was so grateful for their generosity in offering me a place to stay at less than I would have paid for regular accommodations. 

But, well in advance, every time I would mention or even ask what this person expected to receive, that person changed the subject.   They preferred to joke around - and I could take so much of that ... and then it became so much that I had to just make an excuse and go do something else. And this was before I even got there.

We should have talked. We should have talked about EVERYTHING. 

This person's idea of friendly banter was teasing. I hate teasing. Teasing was always malicious when I was growing up, and I grew to detest it. So when this person started doing this, laughing at me, twitting me about my height and telling me to keep up, and making fun of my Maritime expressions, it didn't feel like friendly banter to me. It felt like criticism at best and persecution at worst. 

So one evening this was happening and I started to react. And I reacted badly. And I said things that were, in fact, malicious. And this person was hurt. That was the first mistake... unspoken expectations. Not talking about what things meant to us, where the boundaries were. 

That night before bed, I apologized for losing my cool and then proceeded to explain where I had been coming from. All this person heard was someone who pretended to apologize and then justified her position. Resentment grew, unknown to me. I thought things would be better. But they weren't. They got cold. Real cold. Real quick. The teasing stopped, but it was replaced by stony silence. And I assumed that the person just needed time to recover. But that wasn't it at all. The individual had made a judgement of me and my motivations based on that person's upbringing ... and not mine.

You see, this person was brought up in a home where if you screwed up, you apologized without excuses, you took all of the blame for everything, and then you moved on, letting everyone be the way they were beforehand.  In my upbringing, nobody ever apologized that way; if there were apologies at all, they happened in the midst of people trying to understand why the other person did what they did. So to this person, my apology (which would have been accepted with open arms in my own family) was suspect, and not to be trusted.

But there was something else, too.  There were other unspoken expectations, and rather than talk about them, this person never even considered that I might come from a different perspective. It had to do with the rules surrounding house guests. In this person's home, everyone - even guests - pulled their weight, and nothing was free. The unspoken rule was that you cleaned up your own mess, you paid your way, and you did it without being asked and without expecting any thanks. To do any less was just plain rude and selfish.

Photo "Girls Looking At Each Other" by Stuart Miles.
Courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

I, on the other hand, grew up in a home where, whenever anyone came to visit, they would offer to help out, and my mom would shoo them away from the kitchen and say, "No, you are guests here. You don't need to do that." If they offered money, it was, "Keep your money. Your money is no good here." So I had the unspoken expectation that hosts waited on guests hand and foot. And if a guest insisted on helping, they were profusely thanked (unlike the family members, who never received a thank you, not. even. once. ... but I digress.) If I (as their daughter) tried to do something on my own, my help was not appreciated, and I was often criticized for not doing it right. So I learned to only help when I was given explicit instructions, because to do otherwise would invite parental anger.

So, back to a year ago.  It only took a few days of staying with this person after the initial misunderstanding when things really fell apart. I was not feeling well, for various reasons, but yet the task of carrying this person's things fell to me and I was never thanked. Not. even. once.  I felt as though I was treated like a slave.  All the while, I felt hesitant to do things like wash dishes and put them away, and I was keenly aware that this was someone else's kitchen and not mine. I didn't feel free to move around, and I was kind of scared of the dishwasher - had never used one of the more modern ones, and wasn't even sure how it opened, or where to put things in it. So I stayed away.  

So of course, this person thought I was an ingrate.  

I didn't know how to pay for things; at the grocery store, they would whip out their bank card before I could even speak - and all the time, resentment built on both sides. 

Each of us felt put-upon. So when the blow-up happened, it happened BIG. 

I won't go into the gory details, but when this person finally confronted me, three days later, there was a list of things that took 20 minutes to deliver... and I was not used to confrontation. I apologized; my apology was not accepted and the person accused me of justifying my behavior because I mentioned not knowing how to help and not knowing what the rules were. I paid the person twice what they had already spent on me in groceries. I did not receive any kind of comment or even a statement that it was too much.

Unspoken expectations.

That evening and the next morning, I tried to chip in and show that I was trying to follow the rules this person had laid out, but it was too late. The cold shoulder persisted. I no longer felt welcome. I was on the verge of tears the whole time - partly because of the experience and partly from lack of sleep. Finally, when they left to do something with their family, I arranged to move out and pay strangers to live elsewhere, like I should have done in the beginning. 

The relationship never recovered.  It took a long time for me to recover from the experience. I was not used to not being believed, not used to essentially being called a lazy, selfish liar, even though those words were never used exactly. It rankled that this person could feel this way about me. And to this day, the memory of how things happened and thoughts about what I could have done differently plague me. And all I can figure out from all of it is that if we had just talked about things without judging each other - if we had just listened to each other without making assumptions - our friendship might have survived.

How to make bad things worse

"I see you're looking better than you were a couple of days ago. I wanted to stop by and tell you."

You should have stopped there.

I should have let you stop there. I was vulnerable and needed to talk to someone I trusted, not this perfect stranger to me. In the whole time I've known you, we've only had one conversation - a year ago.

"Thanks. I was struggling earlier this week, things have really been stressful. Thinking I'd be much better off if I just wasn't here."

Bad choice of words - she will think you mean something more than what you're saying. What I'm thinking of is stress leave, not "checking out." Oh what's the difference anyway. I just want her to go away. I wish she would just go away. I'm tired, I want to go home and get out of this awful place.

[condensed version of the repeated 10-minute tirade that followed] "Oh my God, Judy. You need help. You need to get help right now. I mean, call your doctor first thing Monday morning. I'm serious, get him to prescribe some antidepressants. I mean it! and I'm checking up on you on Monday to see if you've called him." 

Back-pedal. Let her know that is really not what you meant. AT ALL. 

Photo "Portrait of
Pointing Male" by
imagerymajestic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

"Look, I would never commit suicide. Really. But I understand how some people can think that way."

Oops, I recognize that look. Oh crap, she's getting on her white horse and going to save the day. No-o, that's that LAST thing I want. All I want to do is get away from here, to go home, for her to shut up and leave me alone.

"No, that's way too close to the line. You've GOT to get some help. Talk to a therapist, are you seeing someone? you have to see someone." 

Oh great, now she's ordering me around!!! Why doesn't she just go away? Can't she see how stressed out she's making me? How can I get out of this? Maybe a little humour?

[By this time my head is in my hands as she rants on and on about how she was depressed and how she got help and that I need to do the same.] 

"So," I joke, "if I kill myself, THEN will you leave me alone?" 

This attempt at humour only adds fuel to the fire. Her reaction only shows how little she knows me. More and more she convinces herself that I'm in imminent danger and that she has to "save" me. Will she NEVER shut up?? 

[Finally I decide to be straight with her because beating around the bush isn't helping! I hate confrontation, but she's backing me into a corner. And when I am backed into a corner, I go on the offensive.] My voice raises; it is clipped and stern. "Listen. You are treating me like I'm two years old, like you have to be my savior or something. It's making me very uncomfortable, and I want you to stop this, and leave me alone."

She doesn't leave me alone. She goes on the defensive for a while, then turns around and attacks again, same pushy attitude, same ordering me around, same heavy-handed control stuff as before.

And she promises (sounds like she threatens) to check in with me on Monday. Which makes me not want to go there on Monday. Or any other day, if she was going to be there in my face all the time.  As a matter of fact, I hadn't started to consider suicide - even in jest (and it WAS only in jest) - until she started ranting about it. And now I was fantasizing about how many ways I could force her to shut her mouth!

You see ... how much better it might have been for her to say, "You look better today, you looked ill earlier in the week." and for me to say, "Thanks, I do feel a bit better," (which I DID until she started jumping down my throat) and left it at that. But no-o. My guard was down - I was tired - and discouraged - and vulnerable.

And what she actually said to me had the exact opposite effect than the one she wanted. Instead of giving me someone to talk to, she made me not want to talk to her about anything, because she'd only try to control my life and my thinking. Instead of making me feel like I was supported, she made me feel like I was being attacked, assaulted, and harassed. Instead of me knowing that I was cared for, I ended up feeling like now I was going to be her "special little project" and that I'd never be out from under her microscope. 

She may indeed have "meant well"... but her attitude and her actions were way over the top, and more of a hindrance to any help I might have been considering. I felt like someone who complained of a sniffle, suddenly being forced to go to the hospital and hooked up to an IV and a respirator.

Overkill. There's a reason they call it that. It's what makes bad things way worse. 

The soft underbelly

I just finished reading a post by my friend and fellow-blogger Ellie at One Crafty Mother, a post which has spurred me to talk about something that I don't often discuss. Especially not in a public forum.

Here is her challenge:

I want to issue you a challenge.  I want you to think of a moment, or period in your life (maybe it's still happening - even better) where you were feeling shame and vulnerability.  There is a difference between shame and guilt - just to clarify - shame is feeling badly about who you are, guilt is feeling badly for something you've done.   Vulnerability is that feeling we have when we've placed too much power in the opinions of others (oh, if they only knew how _______ I am) and shame and vulnerability feed off each other in very toxic ways.

Once you've identified a time when you have (or are) experiencing shame and vulnerability (almost always accompanied by their evil cousin fear) - I want you to write about it.  If you don't have a blog, crack out pen and paper, or a word document, and just let it pour out.  Try, if you, can, to write about it in narrative form.  Close your eyes, picture yourself in that moment, or in that period of your life, and write it like a story.  Tell the truth, every part of it, especially the little nuggets of shame, fear or guilt you've mentally edited out because thinking about them makes you feel small.

Talk about your inner shame dialogue; what did it tell you? How did it make you feel?  Writing about it - seeing your words out there - will take a lot of the power out of what is, essentially, holding you hostage.  I promise.

I must admit I'm a little daunted.  Especially because the first thing that popped into my head was something that I'm still going through and which I don't see any way out of except through it.  (Wow. That sounds familiar.)  But ... there's something that resonates in me with this concept - that truth makes people free, even if it's not pretty. That ugly things like shame and evil lose their power when brought into the light, when their soft underbelly is exposed.  

So ... here goes.

Many of you know that last fall, I e-published a book about my journey from the bondage of control-freaking and door-mat-itis into a lifestyle of freedom, passion, and purpose. It was a huge deal for me to have made the journey, and I wanted to write about it! 

The response I've received has been rather sporadic, actually - definitely not what I had hoped.  To be sure, I didn't expect to make much money from it; it was something that I wanted to do so that if even one person is helped by it, then it would be worth it. But I had thought I would receive just a smidgen more recognition than the large round of indifference I've gotten.  

Except from one quarter: my birth family and extended family, and anyone who is friends with them.  

For, you see, I did mention a couple of members of my family-of-origin in the book a couple of times.  I did so to highlight the "before" picture and some of the things I went through to be free of the things certain people did and said to me: things which scarred me my whole life long.  I took great care not to make that the focus, though.  I wanted to talk about the "unwrapping" that happened as a result of a day-by-day relationship with God, with myself, and finally with others.  (For more information on the book, see my "About Me" page.)

But by talking about their part in it even once, I broke the cardinal rule that was hammered into my psyche as a child: "What happens here STAYS here - we don't talk about it outside these four walls." 

I found this photo at THIS SITE

The truth about my childhood has always been a source of great shame for me.  I always thought - until I was well into my forties - that if anyone knew that I was abused as a child, they'd not want to have anything to do with me.  I'd lose everything.  Fear had me by the throat.  I thought people would blame me.  I thought that my family would disown me.  I thought that I would never be able to look anyone in the eye again.

But for the most part, people outside of my birth family have been kind, if not just tolerant. And I've experienced a great deal of healing from those traumatic experiences.

Yet, I am still ashamed.  Not for the horrors of what happened to me - God has healed me from that shame - but for telling the truth.  Ashamed for (even though it is the last thing I intended) appearing to be disloyal, ungrateful, vindictive.  For exposing the deception and no longer keeping "our little secret." For being honest ... and being called a liar. For having my motives judged and for not being able to explain to their satisfaction why I would cast such a shadow on the reputation of someone who - to friends and family - is the closest thing to a saint that they've ever seen.  

I wish I could say that it's been resolved. That would be nice, nice and pretty, all tied up in a bow and a "wonderful testimony."  But it hasn't.  This is a process.  I struggle with these feelings of shame, of feeling exposed and vulnerable to what others think, nearly all the time.  There have been many nights - even in the last six months - that I have cried myself to sleep because of the fallout, the pointed fingers, the broken relationships, the constant criticism and the lack of any kind of attempt to understand what I'm trying to accomplish. Grief over lost contact, lost favour, lost relationship, is something I deal with daily. All too often, the weight of shame and the crushing, smothering feelings of loneliness, fear and anxiety overwhelm me. 

I fight to keep in the moment; it is the only way I can survive.
 
I don't know how to get past this wall of misery.  I don't know if I SHOULD get past it.  I don't know if I'm doing any good to anyone - or if secretly I WANT them to suffer.  (Am I really that horrible? How can I ever look at my reflection in the mirror? When will this end? HOW will it end if it does?) 

I don't know.  I really don't.  I have wrestled with saying goodbye for good, with writing them off, with closing the door on that part of my life and never looking back.  

More shame. More vulnerability.  More feeling like I want to crawl into a hole and disappear.  

I am exposing my soft underbelly here - in the hope that shame has a soft underbelly too.  My friend Ellie says that shame and vulnerability hate the truth; they hate compassion.  

I hope so.  I really DO hope so.

Awkward!

Okay - this is a rant.  Just sayin'.

I was just reading a fellow-blogger's post at "Daughter of Abba" and it really made me think.  She was talking about how she loves God but hates church.  I'm glad someone was honest enough to say how many of us church-goers feel.

My hat goes off to her.  (Among other things) she calls church members, pastors, and other people in leadership on:
 - favoritism
- hypocrisy
- elitism / cliques
- judgmental attitudes
- guilt trips
- exclusion

And she's right.  Church people are notorious for all of those things and more.  It's why the world looks at things like whassisname's prediction about the Rapture taking place on May 21, 2011 and (when that prediction failed) the world still going to end on October 21, 2011 ... and they laugh their heads off.  I don't blame them.  I would too, if it weren't so tragic.  Okay - so I laughed - for a while. 


The truth is, I always feel so awkward at church, and frankly, I've been embarrassed to admit to the people I work with that I go at all.  

I love God, and yet His people drive me nuts! ... majoring on minors, going off on this tangent or that one (okay, so I do that too), boycotting this or that, protesting something else, and all the while judging those who don't line up with their perfect version of how life should be lived.  (I think everyone knows how I feel about that word "should.")  Most of the time I feel like the rest of the cookie dough that gets tossed aside after someone cuts out the cookies.  I don't fit, and sometimes I feel discarded.  Judged.  Minimized.

I hate it when church people / leaders try to "legislate" friendliness, "dictate" love, "order" people to pray for each other - when these things naturally would flow out of intimate relationship with God.  I abhor the mistaken idea that WE have to do something first, before God will do His work.  Great way to take the credit and pat ourselves on the back for twisting His arm, manipulating Him. How ludicrous is that?  Friggit - God already took the initiative on everything by starting the ball rolling with Jesus - and He gets the glory for everything because even the faith and the strength to do what He wants comes from Him. He said He was the vine and we were the branches. So I don't move until and unless He says so.  Period.  It wastes far less energy that way... and if it means that others judge me for not doing enough - fine.  I live my life for an Audience of One.

Thank you, Daughter of Abba.  Thank you for your honesty.  

Should I disappear

I'm not saying it will or won't happen at 6 p.m.  tonight as predicted.  It could - I suppose.

Whether it will happen then or not is not my call to make, nor anyone's.  But what has come to be known as "the Rapture" is an important part of Christian belief.  It is 'the blessed hope' - and for some, it is all about 'the judgment seat of Christ' for believers...the time when their rewards (or lack of them) will be revealed.

In any case, much has been said of late regarding the most recent foretelling of the date and time of Jesus' return for the church - the 'great Body-Snatch.'  There's been a lot of buzz on both sides of the debate... while the world looks on with rather bemused and cynical smiles as some Christians just get all worked up - some to "get ready" and others to judge the ones getting ready by selling their possessions and quitting their jobs (for being so gullible) and perhaps even judging the ones making the prediction for using it to line their pockets the last few months.  My issue is with the kind of "yeah right" mentality these kinds of things engender in the world at large.  "Whoa-yeah.  Like THAT's ever going to happen."

Well, I didn't say it was going to happen.  Jesus did.  He just didn't say when - and as a matter of fact, He said that not even HE knew.  Once His Dad makes the decision that it's time - ya think that Jesus would be the FIRST to know!  Just sayin'.  

And should I disappear at some point in time ... along with hundreds of millions (I won't say billions) of other people ... it will be a total surprise to those who predict things to stir up the pot or for whatever other reason they might do it.  The way I prefer to live (instead of being scared and 'getting ready' for that occurrence) is to keep on getting to know Him better.  Allowing Him to be intimately acquainted with my innermost being.  So whether He comes or not in my lifetime - I'm looking forward to meeting Him in person.

Motes and Beams

It's one of my favorite scenes from the Visual Bible's Gospel of Matthew (starring Bruce Marchiano as Jesus).  It's the sermon on the mount and Jesus is teaching, "Why do you gaze at the speck in your brother's eye, when (and here He leans over and picks up a long pole and puts it beside His eye ... everywhere He turns, he swings the pole back and forth as the audience chuckles) there is a plank in your own eye?  Hypocrite - first remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye!"  His audience immediately got the point.  

I was remembering this scene this morning as I contemplated how a Christian could confront another (if such a thing is possible) about something in his or her life WITHOUT the latter accusing the former of being judgmental.  A very ticklish situation.  One I've come to realize - in my recovery - that I can't navigate.

Nor do I need to try.  I know that it can be frustrating to see another - especially another believer - jump up  and down on his or her self-destruct button.  If anything is said it needs to be in love and with a lot of what is known as "I-messaging."  But I have learned this: the person needs to be ready to receive that kind of rebuke, or it will do as much good as running hot water into a sink to wash dishes ... with no stopper in the drain.  A lot of wasted effort for nothing, in other words.  People will do what they want because they've already convinced themselves that it's good for them, that it's not that bad - and people resist change.  ALL people in their natural state ... resist change.  An agent of change is going to automatically incur the wrath of the one he or she is trying to change.  

It took me a long time to understand that I was powerless over other people and that in trying to change or fix them, I was really taking on the role that must be played by only one person; that person is God.  Since He is faultless, only He can reach into the  heart of someone and not condemn them but restore them to wholeness.  Nothing I can say or do can effect that kind of change in someone.  Only He can.  It's His thing.

As I meditated this morning on the mote and the beam (an analogy for a defect of character in someone's life) - I'm reminded that having something - large or small - in your eye is a PAINFUL thing.  And having it removed is even MORE painful!  There has to be a lot of trust - and hopefully anesthetic - involved.  And there is one thing common to every single removal of something from the eye.

Tears.

When God removes a defect of character from me, it is never painless.  There are lots of tears involved.  But the tears are necessary to wash all the residual crud out, and to help in the  healing process.  And there's another reason the tears are necessary.  They are so that I can see clearly again.  The pain literally blinds me - and when I let Him do His work in me, I can see clearly.  If someone else suffers from that same thing, I know what it feels like, I know how important it is to have removed, and I know who to go to in order to have the job done right.  The One who taught about motes and beams.  Getting the beam out of my own life also helps me not to judge another who has a speck in his;  it motivates me to act and speak in compassion and love.  That goes a very long way toward healing both in me and in the life of someone else on whom I have that kind of compassion - the same compassion and tenderness I would hope that another would give to me - the kind that Jesus showed to me.

There's an old Gaither song that comes to me right now ... and I thought that I would share its lyrics with you because they so powerfully illustrates this process of healing.

He washed my eyes with tears that I might see
The broken heart I had was good for me;
He tore it all apart and looked inside -
He found it full of fear and foolish pride.
He swept away the things that made me blind
And then I saw the clouds were silver lined;
And now I understand 'twas best for me
He washed my eyes with tears that I might see.

He washed my eyes with tears that I might see
The glory of Himself revealed to me;
I did not know that He had wounded hands - 
I saw the blood He spilt upon the sands.
I saw the marks of shame and wept and cried;
He was my substitute!  for me He died;
And now I'm glad He came so tenderly
And washed my eyes with tears that I might see.

Created by God

This is where reality meets you.

The sights, the sounds, the smells of the street - people living in dumpsters, rooting through yesterday's garbage and fighting with birds, raccoons, flies and bugs for a few bites to eat.  Smelling like they haven't bathed in months. Well, they haven't.

And they are no less precious to God than you and I.

The weather is getting colder.  Winter is coming.  What of them?  where will they sleep?  what will they eat?

They'll sleep where they always have - they'll eat what they always have. Or haven't.  They'll get chased out of coffee shops, liquor stores, and malls.  They'll beg for change on the street.  And we turn away and don't want to look.  Perhaps we judge them for not being responsible and getting a job.  At best, maybe we don't want to admit that there are people in this prosperous country (debatable) who live lives like wild animals, scrounging for food and depending on the wastefulness and sometimes, but rarely, the kindnesses of others. 

They do, though. 

One of the most precious old men I know is a man I know only as Joseph. He's homeless. He can't work; he has a disability.  He has family but he can't seem to stay put and so ... he travels.  Hitch-hiking, walking mostly.  He smells like B.O., evergreens and wood smoke.  And he is the most gentle soul I've met in a very long time.  A ready smile behind his bushy gray beard and twinkling eyes peeking out from behind several winter coats, he loves to stop by a church for a Sunday morning service.  He loves God with all his heart.  And he loves God's people.  Especially children - he is so tender with them.  

What a saint.  I am honoured to know him.  Yet - there are those who would not be able to get past the smell and the ruggedness of this fellow.  How much they miss!!

I suggest, for this Christmas season, watching the popular Christmas movie again, "Home Alone 2."  In that movie, there is a relationship forged between our hero Kevin MacAllister and a homeless woman who feeds the pigeons in Central Park.  It's worth the watch just to see how a simple act of kindness can sometimes be all someone needs - could be anyone by the way - to turn on the light in his or her life and replace despair with a glimmer of sunshine... or moonlight.

Let's let it inspire us to give in the spirit of Nicholas, the old saint who gave to the poor at Christmas, to those who could never hope to repay him, just because they also were created by God.

One of the dichotomies (side-by-side contrasts) presented in Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is the song of the leading lady, Esmeralda, as she prays to God.  A bit of history:  the "gypsies" they refer to in the movie were actually French Hugenots - Protestants, who took on an itinerant life and entertained to pay their way in the world, ostracized by religious types like Frollo, the cruel magistrate who persecuted and imprisoned dozens of them.  Listen to her pray her "gypsy's prayer" ...

When the respectable ones prayed, they asked for wealth, fame, glory, love, blessing.  Sounds a lot like today's middle- and upper-class church members. All she prays for (and not for herself) is for God to help the downtrodden.

Wow. That's all I can say.   

No tears in Heaven - right?

Well, not exactly.

The Bible says, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." So there must be tears ... in Heaven.

Why? What would there be to cry about in a perfect place where there is no more sickness, no more death?

Between the Rapture of the church and the physical return of Jesus to Earth, there's this little-preached-about thing called the Bema Seat - or the Judgment Seat of Christ. It's when we Christians will find out the true value of everything we have done (and not done) as Christians. We may even be surprised at who we see there!! (if we even notice the presence of anyone else at all...)

1 Corinthians 3:11-15 talks about this time of reckoning. It is NOT a time when we will find out who goes to Heaven and who goes to hell. This is "for Christians only."

I believe it will be a time when many of us - I daresay most of us - will be very surprised at what awaits us. Those of us who think we have done well in this life may find that our reward was all down here in the praise of men or even in the satisfaction of doing good deeds ("it feels good to be good"), and therefore, little or no reward may await us. Those of us who don't think our lives have amounted to much on Earth may discover that our little dark corner where we have slogged away in obscurity, illuminates with far more lavish reward than we ever dreamed imaginable. The secret, the determining factor, is in the fire of God: the purifying, motive-revealing fire. Please understand that it is not PEOPLE who will pass through the fire, but WORKS. Our sins, past, present, and future, have already been placed under the Blood. There will be no "confession", no "repentance", no "redemption" needed. He will show us what really was, and what could have been. There will be nothing left for us but to accept His perfect plan for us, His decision on what rewards await us for the rest of eternity. Read with me the words of Paul, inspired by the Spirit of God:
¹¹For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
¹²Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
¹³each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.
¹⁴If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.
¹⁵If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
(NASV)

What a day that will be! There are probably going to be lots of us who weep in remorse because of lost opportunities to reach out, wasted efforts in religious pursuits, and impure, selfish motives in what we may have considered "our ministry." There will be no escaping the truth, no rationalizing our behavior. "All things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." (Heb 4:13)

Before we succumb to the temptation to say to ourselves, "Well then,... we'd better get busy!" that is not what this is about. This is about - as it always is with God - relationship. It's about being so busy doing the work of the Lord that we forget the Lord of the work. It's about Jesus waiting by the hearth of our lives, waiting to meet with us and spend time with us by the fireplace, enter our innermost dark corners and illuminate and warm them with Himself, free us from the chains of our pasts and cause us to realize how deeply He loves us. Once we realize this, our natural spiritual response will be to love Him back! That love will naturally spill over into our daily lives and touch the people with whom we come in contact - just like a beam of light pierces through the darkness. We will make a difference - for Him. Through Him. Because of Him.

Not for reward. Not for crowns or jewels ... or anything else except the constant awareness of His presence inside of us, transforming us, loving and working through us.

He is desperate for us to let Him know us, to let Him into our innermost places and accept His love and His grace to live every day in His anointing. Not "for the rest of my life." Just every day, while it is still called Today.

So the question that tells me if I am living progressively in that lifestyle is: am I looking forward to the Bema - the Judgment Seat of Christ - or not?

Bankrupt!

I was talking to a friend of mine today about how we know that God will provide for our needs ... but what exactly ARE our needs?

"Oh God, I really NEED a Porsche."

We might laugh at that kind of prayer. But it shows how deeply ingrained our western culture is and how it has seeped into the church.

What do we mean when we say that God will provide for our needs? Does it mean that we'll never, ever, not in a hundred years, go without? Is there room in our theology for a God who would allow a Christian to suffer want?

Is it ever God's will for a Christian to declare bankruptcy? There now, I've said it. The B word.

It's not something that is all that easy to do in Canada. In the States, declare bankruptcy and within six months you have at least some credit rating back. But in Canada, it's a very grueling process. You have to list all your assets and liabilities, then your bi-weekly (or monthly) income and expenses, itemize it, have a bankruptcy trustee go over each one and allow or disallow each one. The debts are forgiven in the sense that you don't ever have to pay the creditors back - at least not all of it. They are prohibited from calling you up to demand payment. That in itself is a great relief.

But for nine months, every expense is scrutinized, and every last cent that isn't spent on necessary (and approved) items is given to the bankruptcy trustee to be distributed to the creditors at the end of the nine months. If you've kept your nose clean, at the end of that period, the bankruptcy is "discharged" and you don't have to report to the trustee anymore. So that means there is a little more money at the end of the month.

However, that's not the end. Your credit rating is absolutely ruined. And it stays ruined for years. YEARS. Seven years, to be exact. And then you have to start from scratch.

The whole process is designed to make a person think very hard before committing to that kind of step. And it's also designed to teach people who have not managed their money well, HOW to follow a budget.

The mechanics aside - what is the will of God in this matter of a Christian declaring personal bankruptcy??

The truth is - I really don't know for sure. All I know is what we went through.

We had tried to operate a business. "Spend money to make money," we were told. So we got a fax machine, and spent money on faxes and on long-distance telephone calls to grow our contact network. We got lots of good contacts - but no sales. More and more money disappeared into the phone bill. We were spending some $700 a month in long-distance alone. This went on for quite a while. We borrowed to pay the bills, and we borrowed to pay the loans we got to pay the bills. The debt was crushing us. We felt like failures. We were stressed out all the time wondering where the next meal was coming from, or who would call us next asking for a payment.

In desperation, we went to the Orderly Payment of Debt (OPD) office. They looked at the debt load and (bless them, they didn't laugh) told us that if we went for OPD, we would be mortgaging our children's future for the next 30 years. They advised us to declare personal bankruptcy.

That period of time was the most wrenching of our lives up until that point. We were dealing with the possibility of being stigmatized by the very people who claimed to care about and love us - as long as we measured up to their expectations, we found out. The internal struggle, the pain of daily wondering when it would all fall apart around our ears - early on in the mortgage with no assets to call our own - we agonized about this decision.

And that's when we got a first-hand dose of "Christian love and concern." When I mentioned to one person that we were having significant financial problems and we didn't know what to do, she said, "Well, THAT's not speaking in faith...."

OUCH. And then she started telling me that she knew how I felt, how she and her husband were struggling to have enough money at the end of the month, and how God always made sure that they were able to pay the bills, yada, yada, yada.... She just didn't understand that it wasn't like someone could write us a check for a thousand dollars and fix everything. We needed over fifty times that amount just to make things manageable.

Another lady called me on the phone every day. She assured me that she and her husband were praying for us, that they were believing for a miracle. "Did you get your miracle yet?" was her first question, every time.

Finally, we knew it was time to declare bankruptcy when we sat across from a loans officer at a finance company to take out our second loan to buy groceries.

So, that week we decided to go to the trustee and declare bankruptcy. Although the initial setup was a difficult experience to say the least, the trustee looked at us at the end of the meeting, and said, "None of your creditors is allowed to demand payment of this debt ... ever again." For me it was like a two-ton weight fell off my shoulders.

And the next day the phone rang. It was this lady again. "Did you get your miracle?" she asked. "Yes," I said. She was excited and wanted to hear all about it. "God used us declaring bankruptcy to erase all of our debt," I told her. She stammered, cleared her throat, and made some excuse to hang up.

She never called again.

OUCH again.

We learned not to let anyone know about our predicament unless we had to. It was our experience that nobody wanted to hear anything about financial difficulty in the life of a Christian unless it was already resolved. It was a taboo subject, and fodder for criticism and judgment from many in the church. It went against some people's theology, a theology started by Wall Street and legitimized in the Christian community by such charismatic folks as Kenneth Copeland, Oral Roberts, and Robert Schuller.

I'll tell you what I think. I think that God can use ANYTHING for His purposes. I think that in some cases (not all) it IS God's will for a Christian to declare personal bankruptcy. It's not something a Christian would enter into willy-nilly. Going that route is not without a whole lot of heart-rending soul-searching and prayer.

I also think that Christians need to cultivate a response to the shocking news that someone has failed financially (or for that matter, morally), a response that isn't based on snap judgments, but on a desire to understand. Not a desire to understand the mechanics of the failure or to comprehend whose fault it was, but to really hear the heartache and the shame that is behind such an admission... and to focus on THAT rather than whether it's right or wrong.

God taught us so very much through the bankruptcy. He showed us just how powerless we were to get out of this mess on our own, and that was an object lesson to us of the spiritual predicament that ALL of us are in - unable in our wildest dreams to have a relationship with a holy God based on our own merits. When our debts were forgiven, we got a true picture of forgiveness - we never had to wonder whether this company or that company would come after us for payment. We knew they never would. "Just as if we'd never owed," was the perfect illustration of the Christian concept of Justification by Faith.

We did learn how to live within our means. Cutting up the credit cards, living on cash only, was a huge adjustment but we learned how to do it. It made life so much easier after we were discharged from the bankruptcy and nobody would give us any credit for years afterward. And we resolved never to get into a debt we couldn't pay back - ever again.

And there were so many experiences where God really came through for us and met our everyday needs through the kindness and the generosity of His people - for not ALL people in the church judged us. Some of them actually loved us... and showed us they loved us. God Himself worked a couple of really amazing miracles of provision along the way.

I think I'll save those miracles for another post.