My "Other" Family

Okay, I have to admit it. Sometimes I can be a funny duck. Funny like .... strange. 

Having multiple chemical sensitivities, I enjoy the company of house plants: they clean the toxins from the air and give back oxygen in return, and they're pretty! 

I got away from having plants at home unless they were up high where the cats couldn't reach them; so many house plants are poisonous to cats and dogs, and even if I could find one that wasn't, I was not fond of the idea of having it destroyed by a furry buddy with a vine-chewing fetish. So at home, I only have a couple of plants, set up where the four-legged kind can't reach: a hoya plant which I raised from a cutting, and an umbrella plant that I got on sale for a buck fifty at Wal-Mart. 

But at work - where there are no four-legged critters - I've amassed quite a family. Most of them I have inherited from other people who were willing to give them to me. One came from Wal-Mart, and grew from just a little shaver into a bushy fella I've taken cuttings from to give to others.  Another came from a plant that I bought in a flower shop and which grew so big I had to divide it and give three-quarters of it away. 

Helen sitting and rooting between the spider-twins.
Yes, each plant has its own label on my shelf.
I'm just that quirky.

I have the twins, Anson and Anna, children of the now-deceased Queen Anne (a huge spider plant). There is Nigel, a robust and friendly English Ivy I bought at Wal-Mart three years ago or so; he kept hugging every other plant set beside him, so I had to keep him by himself until he learned to behave. Now he's better, so as of Thursday past, he has a new companion, a lovely philodendron I have named Philomena, given to me by a friend who was leaving the building to go to a different job. That same friend allowed me to have a cutting he was growing of a baby rubber plant. Since I'm a great Pixar fan and I'm fond of their latest superhero movie, "The Incredibles" - I named this one Helen, after Helen Parr, the secret identity of "Elastigirl". She sits between the spider-twins at the moment and keeps them company, concentrating on growing roots in a big Santa-Claus mug. 

Serena, next to the pot which will be Helen's home.
(My neighbor's peace lily is in the background.)
The only critter I let near my plant family is Tigger,
a crocheted critter made for me by
my friend Dorothy, whose e-store
is at http://dorothyscritters.ecrater.com/

And finally, I have Ireney, the Peace Lily. She is the other of the plants that I purchased (Serena) who got so big that she needed to be divided. I gave the other three plants to good homes. She's higher-maintenance than the others, but every so often she gives me a treat: a lovely white blossom that graces my cubicle for a couple of weeks.

And yes, if you haven't already guessed by now, I name my plants... which is why I said that I'm a funny duck. 

Of course they're like family to me. They brighten my work space, clean my air, and help me remember that there is a world outside the four walls of both my cubicle and the building in which I work. They remind me of the people that gave them to me. They help me remember that differences make life interesting. And they have opened quite a few conversations ... just by being there.

I guess that's the main reason I keep potted plants: as an object lesson to me that one doesn't have to grunt and strain and strive in order to grow; one just IS. With proper care, the growth will look after itself.  In some ways, plants are self-sufficient: they send out roots and they make chlorophyll out of light, a process that boggles my mind. However, these indoor plants are also completely dependent on the water and the care that I provide. Without me, in a very real sense, they can do nothing. I need to be reminded that while it is all well and good for folks to be self-sufficient and pull their own weight, everyone is dependent on others to provide a safe place to grow and thrive. 

We all need each other, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Philomena settling in. You can just see Nigel
peeking over the top of my cubicle to her right.

 

An Almost Everything Week

So I guess those of you who read this blog know that my daughter dislocated her kneecap on November 30, 2012, and that she's been attending physiotherapy while being monitored by an orthopedic surgeon.

When she went to see him in January after five weeks off work, the knee hadn't come along as quickly in healing as the specialist had thought. We asked why he didn't order an MRI. "These soft-tissue injuries generally settle on their own," he replied. "In all my years of doing this, I've only seen one situation where the patellar dislocation was hiding a deeper issue in the underlying ligaments, and the patient needed surgery to correct it. Besides, we only have one MRI machine for the whole Island. When you see me again in three weeks," he turned to her and spoke directly, "if you are not smiling when you do, I'll order the MRI." 

On February 5, she wasn't smiling. He ordered the MRI. "When the hospital calls you with a date, ask to be put on the cancellation list," he advised her.  "In the wintertime, with people in the country not wanting to chance the road when there are 'a few flakes' and the forecast is nasty; it shouldn't take long."

It took a few days to get the paperwork in place. She called the hospital herself after waiting almost a week. "Oh yes," they said. Your date is June 19th." 

(Gulp). She immediately asked to be put on the cancellation list. They obliged! 

Then we began noticing how often we had storms on the weekend this year. When it wasn't the weekend, it was a civic holiday. We prayed. "A storm, just a little one, to discourage someone from making the trip? Please?" (Was this me, the one who HATES winter, praying for a STORM??) Yet, we'd seen her hobble from room to room. We knew she was going to need surgery. We knew in our guts, "The sooner the better." That was this past Monday - the civic holiday when it was storming and the Island shut down for hours.

"Kingdom of Cold" courtesy of Evgeni Dinev at
www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Two days later, (this past Wednesday) with freezing rain and snow forecast for later in the day, she and her father went for a few errands. She got a temporary handicapped permit so that it would be easier for us to park and get in and out of places while she was recuperating. She paid her insurance premiums for her work's health care plan. 

Then, when they got back home, there was a message waiting on the voice mail. "This is radiology calling. Can you come in for 3 pm?" Her heart sank; it had been left over an hour prior to her return. 

Forty-five minutes later, the phone rang. "Are you still interested in that 3 pm appointment?"

OH yeah. With bells on! 

She managed quite well, and soon afterward we were laughing and joking over how quick it all was and how the promised storm held off until we were home!

I also started deepening my understanding of how ironic and quirky God's sense of humor is - using the things I hate most about winter to our benefit, and after all the complaining I'd been doing this year about the cold! Oh, He's a witty One. ;)

Anyway, the next morning, Thursday, she called the surgeon's office. "Can I get an appointment? I just got my MRI yesterday afternoon." They booked one for March 8. Wow - about 2 weeks, not bad!

Yesterday morning, Friday, she got yet another call. "This is Dr. ____'s office. We have the results of your MRI. The doctor wants to see you as soon as possible. Can you come in today at 11:15 to discuss?" 

A quick exam to confirm the MRI findings was all that he needed ... and so he told her what the results were. Without getting all technical, when she dislocated her kneecap, (this happened three times after the initial injury, all within a week and a half of it!) three ligaments were stretched permanently and were now too lax, making the knee unstable and more prone to dislocating again. Those ligaments, every time she re-injured, got frayed against the back of her kneecap, which runs along a vertical trench-like groove, like a taut rope fraying against a length of wood. 

This needed to be repaired by shortening the now too-long ligaments and securing with screws. 

Surgery.

"While I'm in there, I'd like to shift the focal point of your knee because it's off-center," he told her. This involves operating on the tendon that goes from the bottom of the kneecap to the top of the shin-bone, separating it from the shin-bone and re-attaching it more toward the center of her stance. What this will do is correct that knock-knee problem she's had since she was a baby and prevent her from hurting it again. 

Once all her (and our) questions were answered, he wrote the requisition for surgery. Right on the requisition, he wrote, "Place on cancellation list." 

Before she even got a surgery date.

Of course, they'll send her information in the mail with her "if not before" date and instructions for pre-surgery... yes. But usually she'd have to wait for that information and THEN call to be put on the cancellation list. 

We got the impression he was trying to bump her to the front of the line. Just an impression, you understand. Perhaps he was feeling a little guilty that he'd waited so long? that she was the one exception in the last 20 years that he hadn't counted on?  Perhaps.

We're just so glad that the wheels are moving, that this will be over sooner rather than later, and that things can get back to normal and she might even be better than before she hurt herself! 

Was it only a month ago that someone (who shall remain nameless) turned to me at the kitchen table and said that he was not convinced that God cared about us? 

Hmmm.

That same person turned to me last night and said, "You know, I think I'll start a gratitude journal. I forget so easily."

*happy sigh....*

Clearing the decks

A couple of days ago at work, I started gearing up for a two-week vacation that is coming up at the end of August.  I figured it would take me about two weeks to get rid of a few niggling (and time-consuming) things that I've been putting off doing and which have slowly been piling up.  Not so much work-related things (although there IS enough of that to keep me busy too!) but just little papers I never filed, notes I took at meetings and never put away, clutter I allowed to build up (okay, six empty water bottles is too many ... and how many used post-it notes can one person produce??), and general organizing, filing, and getting rid of waste and inefficiency. 

Found this photo HERE

So the last few days I've been setting a little time aside to 'clear the decks.'  I don't want to leave anything behind, sitting, waiting for my return, when it could be done before I leave. 

Two weeks doesn't sound like a long time but it can mean the world of difference for someone waiting for a decision I could make, that may bring them some much-needed cash.  So one of my goals is to finish every file that is still sitting on my desk, and then only bring one file at a time to my desk after that. Another is to be able to see at least half of my non-computer-related desk surface.  

I've made some changes to how I do things which have improved my ability to find what I want when I want it. 

The whole time I have been doing these things, I've felt guilty for "not working" ... until I reminded myself that by taking this extra time to streamline my work station and to make things easily accessible (and get rid of the non-essentials) I'm actually going to be able to work faster and better in the long run.  

And it's starting to pay off.  

Don't get me wrong.  I'm never going to be the kind of person who has absolutely NO clutter on her desk ... or in her house.  My husband and kids will testify to that!!  I've always believed that a spotlessly clean desk (or house, or garage) is a sign of a sick mind, perhaps even obsessed with control and domination.  But too much disarray can also clutter the healthy mind ... and the last few weeks, I was starting to feel hemmed in! (Which, if you know me and my high tolerance of the 'slob factor', is SAYING something...) 

And it seems that while the mess has been accumulating, my inner mess has as well. When I started clearing the decks ... I felt something resonate inside and the desire is growing - exponentially - to set my own spiritual house in order. Again.

Funny how that happens.  

Here we go again.  :D

Living in balance

You can't give what you don't have.

It's a simple concept... but over and over again I have tried to offer help, whether emotional or practical, out of a place of want, of deficit, when I was just scraping the bottom to meet my own needs.  I ended up feeling used, put-upon, taken for granted, and yes, resentful. 

It's like the teeter-totter at the playground when the big kid gets on the other end. No matter how the smaller kid jumps up and down on his or her end, he or she is suspended, legs dangling, unable to get down and not having any fun at all.  When life is out of balance - when we pay more attention to the needs and demands of others (when they carry more weight) than our own needs, then there is the potential for a lot of resentment.

The lifestyle I've been practicing for the last three years or so is based on taking care of three central things in a specific order: 

(1) relationship with God, 

(2) relationship with the self, and 

(3) relationship with others, 

and then maintaining and strengthening those three relationships in that same order. The principle is that one must first have a full cup before one has the capacity to fill another's.  Sounds simple enough.  But the old lifestyle I had -  which still lures me back into its clutches occasionally - was just the opposite.  Give til it hurts, and then give some more. My motivation was that I wanted people to be grateful enough to do what I wanted them to do. Change, be more attentive, stop drinking, whatever.  And the result of that was that people first of all didn't change, but they expected me to keep giving, keep putting myself out, and then they wondered why I was so cranky.  Hmmm.  

When I learned that I was powerless over other people, that I was actually trying to be God in their lives - and without His permission! - things started to change.  I started focusing on what mattered most: my relationship with Him and then with myself.  Once I felt more at ease in my own skin, and was able to let go of my need to control the outcome of others' lives, I was able to have more healthy and fulfilling relationships with other people. 

I still have times when I go down that dark path and end up at the top of the teeter-totter, bouncing up and down and wasting my energies trying to look after someone who isn't budging and who might even use my people-pleasing nature against me.  At times like that I need to remind myself that I am responsible for my own actions, and that the other person is responsible for his or her actions. Then I can more easily let go, and let God do His stuff.  

That's a bit more "in balance". 

Demolishing the thickest wall

It's the hardest, thickest barrier to freedom from a lifetime of bondage to the addiction of trying to run everyone else's life, of feeling responsible for the bad choices of our loved ones, of trying to manage far more than we were created to manage.  And it's not what you might think.  

It's not resentment, as thick and strong a wall as that is.  Resentment can be a great hindrance to freedom, and has caused many a person to stay in bondage.  

I believe that an even stronger wall is the one built, brick by brick, from the time we are children.  It comes from the words that are said, the words that aren't said, the physical contact we are or are not given, the hateful looks and other injuries we receive from parents, teachers, peers.  It is debilitating, and it discourages us from even starting the journey.

It's shame.

Every person has that one spot in his or her life (and some have way more than one) - that tender area, where shame exists and feeds on the spirit, eroding hope.  

Just so we all know what I mean by shame, I don't mean guilt.  Guilt (whether earned or unearned -hmm, that might be a different post) is feeling badly for something that you have done.  Shame is feeling bad for who you are.  Guilt says I've done a bad thing.  Shame says I AM a bad person.  

Guilt has its purpose (if it is earned): to bring us to a place of 'repentance' which simply means changing direction (doing a 180º turn).  Shame, on the other hand, serves NO useful purpose.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  It paralyzes us, keeps us from believing we can get better, keeps us from trying to connect with our selves and with God.  It holds us back from helping others in a meaningful way: not as a rescuer, but as an equal, a friend, someone real.  

Realizing that shame was never intended for us to experience is one step toward being rid of it.  But I speak from experience when I say that it is impossible to completely rid ourselves of shame - and still have a conscience - without completely, and with utter abandon, turning our will and our lives over to the care of God.  Not only once and for all, but on a continual basis.  And after that, the greatest sledgehammer we have - one that is provided by God Himself - is truth.  

Specific truth.  

Not just 'logos', which is Greek for 'word' - but 'rema', which means 'word for me'.  

Repeated truths.  Spoken - out loud - over and over and over, sometimes several times a day ... for months. Truths spoken into the spirit, where the little child, the one who is so afraid, perhaps so angry, lives.   

Some of those truths - for me - were things like:

• God loves you unconditionally.  You don't have to earn anything.
• The abuse that happened to you as a child was the result of others' bad choices.  You did not deserve it. You do not need to feel responsible for what they chose to do. 
• You have the right to exist, to take up space, to be happy.
• You are the only person exactly like you.  People can like you just the way you are.
• You can be yourself; you don't have to pretend to be anyone else.
• What you have to say is worth listening to.
• Who you are matters.  What you do has value and purpose. 

There were/are many more truths, but these are just a few examples. They are all based on what God has already said is true.  

Not very often does the wall of shame disappear overnight.  But it does get smaller - worn away by God's love, softened by His kindness, chiseled to a pile of rubble, over time, by His truth.  It's a miracle  -  which is no less a miracle because it happens slowly.  That it happens at all is simply amazing.

And it DOES happen.  

Bumpity-bump

I have a vivid memory from when I was six years old.  It's a happy memory.  

My grandfather lived down a long mud lane.  He drove a twelve-year-old Chevy truck built in the early 1950s with those bouncy-jouncy shocks that allowed passage over a dirt road but were pretty hard on the occupants.  He smelled like pipe tobacco and all the outdoors.  I loved him with everything I knew how to love with.  He never spoke a harsh word to me.  He was a short man - spry - and generous.  

This memory I have is brief.  It was of a day when my mother and I had been visiting him and Grammie at their house for the morning. I'd spent the morning exploring the property, going down to the edge of the lake, heading back up to the barn, visiting with the cows, hearing the grunts from the pigsty, trying to spy the kittens in the loft. And of course, sitting in Grammie's kitchen listening to her talk about the memories she had of my dad growing up, of adventures he had.  

Grampa offered to drive us back home after lunch, well over a mile if we were to walk, and the footing would have been difficult on that lane.  

We accepted.  

And here starts that memory so vivid I can almost smell the dust off the dashboard, mixed with the other smells I'll describe here. It's one of my earliest memories, so it's full of images, feelings.  Very potent.

Source (via Google Images):
http://www.classic-car-history.com/1947-1955-chevy-truck.htm

He got behind the wheel, and I sat in the middle between him and my mother.  

I loved riding in his truck.  It was so much fun!  Up and down, over the ruts and rills we would go, dangerously close to the edge on both sides of the lane. The ditch went down about fifteen feet on a sharp grade on both sides, so it was important to stay away from the edge.  Yet strangely, I was never afraid of him straying too close to the edge.  I only knew I was with Grampa, and he was driving us home, and that's where we'd end up. I felt safe when I was with him. It wasn't something I was consciously aware of, it just WAS.

Bounce, bounce, bounce...  He navigated the quarter-mile-long lane with calmness and aplomb, confidence and quietness.  I was enjoying the ride, being jounced around almost like a rag doll as we headed toward the main road.  And then I said what I always said, "Here we go again, bumpity-bump in Grampa's truck!"  And he laughed - but not in a shaming way.  His laughter said, "I'm enjoying my granddaughter SO much!"  He knew how to make me feel so important.  He knew neat things like that.  He knew lots of things my other relatives didn't seem to care about.  Like how to feed cows and pigs. That was cool.   


I don't remember getting back home, I just remember that little snippet of bouncing and enjoying the ride over that mud lane with all its ruts and rocks.

A little over a year later, Grampa would die in hospital of internal injuries, after his tractor wheel slipped off the edge of that narrow lane and rolled over and over on its way to the bottom of the ditch.  It truly was a dangerous passageway.  At seven years old, dragged to the scene in a panic by my mother after she received a phone call, I struggled to understand how come the ambulance was there, what had happened to Grampa, why they wouldn't let us near, how come he wasn't climbing up the side of the ditch by himself.  It all seemed so surreal, and totally disconnected from that care-free memory from over a year previous.  

I found myself just recently thinking about that ride with Grampa in his truck, how safe and protected I felt - and pondering in my adult mind how that at any moment we could all have plummeted to injury or death down into that same ditch.  

I guess it's because I'm covering some pretty rough territory lately and it feels rather scary.  And I suppose that it's God's way of telling me, "Trust Me.  I've got the wheel and I know the way.  It's going to be bumpy, too. But that's okay, I'm here.  And I'll NEVER leave you.  I will get you safely home."

Neither high nor low

It's easy to be serene and peaceful on the mountaintop when the strife of the climb is over.  It's even easy (though less so) to have inner calm in the valleys of life, when it seems that we are at our lowest ebb, for those are the times we shed the extraneous and tend to depend on God more - and He does often give the peace that passes understanding.  

What is the hardest is having peace and quietness of spirit during the climb.  

When the going is really tough, adversities abound, and progress is being made but there is still far to go - when we are caught between being satisfied with what we have and wanting more - that is when it is hard to become settled and tranquil in our daily lives.  

Finding balance when the task ahead consumes us, living a life of grace and being centered when so many voices compete for our attention in our busy lives - this is a daily challenge.  We are so focused on the task at hand that sometimes we forget to look for beauty in the midst of the chaos, harmony in the discord, the fragrance of little God-moments in the mundane, the still small voice of God during the noisy rush hour traffic.  

I don't think there is one pat answer for those times.  It's a combination of seeking balance, picking our battles, letting go of the small stuff (and some would argue it's all small stuff), and concentrating on what's most important instead of allowing the urgent things to grab us by the throat.  It's found on the fly, at opportune moments, at stop lights, even.  

A momentary self-check can identify preoccupations, fears, worries, and disquieting imaginations that can run away with us if we let them.   Periodically willing ourselves to physically relax, even if only for a few minutes, can set the tone for letting peace reign.  The effort we make to spend time with God, centering in on what really matters: these priorities we set for ourselves are well worth the effort.

Sharing one's Story

It's astounding how powerful the simple act of sharing one's own experience can be.   

Recently I was somewhere where a bunch of people were sharing their stories of how they had learned to develop a relationship with God.  There was one person who was really struggling, trying to figure it all out and getting more and more frustrated and angry that nothing was working.  This person freely admitted not having a personal relationship with God.  In the next breath the person talked about trying to dredge up the past and deal with it, yet the tone this person used was so resentful, hurt and bewildered that family members did not seem to understand and sympathize.  

I could relate.  Not long ago I had those very same reactions, flailing around in my own cesspool of long-standing resentments, grudges, and all the while wanting someone else to fix me.  Yet in trying to unearth the past without giving the whole process over to God first, all I ended up doing was digging dirt all over myself; there was nowhere else to put it because the more I tried to put it on my family members, the more I got all over myself!!  I wanted to speak up and say that without God in the picture - all that introspection and reliving old memories was for nothing. 

But as I listened, I decided to unhook, to give even this uncomfortable experience over to God. 

When the person was finished speaking, another person spoke up - and told a story of years of struggling to deal with all kinds of baggage without God and how that did NOT work, then how in desperation that willingness to consider that God might be part of the solution came to be - how there was now a growing relationship and reliance on Him, and how a transformation has slowly taken place ever since.  The story was so powerful as we listened - some drinking it in because they'd never heard it, and some marveling in the miracle because we'd seen the 'before picture' and we've watched in gratitude and wonder as the transformation has taken place.  All of us knew that God was present.  The sense of His presence was almost tangible.  It was a tremendously powerful moment.  

I remember, many years ago when I first started going to the church I go to now, how my whole family thought I was such a traitor for leaving their denomination.  One family member expressed her genuine concern that I was "seeking after experience."  She said it like it was a bad thing.  I remember being baffled by that.  "Isn't that what the Christian life is?" I asked.  "An experience with the living God?"  And I watched her struggle for words ... words that never came.  For, I realized shortly afterward, a person can dismiss advice, can argue belief, can disagree with opinion.  But experience is irrefutable.  

I've seen it happen over and over again.  Just like the blind man Jesus healed (the one who was born blind) discovered, there is no defense against experience. "I was blind.  Now I see."   

It is what it is.  And it is powerful.

Long after the effects of sermons, motivational talks and the like have worn off, someone's story will be remembered, looked to as an example of what God can do in a life.  This kind of honesty has helped rescue more people simply by them coming to the conclusion that if God did this much for that person... maybe He'll do it for me.  Another's experience can give strength and hope to those who have none; it must never be underestimated.

Never too far

I've been pondering the simple, unadorned truth this week of the depths of the grace of God.  I've been reading a couple of blog posts that make me think and rethink how great that fact is, and that there is never anyone alive today that is beyond the reach of that grace.  No matter if I think or anyone thinks that that person is beyond it.  

Grace, simply defined, is undeserved favour.  It's the free extension of the reward you can't possibly deserve (whereas mercy is not inflicting the punishment you do deserve).  

As Christians we think that we understand grace, because we've experienced it, at the moment of our conversion: from our darkness to His light, having received His beauty in exchange for our ashes.  However, the longer I'm a Christian in daily relationship with God, the more of an enigma grace really is to me.  It's unfathomable.  It exists outside of time because it comes from the One who exists outside of time, for He created it.  

It was God's grace, His superabundant grace that sent Jesus to the cross so that there would be a way for us to have intimate relationship with Him.  Christians all over the world accept this, the moment that the "before" ash-heap is transformed into the "after" flower garden.  But that same grace extends into the "after" picture.  It delves into the ashes and encourages the beauty, beauty we never thought existed, to come to the fore.  It encourages, uplifts, redeems, strengthens, and sustains us as we get to know Him more and more.  

Source of this photo is:
http://eyesonhigh.blogspot.com/2011/01/
beauty-for-ashes.html

I've experienced that grace, first-hand.  

When I think of the life of emptiness and misery from which He rescued me when I was much younger (nearly 35 years ago now), I still mist over with gratitute.  Without Him, I would have died; I am sure of it.  I was drowning in the lifestyle I had chosen, a lifestyle of seeking the next thrill of conquest, the next power trip - just to mask the wounds inside that I dared not admit existed.  Without His grace, I would have ended up in a ditch somewhere, raped, beaten to death ... but thank God - when in a moment of clarity I cried out to Him - He reached down into my hopeless state and picked me up out of it.  And not only that, but He put up with my growing pains in Him - everything from the super-religious Bible-thumping fundamentalist to the social-drinking believer with the superiority complex, to the militant write-your-MP activist, to the super-needy clinging vine who scared people away with her intensity, to the wounded and bleeding victim that nobody wanted to hear whining about how hard she had it.  Throughout those stages, I still knew God's grace sustaining me, giving me a safe place to rest.  

And in 2009, when I reached out to Him in a courage of heart that is only borne of desperation, my life a shambles once more because of ... because of a lot of things which combined to propel me to my knees in powerlessness, His gentle grace reached in and began to heal those dry, barren places I'd hidden from Him (and from myself) throughout all those phases of my development as a believer.  His grace gave me the strength to finally be honest, to admit that I was just as broken now as I had been back in 1976, and that the only thing that had changed was my method of coping.  

I've discovered through my experience(s) that you can never go too far away, or be too injured or wicked for God's grace to touch, to heal, to transform.  That His grace has a staying power that goes beyond friendship, that forgives and keeps on forgiving to the nth degree, and that sparks hope and life where there once was despair and death.  

I'm so unbelievably grateful.

I can't ...

There are a lot of things I can do.  I can think, work, eat, drive, and so many more things.  But there is a sense in which I can do absolutely nothing.  That realm includes the area of my own ability to consistently say and do the right thing, or to not choose the wrong thing.  

I cannot control other people, circumstances, or outcomes, either.  Much as I want to.  In fact, there is very little over which I have control.  I like to think I do, but I don't.

For most of my life I tried to live life the way I was taught to.  I tried really hard: straining, striving, and forcing myself to behave a certain way.  Trying to get people to behave a certain way because that's what I believed that I had to do in order to be a good wife, mother, friend.  

Not until I started into this journey of recovery and healing did I even start to get an inkling of the secret of living life.

Source of this photo:
http://tammycloserwalk.blogspot.com/2009/11/
i-cant-even-walk-without-you-holding-my.html

I can't.  God can.

There's a line of a song that says, "I can't even walk without You holdin' my hand."  The longer I am on this journey, the more convinced I am that this is true.  In my own strength I have nothing ... but when I rely on God for His strength and direction - lo and behold - things work out.  

I can't count the number of times I have been in close touch with Him and things have fallen right into place, miracles (mini-miracles) have happened.  Being in the right place at the right time, especially if there have been delays just prior to that.  Humming a song to myself that someone else needs to hear who's within earshot, and not knowing it's what he or she needs or even whether the person is even there.  Not reacting in a situation where reacting would worsen a situation.  Instinctively knowing when refraining from speaking, or just giving someone a hug, would say more than words ever could.  It's uncanny.  But I've seen it happen, time and time again.  In my own wisdom and strength, I would have screwed it up, and royally at that.

I know because I've relied on my own wisdom and strength.  It's how I lived most of my life, including the majority of my Christian life.  And although it might work for a short while and in short bursts, it ends up with me feeling burnt out, used up, angry, frustrated, and exhausted.  Not to mention with a lot of egg on my face.  Pushing myself and allowing myself to be tricked into that whole "don't just stand there, do something!" mentality has been my downfall again and again, and in the midst of my delusion (before I hit bottom) it's led me to believe that I should be doing more, that I have to do, do, do.  I forget to be, be, be.  And every single time, it ends in failure.  I've proven time and time again that I just... can't.

When I rely on God, when I concentrate on my relationship with Him and live in the moment, life is an adventure with unexpected twists, unforeseen blessings. 

Even when the circumstances aren't the best.