The Open Door

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller

In my last post, I talked about giving myself time to let go, to lean against the closed door and process the natural emotional reactions behind letting go, before looking for that opened door to which Helen Keller referred. 

It's kind of funny how life has a way of telling you it's time to move on. Like having an opportunity you thought was open for you way up the road, suddenly appear before you.

Let me explain.

A few months ago, I began looking into the possibility of furthering my studies. I have an undergraduate degree - and this has opened doors for me in the past and made it possible to work in a job that I enjoyed - but a combination of events has birthed a desire in me to make more of a difference to the world than I am now. 

I had decided that, because of certain financial projects that were in the works for this year, I could go back and get my graduate degree starting in May 2014. It would give me time to take care of those projects and then to save up for my tuition. I even looked around and chose the school and the program I would be taking. 

And then, a door closed in my life. That one closed door had a number of repercussions I had not expected on several of those expenses I thought I would have - and as I sat at breakfast with my husband this morning, he took something I had mentioned in passing last night, and ran with it. He gently suggested that I could go back to school sooner. Much sooner. Like in September - only a little over 3 months away. 

Gulp.

Within the space of about 10 minutes, we were talking about logistics, finances, schedules, and division of labor. 

And I felt it happen. 

"Blank Paper Sheet And Pin" photo courtesy of
Witthaya Phonsawat at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

The page was turning. That open door looked a LOT closer. 

Nerve-wracking? OH yes. Yet, as we discussed it, I recognized the sensation of anticipation - almost excitement, right along with all the nervousness and trepidation. 

I'd stopped leaning against the closed door. I was standing on my own two feet and pondering opportunities instead of regretting what couldn't be. 

It was almost surreal, like I was in a time warp - the world in slow motion around me. Voices muffled; all that existed was this pivotal moment.

The sense of pervading peace and serenity, even in the midst of uncertainty and near-panic, was unmistakable. This was it. This was the next right thing. This was something I needed to do.  For ME. I needed to do this to look after myself, to challenge my limits, to overcome obstacles, to practice self-discipline, and eventually to give back to the world.

Oh, did I mention that my graduate degree (Master's) would give me the opportunity to register as a certified counselor? Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that part.

☺

There is something very gratifying about turning that new page, that page with nothing written on it yet. For a writer, there's a little thrill when opening a new notebook, sliding a hand across a clean page, and preparing to write that first word. It's almost as if that first word is the most important one, even if it is a small one. 

This is a small word. 
I. 
The next word is a verb. 
I want. 
What do I want? I want to make. 
Make a difference.
A difference in me, a difference in others.

So ... guess what?

The door is before me. And I'm reaching for the doorknob.

Standing on Guard

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
- Thomas Jefferson

I've quoted this President Jefferson quote before; I used to think that what he said didn't make sense. In my healing process, though, I've realized that it takes a watchful eye to maintain this kind of lifestyle: a spiritually-based lifestyle of rigorous honesty, with the freedom to feel one's feelings, the responsibility to not nurse resentments, and the intense desire to draw closer and closer to God.

There's a Bible verse that is very largely misunderstood; well, at least I misunderstood it, for a lot of years. It says, "Keep your heart above all things, for out of it spring the issues of life." (Proverbs 4:23) I thought it was cross-referenced with "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked..." (Jeremiah 17:9) - but in fact, the opposite is true. Proverbs 4:23 in the Hebrew literally means, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." (NASB) The underlying meaning is that the heart is so important and so precious, being the seat of emotions and will, that its well-being and health must be guarded at all times.

The Jeremiah passage refers to the unregenerate / godless heart. But Solomon (in Proverbs) was giving advice to his son whom he raised to respect God; he encouraged him to guard the center of his mind, will, and emotions at all cost so that it was functioning the way it was designed to work, so that his insides would serve him well. That takes work. HARD work.

Complacency is the lazy cousin of arrogance - and it's one I know quite well. Yes, I've come a long way in what can be considered a very short time. But that in no way means that I've arrived; there is always more to discover, more to turn over to God, more layers of manipulation, of self-deception, of powerlessness in me. The tyranny of the urgent takes over. Boredom slimes its way into my daily routine. The "insanity" of my addiction to "fixing" or "rescuing" people, very easily returns when complacency creeps in.

Something I hear quite frequently sounds like this: "It is easy to let up on our spiritual program of recovery and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do. For our addiction is a subtle foe. We are not cured of our addiction; what we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." (The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, adapted) That passage reminds me of something a Bible camp counselor told me one time after I described a spiritual awakening I had when I was a teen: "The problem with a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) is that it keeps trying to crawl off the altar."
The process of healing (or 'recovery' as I like to call it) contains spiritual tools that can be used at any time as needed for maintenance. It's just like fixing up a fixer-upper. That refurbished house is going to need upkeep in order to keep it looking good and to keep the leaks of air and water away. If someone hurts me, or hurts me again, and I've let resentment creep back in, then I need to work through the process of forgiveness - and rely completely on God to give me the strength to deal with that. If I screw up - and I do, often - I need to become willing (through God's strength) to apologize, and then go do it. It keeps me humble, dependent on God for everything.

Maintaining my spiritual condition is crucial to my continued recovery. If I'm not progressing, moving forward in my walk with God, then I'm losing ground. There is no "holding pattern."

I've tasted enough of this lifestyle and the benefits of it to motivate me to work at my relationship with God, press in to His heart, receive His love, love Him in return, and let that love spill over into my relationships with people. But it all starts with relationship with Him and repeating whatever step in the process I need to repeat in order to maintain peace with Him. This is "laboring to enter into His rest."

Rest. Yes, that's worth it.

Do I Trust You?

Every morning Cody comes to me to spend time with me. Occasionally, as I pet him, I notice a mat has developed in his mane. He's a long-haired cat and the location of these tightly tangled globs of fur is usually around the underside, in the curve of his neck, so he can't get rid of them by himself because he cannot reach them to clean his fur under there. The mats pull on his skin, so they're uncomfortable.

To relieve this, I reach under his neck and start to pull the mat apart at the base, starting from the outside edges. The process takes a while and it is decidedly uncomfortable for him because the neck is a sensitive area, but it's like he knows I'm trying to help him, so he hunches over in dislike, but he stays and he doesn't try to bite or scratch me. Eventually the mat comes loose, and I let him sniff it. It's my way of telling him, "See, that's what that awful thing was." He sniffs it, gives it a lick that says, "Wow is that thing ever messy!" and then he licks my fingers and rubs his face against my hand. "Thank you, Mom." His relief is obvious. For a while there is a bald spot where the mat once was, but that's temporary. The fur eventually grows back in, just not tangled.

Early in my recovery from the grave clothes of my upbringing and other experiences of my childhood, I had to settle the question of trust. I had to answer the question, "Do I trust You, Lord?" Here's the song of that same name ... by Twila Paris:

Before I even got there, I had to settle in my mind that God was trustworthy. I was entering a process where a lot of old memories were going to be dredged up, memories I had buried because they were so painful. The potential to be hurt all over again was pretty real. That's when I re-discovered Psalm 139: 3. In the New Living Translation, it reads, "You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment, You know where I am." Later on, in verse 12, David talks about darkness being as bright as day to God. That was important to me because as a child I was terrified of the dark, and even as an adult I liked to know what was happening and often referred to myself as hating "being in the dark." I love how the Message puts it, "Then I said to myself, 'Oh, He even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!' It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to You; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to You."

God used these verses, plus a whole bunch of other ones, and the trust my cat showed in me, to speak to my spirit that He was trustworthy, and that I could therefore trust Him that the process was necessary to rid me once and for all of the hurts of the past. When I started to trust His motives as being those of love and compassion, when I realized that He would not cause any more discomfort than was necessary to "remove the matted fur" - and when I knew in my heart that He would give me times along the way where it was okay to stop and rest, I could finally step with growing confidence into that healing stream. I realized that I didn't have to know it all ahead of time, that it was enough that God did, that He loved me, and that His goal was to free me of the inner hell I thought I would always have to endure. No matter how long it took, and no matter how painful it might be, He would walk me through it and would allow me to catch my breath.

And experience has borne that out. He has been there the whole time. His patience, His love, His strength, has been with me from the start. He found the terrified, cowering little child in me and spoke peace, love, and assurance to her. He went into each of those painful memories and infused each one with His compassion and His strength. He held me and let me experience all the emotions I was too afraid to express when I was going through those hurts in the first place - and gave me the strength to admit if and when I was wrong, to see the hurt inside my abusers, and to have compassion for them and forgive them. This was something I had never been able to do, would never be able to do on my own. It took time - but He stayed with me.

He's still here.

He is trustworthy and He loves me ... even when the mats - and matters - are huge.