The Unwrapping

"Unwrap him, and let him go." - John 11

It has been nearly 16 years since the above scripture became much more meaningful to me. I am a Christian. I have been ever since I was a teenager. However, my Christian life (my "walk" in churchy terms) left something to be desired. And then, when I was about 48 years old, my "walk" actually became a WALK.  Not a hop. 

To explain that last sentence, I refer to the story of the raising of Lazarus, from where the above scripture comes. The burial custom of the day was that when someone died (after several rituals meant to make certain the person was dead) they were wrapped like a mummy in strips of cloth with spices sprinkled between the layers... to hide the smell until the funeral was done and the person laid on a stone shelf inside a tomb, which often had a round slab of stone rolled in front of it. Jesus arrived at Lazarus' home to find Lazarus' sisters and a whole lot of other relatives, mourning outside his tomb. He had died 4 days previous, so decomposition had started to kick in. Jesus told them to roll away the stone, and after a bit of protest (but he's stinking by now!) they did as He asked. Jesus wept when He saw their misery and lack of hope. He then called out to the dead man and told Lazarus to come out of the tomb. 

Lazarus was still in the mummy-wrappings. So the only way he had of moving forward from the ledge was to take small little hops and hope he didn't fall over (because he was unable to extend his arms.) 

Freeze frame right there. Lazarus had been raised from the dead. Everyone could see that. It was a bona fide miracle! But for Lazarus, it was taking all his strength just to stand up. That is what my Christian walk was like, with wrappings others had put on me, just as others had wrapped him. Neither of us could move without risk of great harm. 

And Jesus spoke to the assembled crowd. "Unwrap him, and let him go." As they did, the putrid strips of cloth, which by now overpowered the spices his sisters had so lovingly put there, started to loosen and Lazarus could move. A little at first, then more. And more. And more. He could finally benefit from the miracle that was already his - this newness of life. 

And in my life, as I began to drop the grave-clothes of old habits and prejudices from me, I learned how to really be alive and not be hindered by the bondage that made me try to live the Christian life by my own efforts (hopping). I could walk. I could run. I could breathe a deep breath. Lazarus and I were both raised by the Master, and loosened / unwrapped to fully enjoy life. 

The process took longer for me than it did for him. I was several months getting those stinky old things off me ... and there are still times when I find a hanger-on from my old self-effort life, for which I get help to free me. Together with the lifestyle I learned during that time, I can enjoy life, as Lazarus did. I look with pity on the person I was before that time, and I revel in my new-found freedom. All that I had lost, all that I could not touch because of the grave-clothes, came back to me. 

I talk about my spiritual life occasionally on this blog because it is part of me, just like any other part or role that is mine (wife, mother, friend, counsellor, etc.) And I do so as living, walking, talking proof that there is One who delivers, and those who loosen the bonds; each serves a role. 

And me? I'm grateful. That's it, that's all.  

Puppy Love

It was a clear-cut case of love at first sight. And it couldn't have happened at a more opportune time. 

My brother had just passed away unexpectedly. He had been doing so well, and then, he wasn't. Just like that. And I never got a chance to say goodbye. And it was so sudden, so wrenching, so ... raw. 

I'd been initially planning to get a puppy at the end of 2020. But here it was, end of February, and I was scrolling through the 'puppies for adoption' page at a site I frequent. And there it was. Someone not 30 minutes' drive from me was selling puppies, of the breed I was looking for. I clicked on the ad. The mother dog had given birth to five puppies and they pretty much all looked alike - except one. I clicked on his picture. And he was standing there so pretty, so proud, so sure of himself, and showing so much personality and yet gentleness that my heart almost skipped a beat. 

After talking it over with my family, and given the current restrictions of Covid-19, I decided to send the breeder a note and see if I could set up a time to visit the litter (this was before the isolation rules started.) She said sure, and before long I and my daughter were knee deep in little dogs. All of them Pomeranians!! Some looked like the standard image I had in my mind: orange with big floofs around the face and a plume-like tail. But these were different. They were white with brown and black markings. Only this little guy was white with black markings, and just a touch of brown. 

I left holding him to the last... wanting to give the others a chance. But it was no use. He had stolen my heart from the first click. And when I picked him up, and saw how curious, interested, and confident he was, even though he did let me roll him over on his back - when I saw him not once ask to get back in the pen with his siblings - he sealed the deal for me. And I was absolutely, 100 per cent smitten. 

I reserved him with the breeder and waited for him to be old enough to come home with me. That would not be until another few weeks, after we had completed our 14-day self-imposed isolation. 

Bullet - born Feb 7, 2020, age 9.4 weeks

We picked him up last Friday. And it seems now like he has always been here. What a ray of sunshine in otherwise dark times! What a reminder that there is still some sweetness, light, and humour in this crazy climate of rules and distancing and fear! He's melted the hearts of all who have seen his pictures or met him in person (like the vet, earlier today). I've filled an album already on Facebook with photos and videos of him. 

He loves his harness. He loves his kibble. He loves his pen and his crate. He loves pleasing us and learning new things (like going potty outside). 

He loves his bully sticks. He loves his Miss Kitty, a soft plush kitty with a heart-beat inserted into her (which we can control off and on through a button on the unit). He loves me and my husband and my daughter. Plain and simple, it's a terminal case of puppy love, which is whole-hearted, unreserved, unadulterated, super-intense and highly focused, unconditional positive regard, for which there is no cure. He loves the way I want to love. With the passionate love of a puppy for everything and everyone in his world. 

And at this point in my life, I needed a daily, constant reminder of that kind of love. Perhaps it is no coincidence that d-o-g is G-o-d spelled backward. I'd like to think so. Because if any being on this earth can show the kind of love God does, it's a little, 2.2-pound ball of fluff who is right now chewing on his bully stick at my feet. He's happy to be with me, happy to be doing what he loves, and confident in my love for him. 

What a lesson. What a beautiful, soft, gentle, fun-loving, joy-bringing lesson to my heart. Live in the moment, love with all your heart, and keep doing that. What a gift! I am so very blessed.



 

2017 in review - Gratitude month by month

Every December 31, I take the calendar out and transfer birthdays, anniversaries, and appointments onto the next year's calendar before storing the current year's calendar away (I have calendars going back several years, which would come in handy were I ever to write my memoirs, haha!)

If I could choose a word to describe what 2017 has been for me and mine, it would have to be 'miraculous'.  Rather than theme by theme, I thought I'd take it month by month to show you how that has played out in my / our life.

January

January 4 - My brother had surgery to remove about five inches of bowel due to having stage 1 colon cancer. The surgery was successful; they got it all, and he did not have to have chemo. While he was in the hospital, he had a gall bladder attack and because of the recent surgery, they only put in a drainage tube instead of removing the gall bladder. He still has the tube... but more about him later.

January 9 - I had surgery to remove my reproductive organs due to some pre-cancerous cells inside my uterus (discovered the previous October via a biopsy done under anesthetic). I was off work for about 5 weeks. After the initial recovery period, I discovered that I had more energy and slept better at night than I had been. 

February

February 16 - I returned to work after my surgery January 9. I had been team leading since October so was returning to that - what a wonderful experience! 

February 27 - My post-surgery consultation / followup - my OB/GYN told me that everything was fine and that I had far less chance of getting other kinds of cancer (e.g., breast) now that my uterus was gone. :) 

February 28 - I celebrated eight years in recovery from codependency (see my "What is Codependency" tab). It might seem like a small thing, but my life is so much better now that I am living a more free lifestyle.

March

March 14 - my husband had an MRI on his right shoulder to determine the cause of his shoulder pain and weakness that he'd had ever since a shoveling accident last winter.

March 25 - my husband celebrated 8 years in recovery from alcoholism. Every day is a celebration really, but this is one of those landmarks we remember every year. 

March is a hard month usually; we have had our fill of winter by the time New Year's rolls around, so in March, with winter showing no sign of abating, things can get pretty exhausting and discouraging. A couple of well-timed vacation days near the end of March tides us over until the next long weekend - Easter (which was in April this year.)

In mid-March, my brother had to go into the hospital to stabilize his sugars (he is an insulin-dependent diabetic and the sugars, due to stress, were around six times what they should have been). He was home again in a few days, but while he was gone, we had to rely on extended family members to take up the slack of caring for my mother. Some of these family members got tired of doing that. It was the beginning of the end of a lot of things - though we didn't know it at the time.

April

April 14 - Good Friday - A day-visit to see my mom and brother showed us how badly Mom's dementia had deteriorated since our last visit a few months previous. I was seriously starting to worry that she might burn the house down by leaving a burner on or something.

April 17 - Easter Monday - My brother again had to go to hospital to deal with a cardiac incident. He was only in the hospital for about a week, but while he was gone, those extended family members, who I mentioned earlier, put their sinister plan into motion.

April 19 - Due to lies told to a Social Worker, Mom was taken to hospital "for her own safety" since my brother was still in the hospital and the extended family members didn't want to care for her. As a result, she became a "court-ordered" patient and wheels were put in motion to keep her in the hospital until she could be placed into a nursing home.  

May

May 26 - My husband had his appointment with an orthopedic surgeon regarding the MRI he had undergone in March. The surgeon told him that his bicep muscle had mostly torn away from his rotator cuff in one spot and that he would need surgery to repair it. The wait times for this would be about a year or so. They finally settled on August 2018.

May 29 - My brother received a writeup of the allegations that put Mom into the custody of the province.  He showed me a photo of each of the pages. Everything they said was either a bald-faced lie or a gross exaggeration and misinterpretation of the facts. He had no money to fight it in court. We advised against fighting since it was the province (not the extended family members) who would gain financial control over Mom's affairs.

June

June 9 - After two years of talking about it, we finally got our tub "replaced" - we used Bathfitters and we were very pleased with the results! This was a big deal because the old tub (a purple one from the 1970s) was such an eyesore and so was the badly done tile job around it. Now we have a sleek, easy-to-clean tub and shower surround. 

June 16 - I started seeing a counsellor to help me deal with the stress of the situation with Mom and my brother. The therapist and I immediately clicked!

June 20 - My husband and I celebrated 36 years as husband and wife. 

July

July 10 - I headed out to Calgary for a 2-week intensive finale to my Group Counselling course. A good friend of my daughter's picked me up at the airport and drove me to campus. My room-mates were pretty good and even took me to the grocery store that afternoon so that I could have food for the coming week. Such a contrast to the last year I was there!

July 13 - That friend and her partner had me over to their house for the BEST steak dinner I have EVER tasted - and the partner even helped me with a computer problem I had been having. :)  They offered to take me out to breakfast on the 16th - Arielle's birthday (she would have been 25). 

July 15 - A classmate contacted me and drove me out to Canmore - close to the Rockies - and I saw the mountains up close and in person for the first time ever. NO comparison to only seeing pictures!! it was a spiritual experience for me mostly because Arielle had seen a similar sight when she and a friend drove to Calgary from Edmonton about a month before she died. 

July 16 - Breakfast at Denny's - what more needs to be said?  It was busy because it was a Sunday morning, but the food was great and my daughter's friends put themselves out to make the day a little more bearable for me.

July 21 - The flight home. My daughter's friend's partner drove me early to the Calgary airport, so I spent a LOT of time waiting at one airport or another. I was supposed to arrive at 11:10 pm, but due to the absolute worst thunderstorm of the year on the Eastern seaboard (affecting flights leaving LaGuardia in NY), my connector was delayed.  It arrived two and a half hours late in Toronto, and then when it finally took us to the Maritimes, the same storm was affecting our ability to land in PEI (five inches of rain on the runway). We diverted to Moncton, spent an hour inside the plane while the pilot was on the horn with officials in both places, and then finally took off to land in PEI around 3:15 am. I could have kissed the tarmac when we landed here! 

August

I spent more time than usual in the sun. After my time in Calgary and the intensity of Summer Institute, I welcomed the chance to relax whenever I could. Aside from a dental filling and a couple of birthdays, there's nothing written on the calendar for this particular month. 

However, my daughter did decide to take a course through Athabasca University online, a precursor to eventually transferring the credit to UPEI. It was a big move for her psychologically, and although she was anxious, we were confident that this was a good move for her.

My brother was diagnosed with cataracts.

September

I began a four-month hiatus from school. No courses that I needed were being offered in that term, so I paid my program fee (to hold my place in the program) and then prepared to fill the time with something else. I must admit that I didn't know WHAT I would fill the time with, so September I spent a lot of time lurking on Facebook, playing computer games, and watching television: luxuries I only sipped in moderation when I was taking classes.

I took to calling Mom about 3 times a week, and my brother at least once a week. During this time, he was learning how to manage a household on his own for the first time in his life, so I was giving him tips and tricks to getting things done and bills paid on time. I also helped him stick-handle through the process of trying to get quotes to put in an oil-fired furnace to replace the wood furnace he could no longer tend (he had qualified for a grant for this).

October

Photo "Young Plant" by amenic181 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I rediscovered crochet in October, and began one birthday project for my brother, and started my Christmas projects. Finally there was something productive to do with my evenings and weekends!

October 9 - Thanksgiving - We had friends over and I cooked a turkey with all the trimmings, including some deep-dish pumpkin pie I made myself. The food was good, but the company was better!

October 26 - What was to be a trip to NB to take my brother to an ophthalmologist's appointment (pre-surgery) ended up with me going to the Moncton hospital after learning he'd had a heart attack the day before. Fortunately the damage was minimal. Yet he was still having chest pain.

I remember having a great visit with him, including telling his kidneys to return to function, and telling his pancreas to behave themselves, in preparation for an upcoming cardiac procedure. 

While I was there, I visited my mom, who was still in the hospital awaiting placement, and who thought she'd only gotten there about a week ago (it had been over six months.) It was a good visit, not at all like I might have feared.

October 30 - My brother had his cardiac procedure and it went perfectly! They put in two stents in the vessels on his upper heart muscle because there was a 90% blockage in one and a 70% blockage in the other. His kidneys didn't fail and his sugars actually improved with the decrease in stress.  Within hours, all the pain was gone - just gone!! - and he was able to get a full breath and even was able to walk for more than 50 feet by the end of the following day!

He was still waiting for the furnace project to get going, however, after he got back home. He was keeping the electric thermostat on 58 degrees and using the blanket I had crocheted for him to keep warm when the temperatures started dipping. The hospital stay gave him a reprieve from that, but the weather wasn't getting any warmer and with a badly insulated house, things were pretty chilly.

November

After involving the NB Ombudsman as well as some creative plans to get the furnace work done, the grant people finalized the agreement with an installer to put in the furnace. They started the work on my brother's birthday, near the end of November. 

Interestingly, the nights didn't get as cold as they usually did that time of year. 

He also made arrangements through Social Services to get transportation to and from medical appointments. This was a big relief for everyone!

My daughter decided to attend UPEI as an "unclassified student" while she was taking some upgrading to qualify for a program there: the Kinesiology degree. This was a huge deal for her.

December

December 3 - My brother's first delivery of furnace oil happened early that Sunday morning and he texted me, "Sis, it's 68 degrees and so warm." 

December 8 - Mom was moved into the nursing home. At last count she seemed to be settling in, but the staff was discouraging visitors that she would associate with her going back home. As yet, we have not yet seen her.

December 11 - Many discussions with UPEI Registrar and Student services later, we had the joy of seeing our daughter register for a Kinesiology course at UPEI to start January 3, 2018. 

December 13 - My brother had an appointment with his surgeon (the one who did the cancer operation). She's been monitoring his creatinine levels to give her an indication of how well his kidneys are doing. Before the cardiac procedure they were at 600 (the high end of normal is 113). He told me on the 13th that even though the doctors could not explain how, his creatinine was now at 225, and that he was in the best shape he has been in for several years! What a great Christmas gift!

December 23 - A good day-visit to see brother - we gave him his Christmas gifts. He cooked a scrumptuous meal and enjoyed our company to the full!  He still has his drainage tube but now has a target date for the surgery to remove it (and the gall-bladder): March 2018. That is quite the relief. We are still waiting for word from the ophthalmologist on the date for the cataract surgery. They want to talk to his cardiologist first. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

December 25 - This was the first Christmas we have spent alone (with just the 3 of us) since Arielle passed away. It appears we were ready for it - a quiet one with just us - and a good turkey dinner to share and lots of leftovers!

December 26 - Shepherd's pie with friends who came over for supper and the evening. A good time was had by all! Precious memories built and exchanged, and nobody left the table hungry, haha.

December 31 - Today. We are planning a quiet evening at home with a dear friend.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2018

The year ahead looks bright with many significant changes coming up and lots of bends in the road ahead. Yet all we have seen, as R. W. Emerson said, leads us to trust our Creator for all we have not seen.

I wish my readers all the absolute best of all things for 2018.

Back to square one

I picked up my new laptop today. The experience was ... well, bittersweet.

The saga of the Mac is not quite finished; I phoned the repair guys today and left a message for when they open the shop up on Monday morning at 10:30 (yes, that's right: 10:30 to 5:30, Monday to Friday!) that I want my MacBook Pro back the way I took it to them, the wires and gadgets hooked up even if it doesn't work, and I'll settle up when that is done. Basically, I don't want them touching it any more than necessary. Of course I didn't tell them that.

Then I'll take it to the place I bought it, and see if they'll do something for me or whether I nullified my warranty when I took it to someone else to do repairs. 

Time will tell. At this point, if a replacement happens, it's gravy.

In the meantime, I am very grateful for this new laptop. It's quite different from both the Mac and my husband's PC - different feel to the keyboard, different (updated) operating system (Windows 8) and other bells and whistles I could probably do without. ;)

It's nice to be sitting in my own seat again too ... such a small pleasure but I enjoy it immensely; I can lean my head back instead of having it propped forward. What a blessing. 

As much as I talk about self-care - and I talk about it a LOT - it still feels rather strange - like I feel guilty or something - to be spending all this time and money on myself. 

The restart button on many machines,
got the image from cherwriter.blogspot.com

I feel as though I've gone through a rite of passage, so to speak, giving legs to all the talk about looking after myself. Talking is one way for me to get the message, but as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. This "indulgence" - if you want to call it that - is but the first in a string of little practical messages of self-worth that I'm sending to myself ... and they're not going to happen often - just once in a while. 

It also feels strange to be starting over again from square one. I have to put in all my bookmarks and contacts from scratch - what a pain - but the up side of that is that there were too many bookmarks I wasn't using anymore on my old machine - and contacts have updated their email addresses so I can get rid of the things that no longer are valid. So, in a sense, I'm getting a fresh start. Everyone needs one of those once in a while.  
Even if he - or she - doesn't deserve it.

Being Super

It's so very tempting.  The allure of striving for perfection is strong.  It can be overpowering.  We want to be perfect.  We want to be the best, do the best, achieve the most, be super-caring, super-loving, super-capable.  We want to do it all, to fix it all, to give all.  We might even succeed ... for a while.  

But strength runs low.  We make mistakes.  We fail.  We think we know what's best, and we act on it.  And then ... disaster strikes.  We end up with the opposite of what we wanted to accomplish.  People we've tried to help get angry at us, rebel against us, and make the very choice that we warned them about.  And we wonder what went wrong - and either blame the other person / people for not doing what we knew was best, or we blame ourselves long and loud, hoping someone will stroke our egos and tell us we did the right thing and that the other person really IS at fault.  

The problem with expecting perfection from ourselves (and inevitably therefore from other people) is that we aren't perfect.  And we end up being incredibly disappointed when we prove that we AREN'T perfect.  

Of course, we give lip service to the fact that we aren't perfect ... but often we act as if we don't believe it.  And in disappointment and disillusionment, we berate others - and maybe even ourselves - when things don't pan out according to plan.

We aren't Superman.  
Trying to be Superman only leads to burnout.  And burnout is NOT pleasant!  We wind up incredibly weary, resentful, and even bitter. Been there, done that. For decades.  Not only does it make US weary, resentful and bitter, but it makes the ones we try to help incredibly weary (from fighting us off), resentful against us, and yes, bitter that we never let up or cut them a break.  Some people NEVER recover from that.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold high standards, or strive for excellence.  But excellence isn't the same as invincibility.  Expecting the best from someone (or believing that they[*] are capable of good things) isn't the same as nitpicking when they step out of line the least little bit, jumping all over them if they say, think, believe, or do something that is against our own standards. 
    [*um, including ourselves*]. 

Trying to rescue people - and I'm sure you've heard me say this before - is akin to trying to be God to them.  It's God's job to redeem, to save, to deliver, to rescue.  Not ours.  In a similar way, we can't expect other people to rescue us, to meet our emotional needs.  That's God's domain; we're asking our loved ones to be God to us.  They can't.  They're human.

We're human.  

But we can still be super.  Not the way we might think, though.  We can be "super" (that is, we can behave with integrity, compassion and maturity, being able to respect ourselves and gaining the respect of those we love) by:

- accepting the other person's choices, even if we don't agree with them.
- not trying to manipulate, hint, guilt, or intimidate others into a certain behavior, emotion, or belief.
- not trying to control the other person's outcome or "end result." 
- refraining from giving advice.
- NOT JUDGING.
- listening for understanding: this requires not assuming we know it all, and being quiet long enough for the other person to speak, and not jumping in to offer our two cents' worth.
- letting the other person make his or her own mistakes and also letting that person bear the consequences of those mistakes. 
- keeping the other person's confidence - that means NOT "sharing" (gossiping) with other people ... even in the guise of a "prayer request."
- privately praying for, and openly caring about, the person - but not pushing our beliefs on them.
- making sure that they know that we love AND RESPECT them.  And showing it.

The bottom line is, whether we admit it or not, we are absolutely powerless over other people.  We are even powerless over ourselves, truth be told.  We can't be perfect or expect others to be perfect.  But by letting go of our need to control them and to control their (and our) outcomes, and trusting God to look after all that, three things happen.

The incredible pressure of bearing the weight of the whole world on our shoulders, rolls away (what a relief!) and peace replaces it.

We get our loved ones' respect and trust.

And we get our own: self-respect, self-trust.

I'd say that's pretty super.

Being Human

"It is what it is."

I've taken to saying that lately.  It covers a whole host of situations and it's my way to remind myself that there are some things that just are, and there's nothing I can do to change them, much as I might want to.  I usually say it about circumstances I can't change.  I'm getting better at accepting those things, thanks in part to that little saying.

But I'm starting to learn that it goes deeper than that. "It is what it is" also applies to character traits or behaviors in people that might be difficult to swallow.  And it also applies to feelings.  All feelings: mine, yours, theirs. "Good" and "bad" feelings.  (See my post, "Emotions. Are. Bad.") 

It's all part of being human.  I think that a large part of a dysfunctional lifestyle is living in denial of the fact that we are human: we have made mistakes, we are making mistakes, and we will continue to make mistakes. We need to give ourselves permission to be wrong, and not beat ourselves up for it.  Admit it, yes, honestly, ... but not continue to punish ourselves for messing up, and give ourselves the freedom to err.

I know I need to. 

Too long I have spent time wasted in sitting around "being right" when it would have been more appropriate to "be human" - even if it meant being wrong.  (Most often, it means exactly that!)  

I've often been heard to say that I prefer writing to talking because with writing, there's always the backspace key.  But that whole mentality (in my own psyche) comes from a fear of getting it wrong.  

So I didn't try.  I withdrew; that way I COULDN'T get it wrong.  Slowly, I'm learning to try.  Try, and IF there's an error, deal with that honestly and openly.  Try to do better.  But don't disengage from living life.  One thing about being human is that we can learn from mistakes.  We don't have to keep repeating the same error over and over again; we can rise above it if we are Honest, Open, and Willing (that's HOW to live) to keep trying.  Life is messy. To paraphrase one of my favorite novelists (James Herriot), life hands us unending opportunities every day to make chumps of ourselves.  

But it doesn't mean we stop trying.  We embrace our humanity when we go ahead and attempt to do good, even if we are scared, even if we get it wrong, even if we have tried before and failed.  Even if we have to let go of the way we've always done something. Or set some boundaries - for ourselves and/or others - which we've never set before.  Sometimes, by making mistakes and admitting them, we can give others the permission they need to try - even if THEY don't do whatever it is perfectly.  There is no telling how greatly the world could be impacted by someone - and we never know who it might be - risking making a mistake by taking that leap of faith into action.  

If we are honest, open, and willing, God will let us know (in no uncertain terms!) if we've erred.  But "He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust." (Psalm 103:14, NASB)

We trust God, and then we 'do the next right thing.'  It sounds so simple, but in practice it requires a great deal of effort, especially at first, because part of learning to be human (not superhuman, not divine, not perfect) is realizing how frequently we try to be those impossible things, and letting go of that obsession with being correct - in every action, every thought, every decision. 

That takes practice - and time.  In some cases, it takes a lifetime.  Certain things are easier than others.  But we celebrate the successes and we are grateful for those, while we continue to trust God and do the next right thing in all areas, even if we happen to do it the wrong way and have to learn from it.  It's all part of being human.  

It's who we are.

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.

Soaking in love

The last day or so, I've been focusing on looking after myself, doing what I need to do in order to nourish my spiritual life, taking care of my mind and my body and especially my emotions.  

This morning I had the choice to go on the morning trip to take our daughter to work and to run errands with my husband. Normally I would go without question ... but today I decided to stay home.  I needed some quiet time just to myself.  

As I sat here, the silence - broken only by the gentle breathing of sleeping creatures and the quiet tick, tick, tick of the battery-operated clock - was like a soothing balm.  I could feel my muscles relaxing, hear the sound of my own breathing, and let God love me.  

Yeah I know, I know. God loves me all the time - but often, I don't make myself stop and experience it, take notice of it, remind myself of it.  When I don't remind myself, and I don't take time to intentionally soak in His love, I start to droop spiritually.

From the website:
http://www.flowershopnetwork.com/blog/peace-lily-drooping/

Just like my peace lily, which I keep at my office.  

Sometimes when I go to work, my peace lily is limp.  It means she has run out of water and needs it ... badly.  Peace lilies need a LOT of water compared to other plants like ivies.  Yet all it takes is a good dousing of clear (preferably room-temperature) water and she will slowly soak in that moisture and her leaves will perk up.  If she has blooms, they'll stand up straight too.  But it's not immediate.  It takes a few hours for the roots to be nourished enough to allow the excess water to travel to the leaves and blooms.  I get that; I was seriously dehydrated once, about 20 years ago - close to organ failure in fact.  They had to search really hard to find a vein since they were collapsing; I was nearly past caring at that point - yet scared enough to realize how important it was ... not only for me but for my unborn child ... that they find a functioning vein! Thankfully they did find one (or I would not be here to tell about it!) - it took them ten minutes of poking around. But re-hydration was even slower.  It took five days of IV fluids to get me to the place where I was even able to take soft foods. 

That's a scary place to be, spiritually as well as physically.  And this is where I was emotionally even as little as two days ago.  I am blessed to have been able to recognize that dragging myself around for weeks and not having the energy to do anything without exhausting myself, and not wanting to interact with anyone, even my family, were all warning signs of an internal drooping that had gotten so bad that I needed external help to start to look after myself.  And I am doubly blessed that I got the help and support I needed to start that process.  So I am deliberately "soaking in love": being nourished from the roots on up, and working out ways to incorporate self-care into my daily routine, not to let everyone else's needs and opinions take priority over my own.  

The best thing is ... that lovingly working on my behalf, I have the best gardener EVER.

In Transition

Lately there have been a lot of changes in our lives as a family.  A new job for one person in the last six months... changes at another person's job that affect nearly every facet of the job ... another person getting ready to re-enter the workforce ... and most recently, the ending of a relationship.  

Change is hard.  

We like to have things stay the same; it's comfortable, comforting, easy.  But often, we need to deal with shifting priorities, changing interpersonal dynamics, death or separation, and the ever-present economic realities.  

And everyone's life is changing all at the same time. There's no let-up!  It's not like we can say, "Oh last week it was so-and-so's turn to deal with this change in her life, and next week the other fella can start..." No.  It just doesn't work like that. 

And as hard as it is to deal with change in our own lives, it seems much harder to watch someone we love go through a difficult time and not give in to the temptation to jump in and try to fix it. The hardest part is where to draw the line, where caring ceases and meddling begins, where controlling stops and empathy starts - what "letting go" really looks like when you have someone in front of you who is in tears, who is dealing with a really tough circumstance that is gut-wrenching, heart-breaking. 

From the website: 
http://mamahairball.blogspot.ca/2011/09/what-are-you-saying-to-yourself.html

Yesterday, I was made aware of just such a situation in the life of someone I care about a lot. It's quite an emotional upheaval for her... very difficult to say the least. 

I have to fight the urge to jump in and fix it, to take revenge on the person who is most convenient to blame, to impose my own solution on the situation.  It has been a challenge to respect the decisions of my loved one, to let her take the lead in finding her own solutions, and to simply make myself available to listen without judging, to let the tears fall and realize that this is part of her own transition, to believe that she will come out stronger and so will our relationship.  

But the efforts to strike that balance are starting to bear fruit. We chatted today, briefly. I let her know I support her, that I am there for her.  She knows she can talk to me.  She knows that I only want her to be happy.  She knows that I will support her decisions.  She knows that I am a safe place for her to land.  It's been hard for her to go through, and hard for me to watch because I care so much about her.  But she is learning from all this, and she will apply what she has learned to her life in future.  

Best of all, she appreciates that I have learned to let go enough to be able to support her when she needs it.  She is in transition.  I'm learning that I can help people go through times of transition without taking over and living their lives for them.  This has been so very valuable in the last few days. 

We're all in transition, at one stage or another.  And as hard as it is sometimes, as long as we are honest and take responsibility for ourselves and let others take responsibility for themselves, it'll be all right. We can still let go and respect someone's boundaries while we embrace them and show our support.  As obvious as this might sound to some of my readers, it's a revelation to me.  

I guess my loved one isn't the only one in transition.

And the problem is...?

Someone asked me a question today that set me back on my heels.  

Just what's so wrong about codependency?  After all, isn't being unselfish and giving, helping and rescuing people from their sad state, putting others' needs ahead of your own, isn't that encouraged? the Christian thing to do? the right thing to do?  

Wow.  You know, I might have asked that same question up until 3 years ago.  I would have felt perfectly justified in asking just what the big deal was.  If I even knew there was a big deal.  It was just the accepted thing to do: looking after others to the exclusion of myself, being the guardian of my family, holding up the standard of holiness.  

I lived in denial.  I only saw what I wanted to see: I only saw what would make me the hero, the victim, the only one who was right.  Until, that is, I was shown that the way I was living was isolating me, driving away the people I cared about, placing a burden on my soul that wasn't meant to be there, and leaving me resentful and bitter.

Image source (via Google):
http://www.nofenders.net/2010/05/
its-not-my-fault-honest.html

My version of Christianity more closely resembled codependency (see my page on what that is, above) than faith in God.  I didn't trust God to look after me or to look after my loved ones.  

Oh, I SAID I did.  But in practice, I didn't.  I behaved like it was my responsibility how other people turned out, that I was their protector, their rescuer, their conscience, their watchdog.  In essence, I had taken on the role of God in the lives of those I cared about.  That is a burden that no human was designed to carry!! I was exhausted : emotionally, spiritually, mentally, financially, physically. And I was so incredibly lonely: a state which, truth be told, I had created by my obsession with being right, with being needed, with being in charge. Fear was a way of life for me.  Like Job at the beginning of his story, when he sacrificed animals to God every day in case his children sinned that day, I was so afraid that my husband or kids would mess up that I would go out of my way to protect them and would assume that they were GOING to mess up.  I spied on them, jumped on every little thing they did that went against what I wanted for them, over-reacted when they dared question me or my beliefs, ... at the end of the day, they were either too scared of me to confide in me, or they had just tuned me out, saying that Mom was going all Christianazi on them again.  

The single biggest revelation I had when, overwhelmed by the circumstances, I first asked for help - which I only did so that I could figure out how to make my husband stop drinking and my kids to stop treating me like I was some sort of ogre - was that I might have the problem, not them.  That I actually might BE the problem.  

It was quite an epiphany for me when I realized that the way I had been acting was not the right way - that all my attempts at rescuing, controlling, manipulating, intimidating, and care-taking had created the reactions I was seeing in my loved ones.  It was a hard truth to face.  My life was totally about them, enmeshed in their lives, their reactions, their opinions.  I felt responsible for their bad choices.  Every decision they made - "good" or "bad" - was automatically a reflection on my abilities as a wife, mother, Christian.  I had lost myself, a sense of who I was ... if I ever even had it in the first place.  

That was when I reached, as people in recovery say, "my bottom."  I finally realized that what I'd been doing was insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - and it was causing the very problem from which I was suffering.  I'm so glad that God placed the people in my path to be able to walk me out of that dark and rocky ravine.  People who helped me let go of my iron-fisted grip on other people's lives.  People who helped me to discover who I was, who accepted me, who loved me, who were patient with me. 

My relationships changed.  I had damaged the people I loved... SO much!!  Slowly I learned who I was, who they were.  Slowly I realized that it was okay that I was me and that they were them, that it was okay for them to be different from me.  Such basic concepts I had missed - they were new to me.  And as I learned them, and this made a change in the way I viewed myself and the people in my life, that heavy self-imposed burden of 'being God' for them, just slipped away from me. 

Peace has replaced perfectionism. Serenity has replaced suspicion. I can still very easily slip back into that old fearful and obsessive mind-set at times.  But I am able to catch myself at it, and when I do, I can more easily unhook from it and let go.  It's not perfect - but that's not my goal.  My goal is progress.

I know that God was in charge of this whole thing: He was the One who sent those people who walked with me as I put one foot in front of the other and stepped further and further into the light.  And to Him - and to them - I will always be thankful.

Truth Hurts - Lies Hurt More

This evening I was talking to someone who had just found out second-hand about something he should have been told two months ago when it happened.  Yet people kept that information from him, fearing he would be upset. "We were scared of just such a reaction," the person told him when he angrily confronted one of the conspirators.  

Truth, even if it is hard to accept and might not be well received, is still better than withholding it only to have the person find out, and then feel that he or she wasn't considered worthy of the truth to start with. That's the thing about lying.  It speaks of a deep and abiding mistrust of the person being lied to.

People lie - about a great many things - and call it all manner of things.  I know.  I've done it.  I can't promise I will never do it again.  And the justifications abound....

Sparing the person's feelings.
Bending the truth.
Protecting.  (Protecting whom??)
The greater good.
The lesser of two evils.
Withholding information. 
White lies.
Fibbing.
Joking. 

Even more damaging are the lies we tell ourselves about either our own behavior or someone else's.  

He didn't mean it.
She's not really like that. 
I'm not controlling.  I'm concerned. 
I'm not manipulating.  I'm just pointing out the facts. 
I'm not playing the victim.  I AM one.  

When we start telling the truth, to ourselves first and then to others, it is no guarantee that we'll never be hurt.  Truth does hurt sometimes.  But it is more damaging to lie - or to be lied to - than to live in an atmosphere of honesty. 

Withholding the truth from someone just because we are uncomfortable with confrontation does a disservice to both parties.  It leaves us with a fear of being found out - and trust me, it WILL be found out - and it leaves the other person with a deep and abiding sense of betrayal.  Betrayal is inviting the spectre of death into a relationship.  It takes a very long time to recover from it.  Some never recover.  Never.  

Telling someone a hard truth should never bring us pleasure.  I say again, if we take secret delight in telling someone some truth that will make them sad, or hurt, or uncomfortable, or angry, then we are not operating in love, and we will be held accountable.  Yet on the other hand, the fear of negative repercussions from someone that loves us or whom we love is not reason enough to lie to that person.

Relationships are messy.  Life - and truth - is sometimes hard.  
We owe it to each other to be lovingly and graciously honest.

Sitting with Pain

We live in an instant gratification society.  Fast food, online shopping and pre-packaged food (not to mention vacations and other kinds of things) make us accustomed to not having to wait for anything.  

We even have pills to take away pain (both physical and emotional) - and they act relatively quickly.  

Not often are we faced with the requirement to put up with the hurting.  But occasionally, there is nothing that can be done to fix something, and pain persists even after all means have been tried to relieve it.  

Sometimes it's necessary to "sit with the pain."  To allow it to happen, and to endure it until it's done.  Nowhere is this more a reality than in the emotional realm.  Oh, I know that there are happy pills - and that some cases of chronic depression, for example, can be treated with medication.  I'm not so much referring to that as I am to the normal kind of psychic discomfort - and some would say anguish - experienced by every human at one time or another.  

Studies now tell us that depression hurts.  Really.  It can have physical repercussions because it affects almost every body system!! The emotional side of us can really wreak havoc on our bodies. 

Depression.
Grief.
Rage.
Fear.

These things (and more) cause us to get sick - or sore.  It's not just "in the person's head."  It is real.  Psychological pain is real and it causes physical pain.  Who knew?  Probably every person who has ever suffered from depression or grieved the loss of a significantly significant other.  Most likely it's also anyone who has been in a major argument with someone, who holds a grudge - or who lives in constant fear of being hurt (or of being found out for hurting someone else). 

I'm not against a person taking medication if he or she is suffering from chronic depression.   I do believe that a lot of our emotionally-caused physical pain can be addressed if we deal with the cause of it - and I also believe that these things CAN be cured, without medication for some, and with the temporary use of medication for others.  However, it takes time - and commitment.  And that, unfortunately, is something that someone who is suffering emotionally doesn't want to hear.  That transition period between suffering and the cure - is the period during which the sufferer must - to some extent - "sit" with the pain. Feel it.  Don't hide from it.

And face it - and its source.

Yes, it's uncomfortable.  Yes, sometimes the emotions are overwhelming and there may even be disturbing ideas that come to the fore, and usually there are difficult memories.  But patience is a valuable virtue in this process, as is honesty - especially with the self. A program of recovery from the hurts of the past, especially one that involves a relationship with God before delving into those past hurts (while relying on Him), is a person's best shot at getting to the root of attitudes that sabotage mental and physical health.  


I remember being in that uncomfortable place - and occasionally I need to go there again, depending on the circumstances that bring previously buried or long-denied emotions to the surface.  I've sat with the pain, I've been through the process, and I've come out the other side better for having been there - and perhaps even more compassionate toward those who are still suffering and who want the pain to stop.  

No way do I claim to have arrived.  I still have lots of baggage.  But when I compare myself to three years ago, I know that I'm happier today than I ever dreamed of being then.  I got there by leaning pretty heavily on God and being committed to working through those feelings and memories, one at a time, and coming to a place of being able to let go of them.

If you are going through this process yourself, take heart.  It gets better.  As a friend of mine says, "It works if you work it, so work it 'cause you're worth it!"

Ready for Christmas

Well, there are less than two weeks until Christmas morning.  How time flies!

Every year it gets harder and harder for me to find that special Christmas spirit I had when I was young and full of boundless energy.  Perhaps it's because as I get older I see more that jades me.  Perhaps. 

It could be that I am overwhelmed by the social expectations and the pressing crowds of people, both of which push me WAY outside my comfort zone.  Not to mention that a favorite gift that people tend to give to each other happens to be perfume, which they try out - in the store - before they buy. [Different post, different problem.]  ;)

Or perhaps I've allowed other things to creep in and rob me of the simple pleasures I used to enjoy a lot more often when I was younger: watching the lights sparkle off the tinsel, listening to the music the season has to offer, wrapping (or making) presents for those whom I love while imagining how much they'll appreciate them, planning a Christmas menu, making my famous deep-dish pumpkin pie (well, famous in my family anyway.) 

I do miss very much the old-fashioned Christmas Eve service, the kind with candles and singing those hard-to-play and almost as hard-to-sing carols, the kind of service that takes us back to the baby in the manger and doesn't focus on the gloom and doom that is all around us every day - I think we're aware enough to know there are people at war all over the world, and I want to hear about the peace inside - and the reason for it.  I miss that kind of Christmas message.  I miss it a lot.  

I would love to be more ready for Christmas ... and by ready I don't mean for me to have a whole lot of presents under the tree (although it would be nice to have the ones I ordered come in before the big day so that I can have them wrapped).  No, by "ready" I mean that I wish that my heart would be ready.  Sometimes I feel like there's such a hard crust on it, that it's so calloused by having to pay the bills and make a living that it's forgotten how to live.  I think that I might be more "ready" for Christmas year after year (starting with this year) if I were to make it a point to look after that calloused heart, to soften it with some soul-soothing music, to nurture it in reading uplifting words of hope and life, to rest it by taking more quality time to spend with its creator instead of running around half-crazed.  

It's really about time I got ready.

Buying Christmas

If I've heard it once this season I have heard it a dozen times. 

"Are you all ready for Christmas?"  

Hm.  I have to fight the temptation to say, "Do you really want to know? because if you do, I've got half an hour..."  

I like Christmas.  Christmas DAY that is.  All the stuff that leads up to it, I could do without. Shopping for people who don't really need anything, to get insincere thank yous - trying to figure out what I want and communicate that to the people who want to know so that they don't give me something I will never use.  And the food!  cookies, chocolates, short-breads, donuts, crunchy munchies - and for some reason a marked increase in the caffeine intake.  (Maybe it's the shorter days.)  Not to mention all the "fixings" associated with Christmas dinner.  And the stress!!!!!

I have to wonder what all the hooplah is about anyway.  

I'm sure that St. Nicholas would spin in his grave if he knew what had become of his generous idea of giving to those who could never afford to pay him back.  I'm so sick of the commercialism leading up to midnight on December 24 ... that for years I have been tempted to do something drastic.  Like get something for someone who can't possibly afford to pay me back, INSTEAD of get yet another toy or article of clothing for people who could well do without it.  I know one person who, every year, went into debt for the next 11 months to "buy Christmas" - as he called it - for his wife and kids.  What a crippling legacy to leave his family!  The only thing that produced was a brood of children who thought it was their right to be inundated with gifts - sort of like the Whos in Whoville before the Grinch set them straight. 

We've made Christmas about glitz and glitter, sparkle and shine.  We've made it about getting and grabbing, rather than giving and grace.  

And the giving we do is more likely to be about guilt than generosity.  

I think there needs to be a paradigm shift in how folks think about Christmas.  Yes, it is the time of year we remember the greatest gift ever given.  But not because we - by any stretch of the imagination - deserved it.  This was a free gift made available to us, a gift which cost the Creator everything He had.  He made it available to pitiful people who had no hope of ever giving Him anything that would cost that much - He KNEW we could never even come close to being able to reciprocate.  Though we were morally, spiritually and in every other way bankrupt, He gave His best and most precious gift - Himself - with the full foreknowledge that He would be rejected.  

Why?  Not for tinsel and tinkling bells.  Not for snow and Christmas carols.  

It was solely for Relationship that He gave it all, spent it all.  Relationship with us. And this is the miracle of Christmas - not the peripheral stuff like angels singing and ho ho ho and presents under the tree.  Relationship.  Love.  Hope.  Rest.  Peace. A Savior was born for one reason and one reason only: to die as a ransom for people who couldn't possibly pay their own debt of shame and guilt, to give hope to the hopeless, grace to the fallen, mercy to the condemned.

We can't buy that. No one can.  But HE DID.