A place to put it down while no one is looking ~
This is an intense and difficult season of transition for me. I have told people I am choosing to live emotionally as if I "have taken off my glasses". In the physical, without my glasses I see the world in soft fuzz so it is easy to ignore. All that is in focus is about 6 to 8 inches from my eyes. Emotionally that is where I am...I am not looking out beyond that which is right in front of me...I am NOT living there. It is too hard.
Why is it hard -- there are circumstances: the madness of the church fight we are on the side-lines of; our finances (or LACK thereof); the fact that we feel like we are in the middle of a road-trip where being part of a church is concerned (anyone who knows me knows that road-trips are on the same list, but way below things like packing to move and trips to the dentist, with me); Layne and Sheila moving. Layne and Sheila's move was icing on the cake {OK,actually if there is an exact opposite image for "icing on a cake" that embodies yuck to the same degree icing embodies yum...yeah ~ that!) It is hard to talk about, and I have spoken to few people about how I feel. I think most people think I will miss them and that I am afraid of loosing the friendship. That is wrong. Yes I will miss them, and no I am not afraid of loosing the friendship. The real problem is that we are team. I do not mean like a baseball team -- I mean like Oxygen and Hydrogen are TEAM and become water. It is not just that we work together...like sugar makes lemonade sweet...it is that we became something else when God joined our families. The grief of their leaving is more like looking down to see that my arm has been torn off -- I am not the same without time with them. Sounds so selfish and maudlin that I cannot share this with anyone...except Ed perhaps and I am not sure he understands. People -- and it surprised me how many - who have seen the mourning and grief I have been trying to hide say things like "you'll still be friends" and "God has something else for you." I know I would sound mean spirited but what I want to respond is, "that is like offering me new gloves when you have cut my arms off above the elbows. Thanks but no thanks."
Deep deep inside I cannot get away from the very odd feeling that I was in one movie, I fell asleep and woke up to find that some hack had re-written the script and it was a similar but horribly maimed imitation of what should have happened in the real script. Yeah! That is it. I know Layne and Sheila are not just friends -- they are and always will be family. BUT there was something we were to do and be that ... may happen someday somehow but ... isn't going to happen now. I feel robbed. I don't just feel that way about Layne and Sheila -- I feel it about church, about our financial situation...and other things too. I find there is a weariness that feels like being draped with a very wet, very heavy blanket. I am so tired. There is a deep deep desire to quit. Unfortunately I do not know what that means. ... or I think I would. Don't get scared -- not talking about skipping out into eternity. But somewhere like Wisconsin sounds nice --- somewhere far from dreams and hope and anyone who knows me.
I am choosing to take my emotional glasses off and just not look at how I feel almost all the time every day. I wait till I am exhausted to go to bed or sleep is impossible cuz in the quiet of night I cannot hide from it. But I hide all day -- I know how. I stay busy, I focus my mind anywhere else. I embrace the mundane and stoically avoid any glance toward hope. I focus on the things in my little bubble of vision for which I can be supremely grateful: beauty in nature, my children, a wonderful husband, good books, and little accomplishments like empty laundry baskets. I am not, I know, a good friend in this season. I am not by nature open, but I am Fort Knox right now.
OK that is the emotional... but before (should ANYONE be reading this -- unlikely since I am NOT planning to share this) anyone should reach for the phone to have some doctor prescribe a serious anti-depressant...but there is also the spiritual. I am there also in a place I have seldom been before. I actually feel fierce and a bit unyielding, nearly defiant. I have hope spiritually because I have a relationship with Jesus that He has forged in the blacksmith shop of my life with clangings of hammers and very hot fire. I KNOW Him. He is my hope. I do not mean that He gives me hope for this or that. He is my hope. I am, spiritually, standing on the stoop of the throne room and looking up waiting. There is a very short story in the beginning of Judges: Judges 1:12-15. Caleb gives Othniel 'his daughter, Achsah for a wife' because Othniel has attacked a captured Kiriath-sepher. She persuaded Othniel to ask Caleb for a field. But it seems the land was given, but no water. So she goes to Caleb and asks for water. Judg 1:14-15
"When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, "What can I do for you?"
She replied, 'Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.' Then Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. "
NIV
There is also the parable about the widow who relentlessly knocked on the judges' door until he gave her justice (yes I know in context that is an negative for the snapshot of truth Jesus was delivering about God). But those two combine to pretty accurately display how I 'feel' spiritually. I feel like I am here to say, "Thank you Jesus for all the land you have given us but we need water." I 'expect' the upper and the lower springs -- I want, I expect, and am actually allowing myself to hope for water to give life to the place God has given us and asked us to live. What ever he does will be fine with me -- prosaic as that sounds. What will not be fine with me is some philosophical notion of what he might do...I want no margarine, decaf or grape juice! I want the real! I am willing to wait. I want to hear from Jesus. I know I will recognize his voice. I want there to be real life in what we do next, not just something to do in the kingdom. I am DONE DONE with kingdomish busywork. and AND!!! I want team and team that is not taken away. I do not want to just go and be where some nice people (even nice people who genuinely love God serve God) are doing nice things they feel called by God to do. I will if I must. I know how to put my shoulder to the wheel. But I will not stop waiting. Jesus is my hope. His will is what I want.
Why is it hard -- there are circumstances: the madness of the church fight we are on the side-lines of; our finances (or LACK thereof); the fact that we feel like we are in the middle of a road-trip where being part of a church is concerned (anyone who knows me knows that road-trips are on the same list, but way below things like packing to move and trips to the dentist, with me); Layne and Sheila moving. Layne and Sheila's move was icing on the cake {OK,actually if there is an exact opposite image for "icing on a cake" that embodies yuck to the same degree icing embodies yum...yeah ~ that!) It is hard to talk about, and I have spoken to few people about how I feel. I think most people think I will miss them and that I am afraid of loosing the friendship. That is wrong. Yes I will miss them, and no I am not afraid of loosing the friendship. The real problem is that we are team. I do not mean like a baseball team -- I mean like Oxygen and Hydrogen are TEAM and become water. It is not just that we work together...like sugar makes lemonade sweet...it is that we became something else when God joined our families. The grief of their leaving is more like looking down to see that my arm has been torn off -- I am not the same without time with them. Sounds so selfish and maudlin that I cannot share this with anyone...except Ed perhaps and I am not sure he understands. People -- and it surprised me how many - who have seen the mourning and grief I have been trying to hide say things like "you'll still be friends" and "God has something else for you." I know I would sound mean spirited but what I want to respond is, "that is like offering me new gloves when you have cut my arms off above the elbows. Thanks but no thanks."
Deep deep inside I cannot get away from the very odd feeling that I was in one movie, I fell asleep and woke up to find that some hack had re-written the script and it was a similar but horribly maimed imitation of what should have happened in the real script. Yeah! That is it. I know Layne and Sheila are not just friends -- they are and always will be family. BUT there was something we were to do and be that ... may happen someday somehow but ... isn't going to happen now. I feel robbed. I don't just feel that way about Layne and Sheila -- I feel it about church, about our financial situation...and other things too. I find there is a weariness that feels like being draped with a very wet, very heavy blanket. I am so tired. There is a deep deep desire to quit. Unfortunately I do not know what that means. ... or I think I would. Don't get scared -- not talking about skipping out into eternity. But somewhere like Wisconsin sounds nice --- somewhere far from dreams and hope and anyone who knows me.
I am choosing to take my emotional glasses off and just not look at how I feel almost all the time every day. I wait till I am exhausted to go to bed or sleep is impossible cuz in the quiet of night I cannot hide from it. But I hide all day -- I know how. I stay busy, I focus my mind anywhere else. I embrace the mundane and stoically avoid any glance toward hope. I focus on the things in my little bubble of vision for which I can be supremely grateful: beauty in nature, my children, a wonderful husband, good books, and little accomplishments like empty laundry baskets. I am not, I know, a good friend in this season. I am not by nature open, but I am Fort Knox right now.
OK that is the emotional... but before (should ANYONE be reading this -- unlikely since I am NOT planning to share this) anyone should reach for the phone to have some doctor prescribe a serious anti-depressant...but there is also the spiritual. I am there also in a place I have seldom been before. I actually feel fierce and a bit unyielding, nearly defiant. I have hope spiritually because I have a relationship with Jesus that He has forged in the blacksmith shop of my life with clangings of hammers and very hot fire. I KNOW Him. He is my hope. I do not mean that He gives me hope for this or that. He is my hope. I am, spiritually, standing on the stoop of the throne room and looking up waiting. There is a very short story in the beginning of Judges: Judges 1:12-15. Caleb gives Othniel 'his daughter, Achsah for a wife' because Othniel has attacked a captured Kiriath-sepher. She persuaded Othniel to ask Caleb for a field. But it seems the land was given, but no water. So she goes to Caleb and asks for water. Judg 1:14-15
"When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, "What can I do for you?"
She replied, 'Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.' Then Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. "
NIV
There is also the parable about the widow who relentlessly knocked on the judges' door until he gave her justice (yes I know in context that is an negative for the snapshot of truth Jesus was delivering about God). But those two combine to pretty accurately display how I 'feel' spiritually. I feel like I am here to say, "Thank you Jesus for all the land you have given us but we need water." I 'expect' the upper and the lower springs -- I want, I expect, and am actually allowing myself to hope for water to give life to the place God has given us and asked us to live. What ever he does will be fine with me -- prosaic as that sounds. What will not be fine with me is some philosophical notion of what he might do...I want no margarine, decaf or grape juice! I want the real! I am willing to wait. I want to hear from Jesus. I know I will recognize his voice. I want there to be real life in what we do next, not just something to do in the kingdom. I am DONE DONE with kingdomish busywork. and AND!!! I want team and team that is not taken away. I do not want to just go and be where some nice people (even nice people who genuinely love God serve God) are doing nice things they feel called by God to do. I will if I must. I know how to put my shoulder to the wheel. But I will not stop waiting. Jesus is my hope. His will is what I want.
I feel a bit guilty reading this, like I am voyeuristically peeping into your inner thought life and brain. Yet at the same time I am profoundly moved because you have pulled off the outer veneer and have allowed me see the "real" Barbara. While I have no easy answers to your finances (other than making Ed work harder) or losing the Readings to NC (and you moving there), I do believe I have a direction to look in for the real, the beautiful and the profound in the spiritual area. Please believe me when I say: I do not want this to be taken as attempting to placate you with false hope or a trite solution. I just don't have any other way to say this: Barbara, you must explore Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The cry of your soul for the depths of Triune worship and expression, I believe, can only be satisfied in Orthodoxy. I am not trying to sell you on the latest thing or newest movement. I can only tell you that Orthodoxy had profoundly shaken my spiriutal life and rarely have I ever felt or believed as I do now. Other than a good cup of coffee or a shoulder to cry on, I can offer you nothing else. Email me your physical address. I want to send you a couple of book to read and I know you love books. One is called "Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells" and the oher is "Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy."
ReplyDeleteI will continue to read your blog and pray for you.
I think that I am a little shocked not in a disappointed way but in a sad way - to the extent that their moving has grieved you. I honestly can not say that I understand, and I wish I could. But, I don't feel like something was stolen or lost because they moved - I think its a seasonal thing and we may never live in the same area but I don't feel anything further away from them. It could just be that the world seems like a smaller place to me or that I'm so busy and self centered right I'm content living with the little levels of connection I do have with people (not sure if I mean that seriously or sarcastically - so lets say both - please note: I'm super exhausted! So this may not be that coherent).
ReplyDeleteBut, I do understand feeling alone - in so many areas of my life I feel that same incredible intense pressure and the desire to quit.
Mostly I think that its difficult to read that this has been so hard for you. I do not expect that there is going to be something that 'fixes' it and sets it right.
You know when I told you God asked me a couple of months ago if I was ready to play a game and I said yes, so he said "ok lets play a game called 'How much do you trust me'" --- so for the first month or so I was like, easy trust you, easy trust you, easy trust you... I win. But, then slowly and I can't even tell you when or what changed but what happened is God was revealing to me the places or fact that there is a limit to what I trust... and I am wrestling through things like "God, I don't know that I trust you to give me a career that I will be satisfied with and enjoy", "God, I don't know that I trust you to bring a woman into my life that I will love and be satisfied with". Not, that I won't have either but am tempted - not just in the sense of I'm tempted to take that cookie since no one is looking. But, more that I'm realizing that I have a desire to disobey and take that cookie - and "know" there are consequences but 'who, cares... I quit' - seems to cry loud.
Its tough and I'm only beginning to understand some of the levels that I'm grappling with it.
I don't know if you guys have talked about it much, but just since you said you weren't even sure dad understood. I think that if you read this blog to Dad out loud while you guys were driving somewhere he would be able to hear you in a different way. There is something about your writing, but there is also something about the way you are able to read things that is incredible.
I guess all I can say is I get you. I am sorry. I will pray.