The Great Physician

I've been running from God for so long. Afraid of Him and what I thought was His punishment. Afraid for Him to look at me in my frightful condition.

Like an injured child, terrified of the very doctor who wanted to mend them,I ran away. Not understanding that going through the pain of the treatment is the only way to begin to heal. I have hidden my wounds and they have become infected and lethal. If I ever would have been able to look Him in the eye,I would have seen the love that wanted to heal me all along.

I am tired and sick and ready to submit, ready to surrender the hidden parts so that I might be made whole. I'll let Him drain away all the poison from all the years of hiding this pain. I'll believe that this pain has a purpose.I realize now there is no other way but through.

And I will be in good hands.

Broken pieces

What can I do with all these broken pieces of my life?

Most, if not all of them are as a result of my sin and rebellion. I want to hate myself, hurt myself, punish myself somehow for being such a bad person, for making decisions that will bring hurt to my children for the rest of their lives. I don't blame him for finding someone else. I have been very selfish. What does a person do with this knowledge? How can I change? How could I ever make amends? It is so hard to face the kind of person I have become. How do people go on when their own sin has brought such devastation? How can I ever lift my head again?I don't understand anymore about what it means to lay things at the foot of the cross. Why can't I understand it?

It feels hard to write today. Hard to put words together. Hard to think. I wish I had some uplifting, funny piece to write-inspiring, thought-provoking things to say, but it's just more of the same. Be warned.

Later on in the day on Wednesday, I had a major meltdown. I ended humiliating myself with Steve, leaving him crazy, hysterical messages and just basically making a fool of myself. I told him I couldn't handle him coming over for Thanksgiving and that I really couldn't handle seeing him at all. It was a very sad, pathetic way to say good-bye to someone I loved for 8 years. He told me I was a selfish bitch and wished me well. There was truth in the things he was trying to say to me and I was just to crazed to listen.

At any rate, it is all over. No more friendship, no more phone calls, he won't be stopping by anymore. I've made him hate me.

So, it feels today, like he has left me all over again, only this feels so final. I know this is a boundary that will have to be upheld for quite some time. I know it needs to be like this. It just hurts so much.

There is a huge hole left in me, in my life. I don't know how to be today. I want to just fall in that hole and have the dirt filled in on top of me. How do I do this? How do I stand it? The depression is so black and dark and the practical details of this fallout seem without solution. I have no money, no income at the moment, school seems impossible. The past and future are two bottomless pits on either side of my path.

How do people survive these kinds of things? I have such admiration for those who have.

Oy vey

I wake today to realize that tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am responsible for making it a nice day for everyone and providing the usual feast. My parents are making the 5 hour trip and will be here this evening. A few others may be coming as well. The jury is still out on Steve(I'm aware it makes no rational sense to have him here). He told the boys he wants to be with his" family" for Thanksgiving. The boys are set on him being here.

My house is a disaster. I have not done any shopping or planning. I wish I were in a hospital bed curled up in the fetal position staring at the wall. I do not want to do this. I do not have the will to do this, but I have to, and somehow, someway I am guessing I will. I imagine I will tap into the same energy that allows mothers to lift cars off their trapped children. Tomorrow afternoon, we will find ourselves sitting around a pretty table, in a clean house. I will be carrying a golden brown turkey to the table, my hair will be done and I will be smiling and talking, maybe even a laugh or two. There will be homemade pies and the usual oohs and ahs. And I will pray that those moments when I disappear to the bathroom, nobody hears my sobbing.

Still playing

My sister K prayed for me on the phone the other night(as she has so often lately). It was powerful and loving and fierce. K was always the stubborn one and thank God for it. She has become an amazing warrior who perserveres when others falter. She blazes with the Lord's fury against the enemies of those He loves. The next day she had some others at her church interceding with her on behalf of my children and me. And my sister E prayed. And then all of you have prayed.

I am stunned by such love. I feel it like arms around me. Yesterday started off so badly, but as the day went on I began to feel a calm come, not over me, but spreading through me. I actually questioned myself, wondering if I had taken a pain pill or something. Dear Lord, Help me to receive such love.

Last night, I took my boys to see Harry Potter. At the end, Dumbledore said something to Harry that went right to my heart. I can't remember the exact words but, he was warning Harry that hard times were ahead-that soon they would have "to choose between what was right and what was easy" and then reminded him that he would not be alone.

I sat there and cried. I did do the right thing. Separating from Steve was the right thing, and the pain, the hardships as a result of doing it, I will not have to face alone.

Thank you all for your ministry of love.

Game over

I can't see my way, don't know my next step. I can't believe I will actually survive this-this endless wilderness of grief.

I find myself alone in a vast expanse of highland, nothing in sight as far as the eye can see , but the grey gloom of wildness and crag-so small against the looming landscape. It won't do any good to run, to search, to seek-there's no where to go, it all looks the same. I can't even find a hole to crawl in. All I can do is sit in the midst of it all and wait and hope to sleep and wake up to find it's all just been a ghastly nightmare. Or maybe to be quick prey for a hungry wolf, a kind act of nature putting the wounded out of their misery.

I don't have any faith and I despise myself for that. I find myself not believing. And we all know that is a cosmic no-no. I wish he would send the lightening b0lt and get it over with-turn me back to dust. Game Over.

A Heart Song

Once upon a time in a halfway house far, far, away a young woman ravaged by hurt, by shame, and too much self-medicating tried to pray, yearned to pray, but knew that words could never embody the desire in her heart. She lay on the dirty wood floor of this dirty, despair-filled place and began to shake with the depth of her crying and bubbling up from amongst the tears-a tune. A familiar tune...from long ago-from a little girl's heart sitting in children's church singing " Lord, I want to be a Christian in My Heart".

This little song was my only prayer, but it was the truest prayer I ever prayed and I find myself praying this song again because the words won't come.

A tough nut to crack

Lately, I've been realizing that all the pain I've been feeling is not just about this situation with Steve. It's about pain that has been squirreled away for a very long time. It's had time to develop a very hard shell around such a tender heart. The day I found out about Steve's new girlfriend, was the day the hammer came crashing down with force enough to crack me wide open and now all that I had hidden inside has been exposed.A severe mercy. He saved me from becoming rancid and bitter and rotten, useless and good for nothing but the trash heap. There is treasure left in the heart of this little broken nut. Thank you for the death blow.

Nothing like a Root Canal

Nothing like a root canal to take your mind off your troubles-that's what I always say. The last 3 days have been tied up with a terrible toothache, visits to the dentist and subsequent root canal. I am terrified of the dentist due to a bad experience several years ago, so this was all great fun. Not to mention having to borrow $2000 from my mother(which may have caused me more pain than the tooth).

I'm not going to complain though, because the sedation they gave me before the procedure was the best I've felt for months.

I'm off to class. I have a 3 day seminar this weekend 8:30 to 5:00-Fri-Sun. Oh boy. More great fun.

Sorry in Advance

I am suffering. I have no one to talk to. I want to drink so that I don't have to feel the way I feel for a little while. He is with her this weekend-brilliant, beautiful her. On a trip to Leadville to finalize a plan for her new gallery(Rita is a famuous artist here in the Southwest and her paintings are truly stunning).

And I am here, my pain oozing out all over the place, making such a mess. I know this is probably too much disclosure and inappropriate somehow, but I hear so much in this blog world about ministering to the poor and needy and messy, and I, at this point, am that.

Please. Please help me. Please talk to me. Please, help me remember Jesus. Remind me of why I need to keep living this life. I don't want to be here. I've struggled all my life with not wanting to be here and this has just intensified the struggle immensely. Call it self-pity, lack of gratitude, failure to renew my mind, call it what ever you want and you are probably right, but still, the dilemma. The despair. I want to die. I can't see hope. My children deserve better. I've made such a mess of things that there seems no way to fix.

My most shameful fear is really coming to pass. I am alone. No family here, no friends, no Steve...nobody. And God, I don't know how to find Him. The church I used to go to would probably tell me that God is going to use this to teach me how to trust Him and to know that He is with me--and they are probably right. But really, do they have to leave me to myself completely?Is there not a time to have someone sit and hold your hand while you cry?I feel punished-like I'm simply getting what i deserve. The last person at church I talked to said that this is all consequences of my sin and choices. True-but yet...where do I go from here? I can't find my way. I'm sorry.

My dear sons

May the the Lord bless you and keep you and always shine His face upon you. May you know His peace my loves.

Orphan Train

Come all you broken hearted, come and lay your burden down
Come kings and queens, come royalty surrender up your crown
Come empty-handed come with nothing of your own to claim
Come naked, poor, come like a child to ride the orphan train

Chorus: Come ride, ride on the orphan train
Put your ear to the track, you can hear your name
Come ride, ride on the orphan train, it'll take you all the way home

The way is narrow, it is steep that brings you to the door
But love awaits there to embrace your heart forevermore

Come you abandoned, you forsaken
Friendless and alone, come refugees left homesick for
Some place you've never known
Here princes, paupers, criminals and saints are all the same
No more or less than God's beloved child aboard this train

It’ll take you all the way home
It’s gonna take you all the way home
Lee Ann Womack

It's hard for me to talk about feeling like a refugee, when there are so many people suffering right now, here and all over the world that really have lost everything.

I'm ashamed in a way of this pain I am feeling, when there is suffering in this world that there are not even words to describe. I have never had to hold my child in my arms while I watch them die of starvation or disease. We are not being ravaged by war and our poverty is wealth in comparison to the poverty of the poorest. We are all healthy. We have health care and clean water. We have a place to lay our heads at night. We have so much to be grateful for and such a responsibility to share what we have been given and yet...

Even with the knowledge of all this, my heart feels as though it has lost everything. The storm has come and washed it all away. I can't find a place to lie my head. Desolation-so lost I don't where to turn. I'm waiting for that train, sitting on the tracks, empty handed, waiting to go home, to some place I belong.

Will I ever stop this crying? It wells up in me , uninvited, the tears come, seeping out of me as though there's no room left for one single more. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I try to keep the boys from the worst of it. I try to be happy for them and try to keep their lives as normal as possible. I wonder if they see the floods raging and the fires burning through me when I look into their eyes? I pray not.

I don't know how to stop feeling this sadness or grief or mourning or whatever it is. It seems independent of thought, untouched by lectures or shaming or common sense or any effort at containing it. It seems to have a life of its own and it pounds in my chest, day and night, knocking to be let out.

I don't know how to pray-the old ways of knowing God seem useless to me now. I am silenced at the cross.

I' m just going to wait here by the tracks. I have nowhere left to go.