Who moved my mountain???

Richard asked me a very long time ago what has become a reoccurring question in my life. "What do you want?" Back then it took me 3 days to answer the question. I was in the middle of a terrible marriage, trying my best to make it survive, to will it to survive. And clueless as to what I wanted. The only answer I could come up with was "I want peace and tranquility."

"That's a good thing" Richard said. "Lets strive for that..."

Little did I know what price would be paid for peace and tranquility. The journey of accepting the end of the marriage was, to say the least, painful. Working towards peace and calm certainly contained a lot of pain. But Richard would lovingly and tenderly guide me to what I needed to see. I was in the marriage alone, with someone who didn't want to be married. While my husbands words said one thing, his actions were completely opposite of that desire.

The question has been one that has served me well. With one change. Now the question is "What does God want for me?" He used the question all those years ago to get me to answer 'peace and tranquility'. He then set about showing me how I could achieve that goal. He's still doing that.

The challenge has been keeping the chaos out of my life. Making different choices to minimize the things that disrupt my peace. I've severed several relationships...too much drama. I've severed contact with the ex-husband...waaay too much drama AND trauma. I've increased the time I spend in prayer, in meditation, in His word and with deep, wonderful new relationships. The results? Mountains are moving. God is powerfully moving huge mountains and its awesome to watch Him do it.

God is good...He truly, without a doubt, moves the impossible mountains in our lives!

It's what isn't said...

He's a blessing. An important person who sees my struggles. He has the courage to ask the hard questions and allows me to not know the answers. He said to me the other day "Sometimes the important things are things we don't say..."

The light bulb went off when he asked 'why?' Why do you do that? Ugh. "I don't know..." Its in not knowing, its sometimes the things we don't say that the answers live.

Its not that I'm being evasive. Its not that I'm being defiant. I truly don't know why. But the beauty of the process is that God will show us the answers. I'm not talking about why somebody else did what they did. I gave that one up a long time ago...trying to figure out why people did what they did. I'm talking about figuring out why I did what I did.

God revealed that the reason was because it's always my fault. That's why bad things happen...because I wasn't good enough. Because I wasn't strong, I was weak, because I wasn't who they wanted me to be. If I'd just gone along with the program, it would have been different, right?

So bad things happen to people who don't perform right. Who don't do what people tell them to do. And life sucks because I can't get "it" right.

That's what Satan says to me. That's the way he keeps me in the mode of self abuse.

Sucks to be us sometimes, doesn't it. God loves us. He fights so hard for me to love me like He loves me. I'm learning, 50 years of re-learning will take more than 3 months worth of therapy. My head knows that, my spirit is willing, but sometimes, it sucks.

God is good....God is teaching me to be nice to her.

Mandy and Tiffannie

I decided that my knee would just have to bear up to some exercise. Its been a billion years, okay, maybe not a billion but a long time since I've been able to get any good cardio going since falling at work and doing some major stuff to my left knee. Seeing how the lawyers say it could be years until my case goes to court and I get the knee scoped, I started walking on the campus at least 2.5 mi a day.


Tonight was the first time I've done it in the evening. Its hotter than you-know-what here in West Texas during the evenings and the best time to exercise is before the sun comes up. Most mornings I'm out the door, iPod in ears by 6 a.m. I overslept this morning and blew off the walking until tonight.


Another thing different about today is that its Freshman Move-In Day. Nothing like 800 freshman on campus to make it feel like school has started. Moms crying all through church services around town, knowing they have to leave their babies in the dorm, trying to figure out how to work the washing machines and a/c units.


I get out on the trail...(we have a 2 mile walking trail around campus) and feel really good, hit my "zone" and about 2 miles in it, my Ipod runs out of juice. I'd forgot to charge it and the thought of doing even half a mile without the music to distract me was, well, frustrating. I took out the ear buds, wrapped up the cords and kept walking. Little did I know how entertaining the rest of my route would be.


It wasn't long that I realized I had two girls behind me, completely obvilious I was there. It's amazing the conversations 18 year old girls have.


I kid you not, it went like this:





So when is your Mom leaving?


She left this afternoon. I thought she'd never leave but she called three times to see if I'd lined my dresser drawers like she told me too.


My dad and mom left Saturday afternoon. She cried the minute we pulled in front of the dorm, I kept telling her she was embarrassing me but it didn't stop her. She didn't cry like that when they brought my brother to ACU.


How long have we been walking?


I don't know. Maybe an hour.


Really? Are you sure? I don't recognize this building.


Thats because we cut through the parking lot the first time around.


Well, I'm done. Lets go back to the dorm. I'm sure my mom's called and I didn't bring my iPhone.


Silence.


Mandy?


What Tiff?


Which dorm is ours?


Uh.....


No, seriously, both of these buildings look exactly the same!!! Which is our dorm??


Wait....I've got my phone...I'll call Mom.


And the freshman class has arrived.
God is good...God protects His children.

The Good Stuff...

Remember in the movie, Indiana Jones, the first one, where that big stone ball comes rolling down and he's running to not be totally smashed by it, where he's running like crazy and just as its fixin to get him, he jumps?

Thats where I've been lately. Feeling God pressing down on me because He loves me and is teaching me to not get smashed. I have no one to blame but myself. Its at the end of the scene where Indy just jumps...no forethought of whats at the end of the jump, but having no other choice. Jumps. Thats the other place I've been lately.

Its not a comfortable place to be, but how exciting. Yep. Me. Saying "exciting" in describing where I've been the past few weeks.

I have a precious friend, Carle Joy, who is living a parallel life to mine. She's navigating the life of a divorced mom of two and learning the lessons God is teaching. As we spend hours on the phone we realize this is a GOOD PLACE! For people like us who have lived our lives feeling we had to be in control its a bit unnerving. But what a great place to be. Handing the reigns over to God and letting go. In that process of letting go, God's blessings have been amazing. I'm having to learn what The Good Stuff is.

For most of my life I thought relationships were supposed to be hard, supposed to be painful and it wasn't until I ended the relationship with Steve and God brought new friends, new relationships that I saw if I just relax, stop trying to grab the steering wheel away from Him, that life is much much easier, calmer, happy.

I learned that lesson again this weekend. That God wants to bless us with good things. He comes, standing at the door, knocking, and He has huge white boxes with big red bows, filled with gifts. I've started accepting those gifts. How blessed I am.

God is good...God says "here, I brought you a present!"

Searching for ....

I love working for a Christian university for the simple fact of what we're exposed to. I find myself absorbing all the experiences that many of the kids here do. The cool thing is being able to do it with a 51 year old brain rather than that of when I was here, going to school, with my 19 year old brain. Ah...the amazing beauty of maturity and life experiences.

ACU is so different than it was when I attended (1976-1981). The campus looks very different and its grown in challenging all of us in the stereotypical views we have of "organized" religion and especially our view of who God is.

The incoming freshmen every year are required to read an assigned book, over the summer, and come the first day, prepared to discuss it. Larry, the director of our department, came in the office last week and handed all of us the required book. "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller. What a great read!

I'm only half way through but I already love the guy. Plain speaking, the book reads more like a conversation rather than what I expected from a 'religious' themed book. I love this quote:

"I've met people who say God is mad at people, throwing dishes like an alcoholic on a binge, and others who paint God as a fairy running through flowers waving a wand at a unicorn. And all these people are convinced they are right."

I've known (still know) folks who are exactly like he describes. I grew up in a family whose God was The Angry God. Much like Santa Clause, you didn't get the good stuff unless your name made it to The List. However, if you racked up naughty points, your name was scratched off and no presents under the tree for you!

Then I have friends who lived their lives as if God was a genie in a bottle and would always grant their three wishes. That was okay as long as you remembered to make that third wish to wish for 3 more wishes. Piece of cake. No accountability, the God who sets no expectations and is okay with whatever they wanna do.

Donald Miller will be on campus for Summit (ACU's annual lectures program) next month. I can't wait to hear him. More than that I can't wait to meet him. I've a lot of questions for that guy!

God is good....God likes us asking questions.

Just what the doctor ordered...

Therapy. Life sometimes calls for it. I've been in it for a really long time. What a blessing it has been to sit in dark, painful places with a gentle therapist and just be who I was at the time. It was a journey God knew I couldn't go my myself so He provided exactly the man I needed.

But such as God does, things changed, time for being with him had come to a close. And the realization that God provides exactly what we need at exactly the time we need it.

Fast forward to The Move. I thought I was finished with therapy. I thought I'd healed, moved on, yeah, right...whatever. Turns out I'd only been fooling myself. I'd, again, found a way to declare it whole and healed, healthy and yet, the big box I'd packed away tight kept falling off the shelf and exploding, spilling all the things yet to be addressed.

So, the reality came full force, and so evident that I had more work to do it scared me. White-knuckling fear. The question floating around in my head, 'what if....what if I had come to the place where I was as mentally and emotionally as healthy as I'd ever be?' Now *thats* scary.

Interestingly, the next day, I met someone. A guy who'd been a counselor for years. We became fast friends and within a week, I told him I had a "friend" who needed a counselor and it needed to be someone experienced with trauma, abuse and how recover from both. "Do you know anybody who you'd send someone like that to?" "Yes, I do." As he grabbed his Iphone, he spouted off the phone number. I wrote it down, and called the next day. I got his answering machine, left a message and a hour later he called.

"Hi, Jo Ann. I got your message. You're wanting to set an appointment?" Yes.

"This week?" Yes.

"Today?" Yes.

"How about 4 o'clock?" Yes.

I arrived, petrified. He greets me with a smile, firm handshake, invited me to sit down. And for the next two hours God is in the room. Amazing. Safe. Home. I'd found a place called home.

Towards the end of our session he asks, "Tell me again when you got married." March, 1981. "And when were you divorced?" June....June 1st.

I began to cry. Deep, wounded, sobs. I asked him "What's today?" He said, "June 1st."

"Are you kidding me? Today? Today is June first?"

" Neil, today is the third anniversary of my divorce..."

And so he let me sit. To grieve and celebrate at the same time feeling the full effect of the realization that God had, once again, moved a mountain. God had brought me to the very place, at the exact time, with this special counselor to help me truly finish the journey of healing.

God is good...our God is an awesome God!

Secrets with tears...

Living in survival mode robs you. Survival forces you to concentrate on nothing else but, well, surviving. It will rob you of the ability to not only express emotions but it keeps you in a place that has lots of secrets. I'm learning secrets aren't good. Hiding with your secrets with no emotions is for sure not a healthy place to live.

Surrounding yourself with safe people is huge in the process of healing. God-sent people who you can tell the secrets to and be safe. Intuitively, I've known not to speak of the abuse, to keep the secrets buried deep and not tell. Talking about them is so counter to my pattern of the past 30 years. But not anymore...

Telling the truth, the reality of what happened is scary. If I speak it, it becomes real. If I tell someone the specifics of what was done, that means it really happened, it's not something that I've made up, and it certainly doesn't allow me the luxury of blowing it off.

That's why it was so difficult to watch someone who loves me react to what I say. I know he loves me but I'd never seen him cry because of me. It was one of those God moments. Looking back I should have caught it, but like I said, I don't "see" things as they happen. Its not until looking back, recalling a conversation, that I see. This was one of those moments.

As an emotional abuse survivor, one of the defense mechanisms is the ability to speak the abuse to other people and not have an emotional reaction. Detached, it takes denial to a whole new level. Not only do I deny my own emotional reaction to the abuse, I don't see it when other people do react to it. Thats why I never saw him cry.

It was a few weeks later, we were talking and he mentioned he didn't like to cry. "I didn't know you cry. You've never cried with me."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've never seen you..."

The conversation shifted to other things. Early the next morning, I awoke from a sound sleep. It was 3:15 and I was instantly awake. It occurred to me that someone, a dear friend, had cried for me. Needless to say, I didn't go back to sleep. I sat on the front deck, with the rain pouring down, thanking God for allowing me to have friends who grieve for me. Who love me enough to cry for what was done, for the pain endured.

God is good...God shows who He is through the eyes of friends.