Had a great shrimp fry Monday.

Will write more later. Todays blog is that I don't feel like writing/thinking right now.

I Don't Have This Transparency Thing Figured Out

I feel out of step. An observer. disconnected


Maybe it's because lately I've been asked "What's going on with you?" and similar things. I just smile(I think I'm smiling, but maybe I'm not) and give some lame answer. I can't answer. I don't know how to answer that question. It's a harmless and well meaning question, but the answer to it is overwhelming. I give my avoidance answer. I say, "Yeah, there's a lot going on." and then I name some busy thing we're doing or should be doing. I haven't used the "game over" answer yet. Maybe it's a little harsh?


I give my answer and feel like they know I'm not saying something, that I'm holding back. I don't know how not to hold back. When people give prayer requests, I stay silent. How can I say what my prayer is? I've always despised the hiding behind the "unspoken" prayer request. It's unspoken because Christians are too afraid to let others see their struggle. We don't trust the people we're praying with. There comes a time when the inability to trust the Christians around you, slowly begins to kill you. You have to have real fellowship or you shrivel up and die.


That's the problem. Real fellowship. Biblical fellowship. That means transparency, which I still don't have figured out.

Someone asked me how I knew I was a Christian

Someone asked me the other day if I was a Christian. (Neither one of us was being ugly) I told him I was and he asked me to tell him how I knew. I couldn't. I don't have the words to explain it except in an arminian/semi-pelagian way. I do know I'm a Christian. But I didn't do anything, so I don't know how to explain it. It started with the Bible church and the preaching I heard there was truth. I was intrigued by the stark contrast of this preaching and any other I'd ever heard.

This is the article that started it all. My four year old was bringing home Sunday School papers that were very different than any I'd seen before. They weren't just cute little pictures to color and a nice moral story about a perfect family with children who are wonderful little soulwinners. I wanted to know more about the place that made these Sunday school lessons. What was so different?
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByTopic/105/1487_What_We_Believe_About_the_Five_Points_of_Calvinism/

So I looked up the website that was in extremely small print at the bottom of my childs paper. I had never read anything about the five points of Calvinism before. Back in high school in Bible class I had to know what T.U.L.I.P. was. We studied it in the sense that we took notes on what our teacher was saying, but there was never any true study. I was taught that Calvinism was heresy. So there I was reading this article, trying not to listen to a lifetime of conditioning that was telling me this was heresy and dangerous doctrine.

I had LOTS of questions. So I hit the internet. I also wore through everyone I could see face to face. I was warned about the dangers of looking for answers on the web, but at the same time no one had enough time, in real time, to spend answering questions. I'm not saying they didn't take time to answer questions, but my questions never stopped. I could talk for an hour and just be getting started. I sent lots of emails with questions about what I was reading or something from the sermon. I pulled in a lot of people to ask questions of. I couldn't get enough. I read lots of books, good ones like: How Can I Be Sure I'm a Christian?: What the Bible Says About Assurance of Salvation; The Almost Christian Discovered; A Treatise on Regeneration; Knowing God and several others.

I spent six months, mostly on the Puritan Board, reading and then later asking questions. Many on that board spent a lot of time answering my questions and were so kind. I'll never forget it. I don't know when I slept. God was drawing me. It was like a crash course in knowing God. I was saved in the first week of Nov 03, but I don't know how to explain it. But I know I'm a Christian. I know I belong to God. I hope to have the words for it someday. I know it was God, not me.

Kindergarten through First Grade

School- Kindergarten

I learned to read in kindergarten. We had little paper books from Abeka. All the good readers made it to the purple book. The reading group I was in never made it to the purple book. At the end of the year I asked and then begged my kindergarten teacher to just let me look at the purple book. I knew I could read it, if she'd just let me.


I hated reading group. I would rarely know where we were when it was my time to read in the circle. It wasn't because I couldn't read, it was because I couldn't multi-task. I couldn't read ahead in the story, and keep track of where little Susie was as she laboriously sounded out her section of the story. Inevitiably it would be my turn and it would seem that I couldn't even read well enough to follow along.


The teacher moved me from reading group to reading group the whole year. I didn't read well out loud. I tried to tell my teacher I could read in my head really good but the words wouldn't come out fast enough out loud. She didn't believe me, and she never would let me even hold the purple book in my hands because I didn't earn it by reading all the other books that came before it. I still resent that. I don't know if it's the purple book or the fact that she didn't believe me that I could really read. I spent the summer between kindergarten and 1st grade practicing reading out loud so I wouldn't miss any of the books the next year in 1st grade.


I remember other things about school too, but at this point it may be too identifying.

School-- First Grade
My first grade teacher liked me. She was still around when I graduated from high school and gave me a present.

I don't know why she liked me. I spent a lot of time with my nose in a circle on the board or standing in the corner. I was always getting fussed at for going to the creek during recess. I'd edge my way over there and when she wasn't watching I was down the hill and tucked out of sight from the playground above. I never got in real trouble for disobeying, just fussed at. Maybe it was something she wanted to do to.

I got all A's in first grade. I read a lot, too. I loved The Bobbsey Twins. I bought them for my own kids and they don't like them! I'm still holding out hope that my youngest will like them. If not, I guess I'll try again with my future grandkids.

Home
We lived in the same house from the time I was 2 until I was 7. I was about 4 or 5 and I wanted my mom to like me so I was the little helper. I didn't like emptying or filling the dishwasher, but I did want her approval. She thought I liked to help with the dishwasher. I would have done anything for her to smile at me and love me. So I would help with the dishwasher and earn a smile from my mom. I don't know why I knew at that age that she didn't love me.


My favorite drink was Tang. I don't even know if they make it anymore. I used to climb up on the counter to get a glass and the jar of Tang out of the cupboard and make it nice and strong. I liked putting extra scoops of mix in the water and stirring it.


Soup. My dad usually let me pick the soup we were going to eat. My favorite was cheese soup. I always picked it if we had it, or rather if my dad let me know that was one of the choices. He still won't eat soup to this day. He says it reminds him of being poor.


The neighbors next door on the right had a sandbox, but no kids that I knew of. They also had a HUGE dog that I wasn't afraid of. I would constantly climb over the fence to play in the sandbox. The dog would stand over me as I played. My mom would always come to the fence and in a fake calm voice would tell me to slowly get up and come to the fence. I still don't know why she was so scared of that dog. The neighbors had a good sandbox that nobody used except me when I could sneak over.

I learned to ride a bike by balancing using the edge of the curb. My dad held the back of my bicycle and ran with me and lied every other time I'd ask if he was still holding on. What is it with parents that they have to lie to their children when they are teaching them how to ride a bike? We didn't lie to our kids when we taught them to ride a bike. Our friends all did. (Am I being judgemental here, or just making an observation?)
A teenager who rode a ten speed with no hands tried to teach me how to ride with no hands. A couple of wrecks later I decided that I was going to work on getting good with one hand first. I wanted to impress him with my new-found bike riding skills. He went on to teach me how to jump curbs. Back then a curb was a CURB. Concrete must have been cheap because the curbs were like castle walls. If you hit a curb wrong then you ended up bending your bike rim. People who drove cars got flat tires when they hit a curb. When I was 16 the worse thing I could do was hit a curb. That's the only thing I really got in trouble for; staying out to 3am wasn't that big of a deal if it wasn't a school night. (Was I ever asked what I was doing?)
Back on topic...







Once I've covered these items then that will pretty much wrap up 1st grade. Stay tuned for future updates on this post. :)
kids across the street, boys peeing letters on side of house, learning, chris batman, nick, laurie, choir

How to put up walls in a door kind of church

I talked to a pastor at the church we're looking into. He didn't play the dance around the question and answer game. I didn't expect a follow up to the follow up question. I was only ready for the follow up question. But in the q and a game my answer was supposed to win and then its game over--no more questions. It didn't work that way.

At this new church we're going to they don't play the question and answer game the "right" way.

This is how it's supposed to go. If the topic ever begins to get somewhat personal or is danger of heading that way then everyone knows the "game" has begun. A question is asked. A vague non-informational answer is given to ascertain if the person asking even gives a flip. If the person asking, returns the answer with yet another question; then the "game" can take one of two paths. On one path the conversation can continue on said topic to a certain point. On the second path the one receiving the questions gives a "game over" answer. That answer contains enough general information in it to satisfy inquirers without opening ones self up too much. The "game over" answer is clearly saying that's far enough and everyone knows that's as far as you go.

They don't play that game at this church. We're figuring this out the hard way.
They ask, "How are you doing?"
We say, "Fine."
They return with, "No, really. How are you doing?"

What do you say to that? You can't stand there and lie. How do you get around it? They expect a real answer. Fine, just doesn't cut it with them. The ones who let you get away with it; let you know, that they know, you're getting away with it.

Most people who haven't suffered the way you have, or don't see that type of suffering as a possibility in their future, just can't handle that different type of pain in your life. They back off and once again there's rejection of some sort. Trust becomes harder and harder to give. We haven't been at this church or type of church long enough to experience that, but...

My husband and I talked about this today and devised a plan. I told him we needed an answer that would stop them because they don't play the dance around the question and answer game. We need a brutally honest answer that will stop them in their tracks. So we crafted a definite "game over" answer.
I don't know you well enough to really want to answer that at this time, because most people can't handle the pain that's in our life and I'm tired of the rejection. So unless you're willing to share your deepest darkest, so I can see if you can handle it, then I can't answer any further.

Now we'll see how far they're willing to take this transparency crap! (tounge in cheek:-)
That's our answer and we're sticking to it. Hope it doesn't bite us.
My husband is testing it tonight at church. We'll see how it works.

They seem to have the idea that if you ask enough questions at a wall that you can turn it into a door. I don't want to sound like these people are pushy and ugly about it because they are not. They have shown themselves to be real. I don't know how to handle it. I love it and I hate it and it scares me. I don't know what their walls look like so I don't know how to put up walls that they will recognize as being a wall. Aside from the in your face "game over" answer, I don't know how to stop their... I don't know what it is I'm stopping. Is it fellowship? transparency? And after all my crying around about wanting fellowship, here I am hollering "TMI !". Is biblical fellowship and transparency the same thing? At what point does information/transparency really become too much information?

Do I fellowship with sinners?

I hope so. Jesus did.

Does it matter when a sin was committed as long as it's repented of? Ohh, you did what? Was that before or after you were saved? As if we're the judge whether that has been forgiven or not. Here's a great example I read somewhere recently online but forgot where. I think it was only a story. I don't have it all right, but I have the basic gist of it.

There are two men who were both in jail and were saved. One of the men murdered his wife and the other robbed a store. Parole day came and they both got out. The wife of the man who robbed the store had gotten involved with some other guy and now wanted a divorce. She divorced him.
Both men went on to be faithful and involved in a local church and after a while felt God leading them into ministry. The one time wife murderer asked and received counsel from his pastor and was encouraged to go to seminary because "brother, all your sins are under the blood". The second guy was really relieved that the guy who murdered his wife got the pastors approval and blessing to go into the ministry. So he goes in to talk to the pastor. The pastor asks him about his divorce and whether it was before or after he was saved. Verifying that it occured after salvation he told him he was disqualified from the ministry. "What do mean, disqualified? I didn't kill her. She divorced me."

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense doesn't it? He should be free to remarry, pastor and live the Christian life a forgiven sinner like the rest of us. How many people did Paul have killed before he was saved? God forgave him and used him greatly. Paul never forgot where he came from, but he didn't allow it to chain him in the past and keep him from loving God and serving him in the present.

Sometimes I feel chained to the past. In a way I am. My past influences my present and my plans for the future. It's all connected. I'm not sure how to disengage from the past. The abuse I suffered at the hands of my teacher has affected me my whole life, even though I didn't remember the worst of it until fairly recently. It influenced the type of men I was drawn to or repelled by. My experiences drove my parenting practices. I had a big push with my kids on sneaky child catchers who seemed really nice, but just wanted to steal them away from mommy and daddy and hurt them. We watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with them at age 3 and used that to teach them. The teaching paid off.

Someone tried to get my 5 year old son at the park one day. He was playing in the sandbox and a man came up and talked to him. He told him he had some candy for him if he would go with him to the bathroom. My son said he wasn't done playing yet, he'd go later. The man walked down towards the bathroom. When he was almost there my son jumped up and took 2 steps towards the bathroom, did a 180 and ran straight to me. (I was on the way to him) He was so proud of himself for tricking the child catcher.

So yeah, that's one good thing that came out of my abuse. That's a great thing, but I think God could have used a different method than that to get me to teach my children about the "bad guys who look good". Romans 8:28 is a hard sell for me. It's kinda like getting hit with a baseball bat to get your attention when a "hey you" would have worked just as well. Faith,Trust, Understanding, I wish I could understand. I push it down and pretend everything is ok. It's not. Eventually it comes back because it refuses to stay pushed down. What do I do with it?

Honesty Hurts

I don't know...
It just seems like honesty hurts. The kind of honesty that bares your soul to someone else. I've never done that before. I've been on the road to it and realized that the other person was putting up road blocks and didn't want to "see" and "know" me any more. What hurts is when the other person is one that you so desperately hope will know you and still love you or still be your friend.

I have a few very good friends, but I won't risk our friendship by letting them know the things that tear at my soul. Things that rip me apart in the struggle against them. I have whole catagories of me that no one has ever glimpsed. Only God. Am I wrong to want someone here on earth that I can talk to about everything? My everything is pretty intense.

One time, about a year ago, I thought there was someone who could handle my everything. So I asked her a question. This wasn't just any question. It was a real doozy. Took me weeks to work up to it. She didn't know the answer and said she would ask her pastor. I've called her a few times since then, and I've even asked her about the question a time or two. She evades. We don't really talk anymore. I over estimated what she could handle and lost a friend.

What do people do? There are so many layers of me and I can adapt and fit on the surface with many different types of people, and in diverse situations. What do people do around other people? How do they decide who they are, for that person and situation? Is that what people do? Do they consciously decide what part of their life they will allow others into? Does everyone have walled defenses many layers deep, but just keep everyone to the outer layers?

I'm tired of the walls, but I don't know how to keep up the right ones. I hear a lot of talk about the need for transparency in our lives with other Christians. What kind of transparency are they talking about? to what extent? I don't get it. It comes back to the fact that honesty hurts. It hurts when you're too honest with people. It also hurts when you hold back because they can't handle it.

It's me. Hello, it's just me. I have to live with me and I can't even let anyone else know me, not all of me. It's kind of lonely just being with me and knowing that if I was really honest, in a bare your soul kind of honesty, that I would be all alone because no one would stay. No one really knows me, but God. Is that how it has to be?

Mother's Day is hard to take.

Mothers Day can be such a rough day. Fill in the blank as to why. This is the first year I didn't have to hint to my husband about having the kids do something. We did talk this week about how awful it has always been for me. On the one hand it holds painful reminders of the past, but on the other hand it exists for me in the present in a good way as the mother, not the child.

I get tired of telling my husband things that really matter in life, and then he forgets. He has never remembered Mother's Day until this year. I buy his mom's cards and tell him to sign it. The last few years I've told him to buy his own card for his mom. So he forgets things I tell him, like how much I hate Mother's Day and why. Today he remembered.

We're going to this new church, which I really love, but it scares me spitless to meet so many new people and not know where I fit in. I did a lot better today and didn't walk as many laps to the restroom and back so I'd look like I was doing something or going somewhere. When we walked in the moms were handed a colorfully wrapped card, and I thought that was very nice. I also thought that would be it but it was a shortlived relief. I think it was near the end of the singing time that they had all the mothers stand. I stood along with the rest and he just talked and talked (it probably wasn't really that long; just felt like it) and then everyone clapped. I sat down, the rest of the moms stayed standing and the clapping went on and on. Once I sat down my husband put his arm around me and kept patting my shoulder to the point of it being overdone. What can I say? This is the year he finally got how rough Mother's Day is for me. I wonder if he'll remember next year.

SBC in the news in Tennesee

http://wkrn.com/node/94808#top

Check out this TV news story from Tennesee about the Southern Baptist Convention and their own sexual abuse problems.

I keep changing my categories

I keep changing around the categories on my blog. The idea was that every post should fit into a category. It's hard to make that work. So I just keep messing with it.

If you read a post and can't find it I may have moved it around in the category section. I did remove one post. I don't know if I'll put it back or not.

I'm tired. Yay! I haven't been able to sleep much this week. It's not even daylight yet and I'm off to sleep.

Vulcan Mind Meld During the Sermon

Do you ever listen to a pastor when they start off a sermon and the topic is going to cover suffering and wonder if this time things will make sense? I do. I listen and I watch him preach as though I could do a Vulcan mind meld from my seat and suck the understanding about all kinds of suffering straight through his eyes and into my heart. Sometimes the topic does cover what I'm wondering about and it is a huge help knowing that the pastor "gets it" and yet I'm still left with questions.

• How does God use sin sinlessly?
• Did God plan sin? Is he sovereign over all?
• Did God allow sin? He didn't plan on it, but he can make it work.
• Does God listen to the prayers of those who will be saved or does he not listen until they actually are saved?
• I can understand suffering for Christ, that's in the Bible.
• I can't understand suffering without a point to it. The point can't be--You suffer so you can help others who suffer. That's just circular reasoning.

I know God is sovereign. If I didn't believe that; then I couldn't trust God for anything, not even salvation. I just don't know how to understand the sovereignty of God in relation to my own suffering. I didn't suffer because of persecution and standing for Christ. I suffered because of someone elses sin. How can God use that? There has to be more than II Corinthians 1:3-4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
What about verses five through seven which continue the thought of suffering for Christ? For as we share abundantly in Christ's suffering, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

These verses are talking about suffering for Christ and yet are used to "help" people with all kinds of suffering that have nothing to do with persecution. I don't get it. This is where I just can't wrap my mind around God's sovereignty and my suffering. I have to separate it and know that somehow I'm just not understanding something. But I want to understand, hence the Vulcan mind meld stare during sermons.
Another question I have concerns the timing of when God listens. Did he not "listen" to me all those times I was begging and crying out to God in my mind? Was I not one he listened to yet because I wasn't his child? Does he listen to those who will be his child? How was I viewed by God? Was it as his child even though my salvation was years in the future or not as his child because my salvation was years in the future?
These are not just intellectual arguements and hypothetical questions. These are questions that drive me to understand who God is. These questions also tear at me. There has to be answers, doesn't there?

Some Poetry

Disclaimer: I am including this because it accurately showed how I felt at the time not because I think it's any good

Written in January 2004

Long Road Ahead

The road that lies beyond the bend
Is mercifully hid from my sight.
It is time for the hidden me to mend
Of all I have kept locked up tight.

Little by little, things come to mind.
Memories like pictures return for me to see.
It may be only a whistle of some kind
That brings it all back to me.

( I never finished this)

The End of Hiding

I hide behind a wall of fear
Quite unable to shed a tear.
Dare I step out once more
Reaching, testing, risking that door
Leading to the terrified me?

I panic; need to run.
What have I done?

Slow down I say, it'll be okay.
Your night is turning to day.
This time help is here to stay.
They'll stay by you in the fray.

Can this really be the end? I ask
Holding together has been such a task.
Can I really let go of my mask?
It shelters me from the past.

You can let go, layer by layer.
It will take much help and prayer.
The stories of the past you can share
As you allow others to care.


Written in September 2004

My Prison

I try to protect my heart
I've locked it away in some hidden part.
I've lost the key.
I thought these walls I've been building,
Brick by brick and wall upon wall,
Would keep me safe from it all.

But there are no doors.

I'm barely alive in my fortress of fear and pain.
Who am I? Where am ? Who will find me?
My walls of protection have become my prison.
How can I be free?

There are no doors.

The walls must be broken through
But the walls have become me.
There are some cracks and missing bricks;
It is there where the pain is intense.
How can I survive the agony of these walls coming down?

My daughter can't frown

My daughter just came in to tell me that she couldn't frown anymore. When she tried to frown her mouth just twitched and stayed smiling. "Mama, my smile is stuck on my face. I can't stop; my cheeks are aching. I've been smiling all day."

The contrast between her and me at her age is worlds apart. At her age I couldn't smile. At her age I had been horribly violated by a teacher I trusted and that everyone seemed to love.

She reminds me of myself "before". How can I protect her? There are several registered sex offenders of minors who live within several blocks of our house, and we live in a good neighborhood.

My daughter can't frown. I am so glad! She smiles and bounces. So far she is safe. She hasn't been robbed of her childhood innocence.

Title questions?

Well, if anyone's read enough of this blog so far you may be wondering a few things.

What does the title of this blog have to do with anything?
answer   Everything! I'm writing from both ends of my life at the same time, so it doesn't look so great. If you stick with reading; eventually you will see Gods grace working in my life. A lot of times I can't see it where I am, but I can see his grace where I used to be. I hope I can show it in my writing.

You may have thought this was going to be a real spiritual kind of blog that would be a good read. answer  It's probably not. It's real. I haven't sanitized it for the "good" people. I write about my life, my journey and Gods grace and mercy in that journey. Some parts of my life are really crappy. That description may offend some, but "crappy" is the sanitized version.

If you're looking for heavy doses of talk about grace; you probably won't find it.
answer  I'm just learning to see it, but I'm looking for it in my life and in the lives of my family and friends. It's kinda like I have training wheels on. I wobble a lot and fall, but still move closer to God. I'm not running from him. I just don't ride too well yet.

Painful questions**trgrs**

I stare at my palms and see the sweat gleam in the light and occasionally drip off my hands. Breathing is somewhat uncomfortable. My heart feels squeezed and seems to be working overtime. My stomach is tied up in knots. I ask myself is this worth it? Should I be dragging up the past again? I can't believe that I thought I was dealing with things so well, when all it takes is a TV show or reference to abuse in a book for me to have a hard time. I deal with it by not dealing with it. Is that what I'm supposed to do? Is "dealing with it" wrong? Is ignoring it right? Am I the problem in the here and now? How does one just get over it?

Where is justice? By not actively pursuing justice am I in some way allowing him to continue to abuse others? Am I responsible for what he possibly has been doing for the last 3 years? Or does it go back even farther? Or am I just being stupid right now and I'm not in any way responsible?

I am doing what I can right now in this very difficult blog to be found by others who were abused by their teacher/coach/principal. He has had many roles in various christian schools across the country. I want to stop him from continuing. He hasn't repented or even acknowledged any wrong doing when confronted. I only need one person to stand with me to stop him. If that's you; then please contact me. (I'm working on fixing my email--it's a spam magnet) I think it's fixed now :) Please use either The Journey of Grace or Abuse in the subject line, that way I can find it in my email.

The Pre-School Years-home

I have a lot of scattered memories up through kindergarten.

• The upstairs carpet was red shag and we had black leather couches and lamps with red glass bases on tables next to the sofas.
• I had a parakeet that shed feathers a lot. I picked them up before my mom vacuumed and put them in an old green light bulb.
• I used to "fish" off the sofa in the living room with a toy fishing rod and fish.
• I was scared of the vacuum.
• My mom used to rock me in the rocking chair and sing "Rock a bye baby" with sound effects and rocking chair wrecks. She didn't rock me after my sister was born. I remember I was seven and she wanted to rock me and I told her I was too big. She still wanted to and I let her. That was the last time I remember feeling loved by my mom. A year later she got mad at me and said she was leaving me. I never trusted her again.
• I had a spiderman with parachute that I would drop down over the railing to the basement.
• My dad taught me how to make jet airplanes instead of the boxy ones all the other kids made.
• It snowed one year and the snow in our yard was up to my waist. I followed my dad around the yard walking in the way he cleared for me. I tried to make my own trail, but couldn't. My dad had to come pick me up and put me back on his path.----That sounds like how God deals with me today.

I'm going to keep adding to this section as I remember stuff and have time.