God Still Does Obvious Miracles

Today was just a good day, quite ordinary and unremarkable.  There was nothing fantastic or horrible about it.  I relished this day.  Driving down the road with the wind blowing in through the open window and the air conditioner on full blast while drinking iced coffee on my way to a therapy appointment for one of my little guys, found me smiling.  I am grateful for these days sprinkled in my life and at times poured in.  I have been in need of a day like this.

About a month ago something amazing happened to me.  It didn't make all my future days wonderful and normal, but it has changed my life in an area I had given up hope in ever getting any better. 

It's been a lot of years since I've read the Bible and felt safe doing so.  I didn't know what was wrong with me and it became one more guilt item on my list proving what a lousy Christian I was, if I even was one.  Because of course all Christians read the Bible, and I didn't, so what did that mean?  Once I learned about triggers and flashbacks I realized that hearing and reading the Bible was one of my many triggers.  That explained a lot; except it didn't fix it.

For the last two and a half years other things have been the main focus in counseling.  My inability to read the Bible, without being triggered or having intense fear associated with it, has been the elephant in the room that would stampede anytime it was poked at.  For a long time I could barely tolerate hearing the Bible read.  It wasn't much of an issue until the last few years because I was so disconnected(dissociated) that I didn't hear much of anything that happened at church between the opening and closing "Amens" anyway. 

I spent Monday and Tuesday of the first week of June 2015 spell checking an introductory book on post millennial eschatology, The Covenantal Kingdom, by Ralph Smith for my pastor.  I've pointedly avoided eschatology up until now, but for some reason I wanted to read this book, not just spell check it.  The ideas that came out loud and clear in the portion I read of the book was the love of God for me, and his greatness.

I also spent more than a week with at least 10 attempts of trying to listen all the way through the        sermon from Pentacost Sunday, but I kept falling asleep by or before the five or six minute mark.  Tuesday night I made it almost through the whole sermon and finally heard the part of the sermon that when I had heard it on Sunday made me want to think more about it, but at the time I couldn't hang on to it long enough.  I knew I would recognize it when I heard it again, but I didn't expect to be overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit at that point in the sermon, or at all. 

"When the fire of God descends on the people of God, there is no distance between God and his people.  There is no distance."

At that point everything was different.  I was crying, but I didn't know why.  I'm not sure which came first.  It was a flooding of feeling that finally connected me to what I've said I knew about God.  It was God's love, his greatness and his nearness suddenly becoming real all at once and it made me cry, but it didn't hurt or scare me.  It was like a switch got flipped and I felt it, and in that moment, fear and dread about reading the Bible or hearing it read was gone, and in its place was a desire and hunger to read it.  I wasn't afraid of it hurting me anymore.  I felt open and safe like I was in the country after being in the city for a long time.  A weight was gone and even though I was crying, I could breathe easier.

The things I've acknowledged about God to be true, but couldn't believe it in a deeper and more personal way are real now.  It wasn't anything I did to get some emotion going.  That's not me.  I believe that the Holy Spirit unlocked something in me, took away my fear of reading the Bible and gifted me with feeling God's love, greatness and nearness and a desire to read the Bible.  I've been reading in Acts for a while now.  I'm also looking forward with anticipation to reading actual scripture to my little guys and teaching them intentionally about God using a real Bible curriculum.  I was unable to do that with my older children. 

The timing was odd in how I needed to read a good chunk out of that book and hear the sermon at the same time before everything happened.  God didn't let me listen to that sermon again until he put in my head a bunch more about his greatness and love from Ralph Smith's book.  The idea of the nearness of God has always been a fearful thing to me, but not anymore.  For days afterward I was smiling and it was an at ease sort of smile, at peace.  It's been over a month now; concerns of life have wiped the constant smile off my face, but I can still read the Bible and want to, and that peace keeps coming back and the smile shows up too.

My story isn't finished, so I can't have that happily ever after ending just yet, but I know it will be there someday.

Prayer of a Doubter

I found a book of prayers called Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle written by Ted Loder.  Some of them fit, like this one and a bit more added itself at the end.

God... Are You There?

God...are you there?
I've been taught,
    and told I ought
        to pray.
But the doubt
    won't go away;
yet neither
    will my longing to be heard.
My soul sighs
    too deep for words.
Do you hear me?
God...are you there?

Are you where love is?
I don't love well,
   or often,
        anything
              or anyone.
But, when I do,
     when I take the risk,
there's a sudden awareness
     of all that I've missed;
and it's good,
    it's singing good.
For a moment
    life seems as it should,
But, I forget, so busy soon,
   that it was,
         or what
               or whom.
Help me!
God...are you there?

The real question is,
God are you there, listening to me? 
    Do you hear what I would say, if I could?
I can't even think a prayer.
    My eyes dart to and fro, my heart pounds,
         all coherent thought is gone.
              Only fear is left.
Not much of a prayer, but it's all I have.
God, do you hear that...prayer?

Pre-Written Prayers Are Reusable and Helpful Too

Growing up IFB(Independent Fundamental Baptist) I was taught that the only real prayers were those you prayed on the spot.  It was clearly said that any accidental recordings of prayers weren't able to be prayed again because they could only be prayed once.  Of course the Psalms were never seen as any type of prayer.  The "Lord's Prayer" wasn't a real prayer either; it was just a model of how we were to pray.  The older I grew the more restrictions and rules there were that applied to how to properly pray to God.  I didn't have to use thee's and thou's, but if I did evidently God required grammatical consistency in order to be pleased with my prayer, and I couldn't mix in a 'you' anywhere.

By the time I reached my early 20's I stopped praying.  I was too afraid I'd do it wrong and incur God's wrath for my presumption in prayer.  I would pray for specific requests for people in great need or pain.  Eventually pastors caught on that people prayed for things and weren't praying all the other proper sorts of prayers that were divided correctly into whatever the right way to pray was.  So for a while in my 20's and early 30's I heard more about how wrong it is to use God as only someone to ask things from, but not talk to him in any other way in prayer.  Big push on prayer, not prayer requests.  Once again I altered the way I prayed and only prayed for life or death issues. 

Imagine my surprise when we began going to a different church and I observed men going up to pray from the pulpit with their prayer already written out.  Now I knew that sort of thing happened at Bob Jones University in chapel, but I counted that as a speech requirement for the 'preacher boys' and never considered they were praying for real.  But here this was a real church and they had written prayers?  Baptist love to talk about the slippery slope, but seeing prayers written out and prayed in a meaningful way in public for the first time was a first step in a long theological journey away from fundamentalism.

I still don't pray my own original prayers, except on rare occasions, but I'm learning to pray the prayers that others have written.  Here is one that fits me pretty well right now.

Sustain Me in the Coming Then

O God, empty me of angry judgments,
   and aching disappointments,
         and anxious trying,
and breathe into me
   something like quietness
         and confidence,
that the lion and the lamb in me
   may lie down together
         and be led by a trust
as straightforward as a little child.

Catch my pride and doubt off guard
that, at least for the moment,
I may sense your presence
   and your caring,
and be surprised
   by a sudden joy
        rising in me now
to sustain me in the sudden then.

from Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder

The Light at the End of the Tunnel is NOT an Exit

Events occur that most wouldn't understand how that seemingly unrelated thing would have any effect on me.  It's complicated to explain and when pushed to do so, even though it's also said that I don't have to explain, I feel compelled to explain if it's someone that I think I might be able to trust in some smallish way.  So I explain, a little.  A testing of the waters. A testing of the light.  It could be another instance of setting myself up to be devoured by following the light of apparent friendship with the bait of a much-needed hug.  I just might have some trust issues, but not without cause. ;)



I get entranced by the "light at the end of the tunnel" and continue moving towards the light, all the while I'm actually moving deeper into darkness.  I discover I'm not in a tunnel but rather my whole existence is surrounded by darkness, punctuated by flashes of light whereby I barely escape alive, but certainly not unscathed.  The light moves where ever it needs to in order so that even when I move towards the light I descend farther into darkness.  I retreat from it and too late realize it now is between me and the true light.  No matter what I do nothing makes a difference for long.

For an all too brief period of time I moved out of the darkness I have been surrounded by for most of my life.  I believed I had escaped the darkness.  For a time I was free of it, but a vortex from the depths pulls me back.  I see a light above me but its not the light of freedom, its the light of that ever present trap moving closer to me as I sink deeper into the darkness I'm well accustomed to.  Between me and the true light of the freedom I have tasted is the light of the false hope of healing from PTSD and all that goes with it.  The darkness and coldness of a life numbed to emotions is safer.  And today all I want is to be safe and for this anguish to be over.

A Perfect Easter Sunday...except

Easter Sunday... It's supposed to be a day of hope remembering Christ's resurrection.  In some ways I am participating in Easter, but I feel more like an outside observer this time.  Not belonging, but this time of my own choosing.  I made sure everything ran smoothly this morning and the whole family made it to the sunrise service on time and even a little early and then on to the breakfast at church and then the worship service.  Dinner is in the oven the potatoes are cooking and the gravy is standing by ready to be made at the last minute.  The boys are all down and actually sleeping for naptime.  It's been a perfect day thus far.  After naps then everyone will get their Easter baskets and then we will have our Easter dinner.

Sounds great and it is except...  I dissociated through most of the service which made me rather fuzzy headed afterwards.  Someone asked me if I was sick because it seemed I was walking like I didn't feel well and seemed off.  I thought I was hiding it well.  Evidently not.  I am out of practice in hiding how I feel.  People are used to seeing me fully engaged and not in shut down mode.  She also kept asking and guessing what was wrong until I told her the short version of the story, which was the PTSD is back and I thought I was over it because everything was so different this time.  I also told her about the two local counselors who couldn't handle my "multiple traumas" and one of them has been counseling for 30 years and has PTSD with trauma as a specialty.  Somewhere in the conversation I said a few times, "I'm done."  She asked what I was done with.  I couldn't give her a good answer.  I didn't want to.  Church? was one of her guesses.  I wasn't sure how to answer that question since that is something I've been thinking about.  She and another lady who came back into the conversation a bit later both hugged me and said they would pray for me and some other comforting type statements.

Another conversation in the parking lot with someone else, more hugs and encouragement to not blame myself or carry guilt for considering or deciding to not adopt the boys.  The only people who know at this point in my face to face life are the pastors and elders at church, and at least one of their wives. 

So, it's a perfect Easter Sunday.  We have the pictures to prove it.  I wish I didn't have a different narrative running underneath it all.  The one that says, "This is the one and only Easter you'll have with these boys.  The last holiday.  They will leave with their Easter outfit, but maybe will never want to wear it again because of the association of the last happy holiday with us.  Everyone sees how well they are doing and the improvement in behavior.  No one will understand why I can't do the mom thing, why I can't pull it together, why I have an inability to parent them all, why all of a sudden I can't handle the improved version of these boys or what my problem really is.  God is sovereign but why so much pain?  Am I supposed to tough it out and somehow stop leaning on my older children for help?  The more times a day goes well and I survive it, the more I doubt myself."

Then again, with the almost constant dissociation during church, dizziness, blurry vision and the lingering headache and evidently odd way of walking around afterwards, can that be called a successful day?  I am surviving it, but that's it.  And this day is going so well compared to others!  I just want to sleep it off, but if I dare go to sleep I will easily be out for the next 4-5 hours which would ruin the day for everyone else.  So I inflict upon a few people another rambling blog post chronicling my journey through life. 

I'm Too Young to Lose My Car in the Parking Lot: except I did. Too bad my hyper-alertness didn't remember where I parked.

Today the lights were too bright.  The noise was too harsh.  I couldn't put together one of my child's toys by following the picture directions.  The ability to concentrate and hold on to thoughts was diminished.  It was all about being overloaded.  I went shopping today.  By the time I finished at the third store I was finished.  Too many people.  Too much everything.  The cashier said something to me three times and I couldn't understand what he meant.  Another customer repeated it to me in a simpler way and used fewer words.  I replied with some sort of response back that I hope made sense.  I'm not sure if it did.  The cashier looked at me oddly, but still tried to carry on a conversation.  I think I had one semi intelligent sentence.  He kept looking at me strangely.  I wonder if he knows me from somewhere, or if maybe he thought I was high or drunk. 

I left the store and looked for my vehicle.  I couldn't find it for quite a while.  I think I went up and down half of the aisles at Wal-mart looking for it. 

Today was a mix of dissociation and being hyper-alert.  Hence my inability to find where I parked.  The headache and tiredness came from just being alive today.  It's a different kind of tired.  It's being wore out from the inside out.  I may be doing a decent job numbing my pain, but I haven't been able to turn off everything else yet.  I'm still dissociating and having PTSD symptoms.  It's hard to get all areas shut down at the same time.  Like right now as I'm typing my eyes are doing funny things and going all blurry and not letting me focus.

Turning Off Emotion: it's what I'm good at

There is no grace, no redemption, no hope in this post.  If you are having a bad time of it right now then this isn't what you should be reading.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 

Sadness

Regret

Hollow

emotion and tears well up...I flatten them down and refuse to feel

and then nothingness

 

 

Maybe there is a chance that things will change for the better someday, but I can't see it right now.  Truthfully, I don't want to see it either.  I'm out of hope and my pain meter is maxed out.  I just want a way for it all to stop.  I only know one way to stop it and to stay alive, nothing else has worked long term.

Everything I do is on my list. My secret “how to live life so no one knows you aren't really here” list. I haven't used that list for two years now. For two years, plus another four months if I count my inadvertent thawing, I have been waking up to my own emotions, feelings and pain. Lots of pain. I've dealt with it and had much needed help doing so. I spent several weeks feeling and a few being suicidal. I think I was in that dark place again for about five weeks . I thought it would be a long time, maybe 3-5 years before I would cycle back around to being that bad off again. I was wrong.

I got to the point I could be in church and the triggers and dissociation didn't necessarily happen every service and when they did it was manageable. It took the better part of two years to get to that place. Even then there were plenty of days where I didn't function well and was checked out and not able to do the mom thing.

NO. MORE.

I'm done.

I'm done working so hard to be okay and honestly thinking that this time it will work. This time, because the message is so different and I'm believed and and and... There is just no fixing me. Not a real fix, not real healing, no truly getting past the PTSD and dissociation and the failure of being a good mom, who is truly and always here for my kids. I can't give them these two years back or all the other years where I was trying to find help, but I can give them a well programmed mom who does the right things at the right times(with just a little bit of lag). This I can do. This is what I'm good at. I've done this my whole life except for those times when I longed for something more, something real and for the experience of having real emotions besides anger.

I've done the emotion thing now for the last year or so and it's just not worth it. I've experienced the good emotions in what I think are genuine feelings. It was amazing to feel, really feel happiness and to laugh spontaneously without thinking about it and cuing myself to laugh. As great as all that was I can't keep those good emotions without also keeping myself open to their opposites. The price is too high and I can't keep paying it.

Tears are turned off

feelings are being dampened

I'm starting to look ok again.

 

The true test will be when we tell the boys and we send them away.  Until then, I practice for the big day.  The day when I rip my heart to shreds and pretend it doesn't hurt.

My Regression in Healing After BJU's Response to The GRACE Report: What does this mean for our family?

I haven't mentioned on this blog anything about our adoption process or that we have four boys that are placed with us and waiting for us to sign the paperwork.  My little guy just turned four and fits right in the middle of the three younger ones.  They have an older brother with autism who is 11 that we also have with us.

I am so torn up about adopting these boys.  I have spent far too much time trying and not doing so well in being okay enough to do the mom thing.  It works to a point because of my older children, but they aren't the ones doing the adopting.  Its not fair to them or to these four boys or to my little bio guy.  Just last night my husband asked about signing the paperwork, and I stalled.  I can't say yes.  I can't say no.  I say it depends on the day as to whether or not I think we can adopt them, but its been a long time since I had a yes day.  I know it's not just about how I feel, but I don't really know what to do with these things called feelings.  How do they relate to life?  I just know that most days I want out of this adoption process.  I want my little guy to go back to the way he was before they came.  I want his smile and laughter to be his default, not a treat for me to treasure.  I want his dreams to be full of laughter and giggles again and not crying out "NO!" 

It took me almost two years to get back to a fairly stable place after I interviewed with G.R.A.C.E. and now after the official report and then BJU's response to it is out, I find myself almost back to how bad it was right after filling out the questionnaire and then interviewing.  I can't deal with four boys who need me to be okay in order to be the mom they need.  I haven't allowed myself to think about this, so I haven't even written of it until today.  I can't do this.  I can't keep these boys.  We've had them since August 2014.  I don't know whether I'd be ruining their lives more by adopting them or by not adopting them.  And my little guy...What do I tell him?  My older ones who I have woefully neglected during this time, what about them?  

I was doing okay and thought I was healed enough to manage adopting.  It's been something I've wanted to do since I was a child.  I don't know how long it will be before I get back to that good place again.  In some ways I am affected differently, but still badly by BJU's response to the G.R.A.C.E. report.  I need to get stable again, and I can't do that and add in adopting this sibling group.  It's too much.  My life is full of "if only". 

Bob Jones University Responds to G.R.A.C.E. and I Fall Apart

Today I'm a horrible mom.  I've stayed locked in my room for most of the day curled up under the blankets, shaking.  My older children, young adults really, have fixed meals and boo boos for the little ones.

All I've done is stay alive.  Barely.

It would be nice to point to just one thing that I can fix and then solve the problem.  I can't.  I don't know how to fix it.  If Bob Jones University had admitted their wrong doing and made real changes instead of saying they are right about how they counsel; would that have made a difference in my today?  I know that the CYA apology Pettit gave sure hasn't helped me today.  It is more like I've been at the edge of the cliff with a few steps to spare and I just got shoved and I'm flailing my arms on the edge wondering why I don't just go with it and fall.

Then I hear my little ones voices.  They bring me pictures they colored.  An older one comes to tell me a funny story.  I talk with friends who know and care.  And I keep on flailing my arms, trying not to fall.

Prayer for when I don't have the words. Psalm 130 --New Living Translation--

Psalm 130

From the depths of despair, O LORD,

   I will call for your help.

 

Hear my cry, O Lord.

   Pay attention to my prayer.

 

LORD, if you kept a record of our sins,

   who, O Lord, could ever survive?

 

But you offer forgiveness,

   that we might learn to fear you.

 

I am counting on the LORD,

   yes, I am counting on him.

   I have put my hope in his word.

 

I long for the Lord

   more than sentries long for the dawn,

   yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.

 

O Israel, hope in the LORD;

   for with the LORD there is unfailing love.

   His redemption overflows.

 

He himself will redeem Israel

   from every kind of sin.

An Odd Collection of Friends

It was a decade or so ago and I was in desperate need of help. 

In search for tangible and lasting help that brought healing and not more pain I kept trying to find some one or some thing to help.  It's all a blur, unless I slow down and think about it, the stream of people I looked to for comfort and ministration and found that their capacity to simply hear my story was so small.  The few who could hear some parts of it and remain my friend and not turn me into a dreaded sympathy project were those who themselves were so wounded.  We gathered together at all night restaurants and talked till dawn.  Just friends talking, no projects allowed.

After a time, and so many hours drinking sweet tea, coffee and cappuccino and splitting hash browns at three in the morning, the gatherings eventually had more reasonable hours and we met at my house for popcorn, hot chocolate with butter schnapps, white zinfandel and talking and board games.  We felt like normal people, with friends.

Our conversations were different than any other gathering of friends or church people I'd ever experienced.  We spoke of cutting; head banging; sleeping the darkness away; the need to check on a friend who might be suicidal, again; and abuse, all kinds.  We spoke of God and Bible verses that helped, but mostly we were the hands of Jesus to each other because everyone else hurt us more.

I'd like to say that I was strong and a source of comfort and was full of empathy for these dear ladies.  In reality we were all barely functioning and from day to day what kept us together was the knowledge that we were all we had.  We were all in different churches, and each of our churches were actively "helping" in our lives in some way.  We needed each other.

New Experiences in Dissociation and Friendship

Some more on dissociation.  I haven't been having much of a problem with it for the last few months even though I've been in church and fully engaged in listening and participating in the services.  A few blips here and there at church, but nothing I wasn't able to hide due to how the service is structured.  I may sit down or get up a bit later than everyone else or blank out for most of a song but it has been manageable.

One thing I've never done, up until last Monday, is to purposefully fight the entire time to not dissociate without my fighting it off method to be loudly arguing and slamming doors.  I was at a friends house, a very good friend who didn't freak out that I was shaking with cold in front of a fire and had strange things going on with my eyes.  She got me a blanket and a shawl and kept talking to help keep me in the here instead of drifting off to safety.  I think I fought so much to stay "here" because I knew I was completely safe, and that's my guess as to why I didn't just drift off.  I actually had blurred vision and could barely see and my eyes felt stretchy and like I needed to shove them back into my eye sockets.  I don't know how long I shivered in front of her fire wrapped up in blankets listening to her talk and talking some myself too.  My speech was also messed up. 

That was another first time event; talking while in the warp speed mode of dissociation.  If you have watched much Star Trek then you will have likely seen the Enterprise going into warp speed.  Somewhere along the way I saw an episode where time was distorted and someone got stuck in an alternate time.  Just imagine the effect on yourself if part of you is at warp speed and the rest of you is at half impulse.  It's a major disconnect and communication between the two parts of you is greatly distorted.

I'm not positive that my default to dissociate under stress is something that will go away, but the longer I am in a place of safety and have close friends that I could see myself wrapped up in their living room fighting to stay in the moment, the less I actually do dissociate.  Of course the exceptions are when something new gets opened up that has been buried for most of my life.  It was such a topic that spiraled me almost back to how I was coping about a year and a half ago. 

Friends are of all different sorts.  I am blessed with growing, face to face, local friends that in some small ways know my story.  I also have some friends from my childhood that remember who the 6th grade teacher was.  They are still my friends and even though we don't see each other, we maintain some connection.  Thank God for facebook and phones!  Other friends are no longer local to me; I moved or they moved, yet I can call and we are instantly reconnected.  Strangest of all are the friendships which came through facebook and turned into something real.  These last couple of weeks have been like friendship growth on overload.  What is completely amazing to me is that these are friends who have been able to hear my story and more categories of it than anyone else; they even beat out my incredible pastor who in the last two years has brought me from an incoherent mess to a point of beginning to thrive.

I've been a good friend to many people, but I am in awe of these two ladies who are able to be good friends to me even though they know so much of my story.  It is an unexpected gift at a time when I really am in need of it.