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{A Miscarriage of a Life – a post Mother’s Day Lament}

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Alcoholism & Addiction, Depression, Home, Life @ Home, My Story

Yesterday I told myself over and over – I have had a miscarriage of a life.

The day before, I spent all day celebrating my older sister as she received a doctorate of ministry in preaching from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  Yes, I was happy for her but I could not enjoy the day fully because I was so disappointed with my own life.

After the very long ceremony (those Lutherans know how to “party”) I asked her what was next on her list for world domination? It was a backhanded compliment, which had a risk of offending her, but luckily she was gracious. (I get snarky and sarcastic when I’m feeling bad about myself.)

These sisters of mine are capable of doing anything.

Harrison’s seem to have the brains and talent, ability to work extremely hard, a yearning for justice to prevail and the certainty that injustice is, in part, our life’s call, challenge and responsibility.  We are strong, capable, and powerful women. Some days I actually believe that about myself.

I have come to believe that much of the spiritual journey is one of being stripped of all that we would put our trust in, other than God.

Life is found in losing it for Christ’s sake.  The life that God has for each of us, if received–changes us.  There is not one sacred path for all.

My journey over the last twenty years has been a stripping, for I never knew Jesus, before.

I never knew I was beloved. I didn’t believe there was a purpose for my life outside of what I could accomplish, a life purpose that is all about Jesus.

Until my father died nine years ago, I was in many ways “asleep.”  Because of the severe damage to my psyche from his anger, I did not know myself.  I did not know the Trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in any real way.

I did not know it, but I was bankrupt in spirit.

But even in that absence of belief, God planted questions, passions and strong desires inside me, a prompting that has never left me to know the Word of God and interpret it. I know that I am to receive that– and submit to the unique journey God has laid out, even when I cannot see clearly the road ahead.

Trusting is painful — the stripping away of sin, of selfishness and in many ways of aspects of my humanity, my character, that I thought were who I was.  But there is grace, protection, comfort, provision and shalom in submitting to the Holy One’s purposes.

It is the only safe place. And yet it hurts so much when I feel I do not understand clearly.

In my 20s and 30s I lived for my job, it was my identity and all that I knew.  Strangely, I believed it was all I was good at and I thought that I was choosing to walk away from that work, because the environment was unhealthy, but I see now that God led me away, took everything that made me feel good and strong and powerful.  I thought I knew.

I could have lost my marriage and family because of my addiction to alcohol.  I thought I knew, thought I was strong enough to beat it with will power, but the addiction beat me and I found that I was nothing without the Holy One.  Even if I gave up the drink, without the Holy One filling me, healing, and strengthening me I was nothing. I thought I knew.

I sat Sunday scrutinizing people who had given many years of their lives to learning, thinking, writing, believing, enough to sacrifice time with their own children and partners, to achieve this incredible goal of a masters or doctorate. Some were restrained, some were giddy, and many were just slightly stunned to survive it, it seemed to me as a bystander.

I was so incredibly jealous and sad for myself, even mad at myself.  Though the day wasn’t about me, inside my head everything was about me and my feelings of not exactly failure, but a strange bedfellow to it, a miscarriage of a life.   In that moment, how dearly I regretted leaving my career in my early thirties and staying at home with my kids. Deep down a part of me still believed that I would not have succumbed to alcoholism or depression in the end if I had continue to work fulltime.  I’d still have a great career, I’d be able to leverage it toward other work, and I would be respected by others.   Pretty much bullshit and lies, but I almost believed it again as I sat there fuming internally.

I said all that and more to my mother as we drove back home.  I don’t know if I really believed it.  I do know that who I am, the real me, the person I never knew until I had no job, suffered from major depression and became a drunk – that woman needs Jesus! She believes in the Creator in a way that she never did before she lost it all.

I remembered that my boss, while I was trying to decide about leaving InterVarsity told me to go have babies and come back in five years to continue my part of world domination.  Only, I never went back I was too busy having a breakdown and drinking myself stupid.  That’s what I mean by a miscarriage of a life.

I was debriefing the day with Tom, who is extremely smart and has an almost PhD from the University of Chicago.  As his head hit the pillow he exhaled, he said something like:

Higher degrees have their purpose, and there is a sense of personal achievement if it is important to you, but being a parent is three times harder than getting that PhD.

“Yeah,” I said, “but the world doesn’t esteem parents.  Parenting won’t get you a job.  Parenting won’t bring you any real regard or admiration from others.  Parenting is something everyone does.  (Not to mention you don’t get paid and the hours are terrible.)  It’s not enough.” 

My eyes filled with tears so many times on Sunday, I felt like I was choking most of the day.  I was happy for my sister, genuinely — for I know only in part the many sacrifices she and her loved ones have made for her to accomplish this incredible goal.  I know my father was doing a happy dance, wherever he is.  My mother was beaming.

I spent my mother’s day celebrating my sister in part because I believe in doing things even when they are hard.  I want my children to grow up knowing that doing the right thing isn’t always what’s easy, nor is it usually about you. That there will be many opportunities in life to choose yourself over others, but when given the chance to celebrate someone you love, you should take it.

All day I had moments of deep self-pity and self-loathing for my choices and beating myself up about the last fifteen years.  Hindsight is 20/20 and all, still this is what I have come to know.

I know I would be different and horrible person if I had continued on the path of a workaholic and constant striving for external approval. My character has been changed through these experiences.

Through the mistakes I have made I have found a true understanding of God’s mercy and grace in my life. I know that I am loved by Jesus – I didn’t know or believe it two decades ago.

Through the mistakes I have made I have found a daily dependence on God for my health – my mood, my purpose and meaning.

For even as humbling and hard as each day is and how much it feels like a sacrifice to not have a viable lauded career at this time, I’m on my knees ever more.

Most of what I am learning is yet to be understood or written I suppose.  Clearly, I am still broken, still too easily overcome by the wrong motives. I continue to be frustrated and discontented and I am frustrated with myself because of this.

In studying the book of Proverbs (because that is where we are in Eat This Book reading the entire Bible in a year at church) I am being drawn to Proverbs 31.  I look forward to learning what a 21st century feminist wife and mother, a homemaker, budding writer has to learn about being a Proverbs 31 woman.

I am open, and fearful. I am angry and aching inside, deep where no one understands me except God.

I know I should be grateful but everything about me is wired to work hard, to please other people, to get the acclaim of others, to be esteemed and admired; it is the entire human condition without God.

I pray for spiritual understanding and an ability to lay all that down — to trust and obey.

Deep down I know that as long as I keep longing for all the wrong things, I can’t grasp what is good, whether that is understanding of what I already have or whether it is receiving what God has for me next.  I cannot grasp it because I am still so filled with discontent.

I thought I knew.  There is very little that I do know.  But my story isn’t fully written.


I Never Wanted to be Like My Mother

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Alcoholism & Addiction, My Story
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I never wanted to be like my mother.

My mother stayed for more than 40 years in a marriage that broke her heart.  She admits now that she was afraid.

She married in the late fifties, when women couldn’t even have a bank account in their name.  She was a teacher and worked to put my father through college.  In the first year of their marriage, in a rage my father put her head through the wall.  He promised to never do it again.  And to my knowledge he kept that promise.  But  that was the beginning of being manipulated.  He threatened and he yelled.

The man could rage.

The smallest thing would set him off.

I never wanted to be like my mother, because all those years, I thought she was weak.  Weak for staying.

Or so I thought, for many years, until I became a mother.  And when that happened I began over time to see that she did it all for us. 

My mother is strong.  She stayed for us.  She was the buffer all those years between us and my father’s angry raging.  She took it more than we did. (And we took it a lot.)

And in later years as the weight of it became more than she could bear, she began to find comfort in the bottle.  I never wanted to be like my mother, but I became an alcoholic too.  I buried my fears for years in the numbing relief of alcohol.  As is often the case in a family with addiction, I carried it on.  And in the end I realized, I am very like my mother. I hide my pain even now, though I have been sober for almost five years.

I am strong and would do anything for my kids, just like my mother.

I never wanted to be like my mother, but I am.

I am strong, loyal and sober.

Happy Mother’s Day, 2012

Melody

I’ve written about my alcoholism here.

I’ve written about my Dad here. 

Let your Fear Fly Free

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February 11, 2012
2012 is about Abundance, Alcoholism & Addiction, My Story
3 Comments

So often, if I find myself returning in frustration and anger, again and again, to a subject.

When this happens I know that it has become an area of idolatry for me. Or it’s an area that God wants to heal in my life.   Or both!

I’m a slow learner but I’m learning this about myself.  About God.  His Truth is a beautiful thing.  Opening my heart to God’s voice in my life not easy, even unnatural.

How to you do that?  How do you listen well?  And when you know that you need healing by Him, how does this usually occur?  That’s something else I’m learning to allow space for in my life.

For the longest time I drank to try to make that Ugly Thing (you name it) go away. I ignored God’s regular, persistent call.  His knocking was gentle, consistent, reliable true.  But I chose to numb myself with alcohol or shopping or other idols.  But by self-medicating, aren’t we simply postponing the inevitable?  Running from reality.  Ignoring truth. Letting the Ugly Thing win.

Areas where I have seen this in my life recently, where I am letting go of my vice grip of control.

I’m letting fly free the issue of women in my denomination.

I’m letting fly free my need for a “paying job.”

I am letting fly free my need for significance and accolades.

I am letting fly free my self-loathing.

I am letting fly free my wish for my children to know Jesus as their Savior.

These are all things that I have tried to ignore how much they hurt, yes my big gut wrenching fears that control my mind and heart.  And in the end the weight of them crushes my spirit.  I cannot bear the weight of them any longer.

So I open my hands and I see them fly away knowing that the universe is God’s and he is in control of it all.   He loves me, he loves them, more than I ever could.  His desire for justice and truth to prevail  in the Church is stronger than mine.  And in fact he gave me this heart, that breaks and so easily comes undone.

And finally, his desire for me to be useful to him is less than his wish for me to know, fear, and love who he is, the Holy One.

He made me and he’ll carry me and all my fears.

May we be people open to God and able to let go of our need for control whatever it is — it’s so different for everyone. Let them go free into God’s hands, because is it not true that the Holy One is so much more capable than you or me?

What do you need to let fly free?

Were I to forgive you, Daddy … [A tale of domestic abuse, Part 2]

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December 3, 2011
Alcoholism & Addiction, Faith & (Dis)Belief, My Story, Poems
9 Comments

I just posted a piece on domestic abuse.  This is a tiny bit of my personal story that I wrote several years ago.

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive, but do not forget.  – Thomas  S. Szasz

First published in March 2010.  This was not easy to write and it will not be an easy read.   Although my father was a dynamic, incredible, and beautiful human being he was also the perpetrator of psychological abuse in my life.  The ongoing work of processing that hasn’t been easy.  He’s been dead more than five years.  That’s created some space for honesty.  My goal has been, for many years, to get to a place where I can forgive him.  It has been interesting.

If you were a fan of my father, Dan Harrison, this will be the most difficult for you.  Just as it was unimaginably hard for me to write.

Note:  I DO NOT SPEAK FOR OR REPRESENT ANYONE ELSE IN MY FAMILY.  THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING THAT each of OUR EXPERIENCES WITH MY FATHER WERE UNIQUE.   SOME WERE TREATED MUCH WORSE, SOME BETTER.

If I were To Forgive.

If I were to forgive you Daddy, does that mean I must forget the pulse pounding fear I felt when I was around you?  The acid stomachs you gave me.  The rage dreams I still sometimes have at night.  The shuttering tears that I couldn’t stop, even when you yelled at me to do so and now I can’t make tears come at all.  The stutter you hated, but couldn’t make me lose.

You made me something broken, something messed up.

Our family was Sadness.  Illness.  Meanness.  Pride.  Anger.  Fear.  Our family was Rigid. Perfectionist.  Isolated.  Secretive.   Constant striving.  Never measuring up.

I found some small strength and safety in sarcasm and attempted humor.  And when you made me stop, there was only safety in distance, in invisibility.  Like mine, your words punctured something deep inside.

Sometimes we laughed; it was a shrieking, jaw aching, gut busting laughter from the relief of it — it was almost a sob — until you pounded on the table.  Stop, you would roar!  You felt we came too close to meanness.  You’re damn right we did.  And then, we didn’t.

If I were to forgive you Daddy, does that mean I must forget the yelling?  Door slamming.  Your rage fits.  Should I forget the fearful anxious cleaning when you were coming home – after weeks and weeks of travel while Mother was always alone?  Why did we clean, to please you.  Why were we afraid, because you were never pleased.

Should I forget the religion you forced down our throats?  Say “I forgive you.” Say “I am sorry.”  Say “I believe.”    I couldn’t forgive.  I wasn’t sorry.  I didn’t believe. “You will sing this song and study the Bible, because I say so.  And never, ever argue with me for I am never wrong.”

Daddy, it takes my breath away to remember all the times you had one of us up against the wall, sobbing.  And you wouldn’t stop.  You kept on, and on until you broke us.

You made me something broken, something messed up.

Our family was Sadness.  Illness.  Meanness. Pride.  Anger.  Fear.  Our family was Rigid. Perfectionist.  Isolated.  Secretive.   Constant striving.  Never measuring up.

If I forgave you Daddy, would the bad memories stop?

… When I was about ten we spent Easter at a cabin.  You had certain ideas of what would happen.   But you can’t make me sing.  You couldn’t make me feel whatever you were feeling.

… Or Thanksgiving with the gorging on turkey almost worth being forced to be thankful.    There was no ‘pass’ when it came to gratitude.  Or whatever you expected.

There was no pass. You changed us.  You made us something broken, something messed up. Our family was Sadness.  Illness.  Meanness. Pride.  Anger.  Fear.  Our family was Rigid. Perfectionist.  Isolated.  Secretive.   Constant striving.  Never measuring up.

Were I to forgive you Daddy, I’d have to stop being invisible for within this “super power” I found a certain peace.  If you can’t hear me or see me, you will leave me alone.  I’d hide out in my room — reading.  Reading romantic novels where the hero was larger than life — loving and devoted, trying to be somewhere, anywhere other than home.

There was so much pain.  So much fear. You changed us.

Daddy, would you have me forgive your dying confession that you were addicted to your rage? It made you feel righteous.   At the end of your life, you felt regret but wanted me to know you still felt right all those years.

Well I’m addict.  I know the lies we tell ourselves that ”I can’t stop.” I know a little of what it takes to overcome an addiction.  It starts admitting you are powerless.  That is what you could never do.  Oh, you would return full of regret and self-pity you never changed.

I reject Your Jesus who never freed you from your pain. I reject your life and actions of hypocrisy, serving God and abusing at home.

And yet, I have forgiven you.  Why?  Because that is not the Jesus I have known. The God I have known has expected me to change.  Clearly spoken and told me to lie down, be humble, let go, cast off, and cut away the things that make me broken.  As I give them up, the addictions, the anger, the bitterness, the lack of forgiveness, the depression, the fear, the isolation, the invisibility …  He fills me.

I am filled up, and as I experience going back over two and a half decades sorting memories and returning — making furtive glances and long wretched journey’s back. –  There are things that I do remember and that I will never forget.

But I forgive

You. Because I must.  God said to me forgive as you were forgiven.

And though this brings no justice, I can live with it.  You may have changed me from whoever I was meant to be, and I will always remember that and wonder who I might have been.

ON THE OTHER HAND God made me, not you.  And I have begun to overcome all that pain, a broken spirit.  I have begun to paint a portrait of a life that is visible; a colorful life, with joy, generosity, gentleness and kindness.  I have become a woman with a heart once broken, but pieced back together and strong.  And my heart is bursting with the forgiveness that I have received. And I am laughing.  And some day I believe my tears will return.

You were the sort to put rubbing alcohol on my mosquito bites, because you couldn’t stand how I wouldn’t listen and stop scratching.  You were constantly picking at me, never satisfied.  But, as a child this was something I could control. You can’t make me stop, though I would bleed and it hurt.  It is cathartic to be in control.  But some day I hope I will let go completely and won’t need absolute control of myself.  Someday, God will open up my heart completely from the prison I put it for protection and long ago lost the key.  The day God unlocks it will be a day I can only imagine, but I believe it can happen.  Then I won’t be so afraid of people.  I will jump toward life not constantly be pulling away!

Yes, I forgive you Daddy.  For now I can laugh and love when I want to, I pray and study because my heart craves more from God and I believe I have begun to create the life I was meant to have lived.

Yes, I do forgive you Daddy because there is no justice in love.

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. (Psalm 32:8 NLT)

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I was in Love…with Vodka, Wine and Gin

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September 17, 2011
Alcoholism & Addiction, My Story
3 Comments
Wine

Image by isante_magazine via Flickr

On the eve of my birth week, I want to take a moment to remember where I have come from, now that I am three plus years sober.   

While purging and organizing books this week I came across a little orange index card that I wrote to myself while I was working hard at accepting my need for sobriety.  I thought I had lost the card and that would have been tragic because the thoughts written on it are very important to me.

About five years ago, I spent more than a year — at two different stages — seeing counselors specifically about my drinking.  At that time, I wrote what I thought of my life without alcohol so far.  I said:

I value my recovery because …..

  • I have an improved mood.
  • I feel strong.
  • I am more present and self-aware.
  • I am more willing to face my feelings.
  • I am more hopeful about the future.
  • I am more in control of my world, actions, responses to life.
  • My relationships are more honest.
  • I am a good role model for my kids.
  • I am a cultural enigma.
  • I am more relaxed socially (less No worry about embarrassing myself.)
  • I have a higher quality of mental engagement.

All this is true.  And more.  Today when I look back another thing I am so grateful for is that my life partner, family and close friends never judged me. At least I never felt judged. Especially Tom could have. Boy, oh boy, I made some bad choices.  Tom lived with my addiction for many, many years, continuing to love and support me.  At my worst, he wiped up my vomit and put me to bed.  He pulled me out of parties before I could do something stupid.  All those years he was simply loving.  I never felt that I was a bad person because of my dependency to alcohol.  Not from him, but I did judge myself!

In my head, I was constantly accusing myself.

I cannot count, because it happened so many times, the number of Sundays I spent sitting in church nursing the world’s worst hangover, full of shame and self-loathing.   I am not sure which felt worse, the physical symptoms of being hung over or the emotional beating I gave myself.  I just knew I was living the life of a hypocrite.  I didn’t have the courage to give up on churchgoing all together, but I was miserable being there.

For a long time my drinking made family life feel disjointed and a mess, because it was!

I started in on the wine too early in the evening, so I was too “tired” to do anything else in the evenings, except veg in front of the television.  When it was time to put the kids to bed, I was too tired to read to them, something I had always loved.  That memory makes me deeply sad still, but I will forgive myself some day.  Some things are harder to forgive yourself for like driving drunk with my children in the car, even if it was just a few neighborhood streets.  I did that.  I am utterly horrified to think of it now but it happened.  Why do I admit that today?  Why do I force myself to recall the shameful choices I made?

Because I do have fleeting thoughts that perhaps I could drink again.  And those are lies, but it is all too easy to forget.

Back to Tom, he was unhappy with our choices and (very) willingly quit drinking many times with me, for me.  He encouraged me to quit many times and we did quit a few times.  But it was such a part of our lifestyle that we soon were drinking again.

It grew more difficult as the years went by for me to even consider quitting, as I was afraid that I couldn’t live without it.  And, suffering as I was from major depression all those years, I was self-medicating with the very drug that furthered my depression.  (Alcohol is a depressant but I either didn’t know it or didn’t want to know.)

The first time I went to counselling for my alcohol addiction it was an intellectual exercise.

My mother was in a recovery program and addiction is all over my family tree.  I was drinking too much, but I was not yet the sloppy, falling down drunk that I became.  I was “abusing” alcohol.  I was addicted.  But I had convinced myself that I was managing.  I learned a lot from those counselling sessions, most important of which was that I should quit for lots of reasons.

In order to have that type of counselling you must agree to not be drinking as you go through it.  And I did that, but I was just a dry drunk.  All of my behaviors were still of an addict who wasn’t using.  I didn’t yet believe the things I wrote on that index card.  I had not lived long enough as a sober person.

I asked my counselor at my last session, after five months of sobriety,  “What if I just drink socially?  Don’t keep it in the house.  Don’t drink every day.  Just have a drink from time to time (like normal people)?  Maybe I won’t have to quit completely.”  I was desperate to not have to quit.

At that point I could not imagine being happy without alcohol in my life. 

“Then I’ll see you back here in about three years.”  And I literally thought “At least I’ll enjoy the next three years.”   That is how far I was into the lie.  Well, I’ve said it before, but it didn’t even take three years.

About a year and a half later I was back and that time I was serious about quitting.  I knew that alcohol had control of me and my life.  I had no power to fight it.  I thought about alcohol all the time.  I was so in love with wine — and vodka — and gin!  I had spent that summer drinking heavily every day and spent most evenings drunk.  I just did it in such a way that I thought I was hiding it from others.

But enough about that.  (Perhaps the rest will go in the memoir.)  Today, I am so grateful for my sobriety.   It isn’t that complicated to figure out if alcohol has power over you.  How much do you think about alcohol? How often do you choose not to drink, because you wonder if you have a problem?  Do you drink every day?  Do you squirm answering those questions honestly?   Although it is certainly not true that every person who drinks too much from time to time is an alcoholic, rather what I think about is, what is the main focus of your life?  Can you live without alcohol?  If you’re not sure , … I would seriously consider talking to someone.

Those are the questions that haunted me and it wasn’t until I quit that I realized without any doubt that I was out of control.

Melody

P.S. Other things I have written about my life  drunk and addicted.

You are Beloved

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July 27, 2011
Alcoholism & Addiction, Depression, Feminist, My Story
4 Comments

This post is about being loved and feeling loved.  And what can happen when you don’t believe you are dearly loved — to your relationships and to your hopes and dreams for your life.

GROWING UP, I was not told…

I never believed that I was “dearly loved.” This was partly because I grew up in a frightening and unpredictable home and because of my father’s angry raging behaviors.  I have always been profoundly unsure of myself.  I remember how important it became to simply grow invisible. 

Invisible was safe.  If you aren’t seen or heard, you cannot upset anyone.  No opinions.  Eventually no thoughts at all at home, where you might slip up and express them.  This was okay if he agreed with you.  But if not, there was no telling what might happen.  You might be lectured at for hours, or berated in front of a friend. Humiliation.  Threats.  Intimidation.  Blame.  It just wasn’t predictable.

When I look at my children I’m appalled by my upbringing.  I want nothing more than to see my kids discover and grow into unique people.  I see incredible things in them and I tell them often, out of love and a wish to affirm those truths.

 ”Those are beautiful words you have written.”

“God made you full of joy.”

“You memorize things so easily. That will make life so much easier for you.”

“You are careful and precise and that will serve you well in the future.”

“You make people laugh, what a gift!”

“You care about others.”

“You are gentle and kind and the world needs more men like that.”

“You will grow into someone who washes others’ feet.”

“Yes, that is sexist it pleases me that you saw it.”

  “You articulate yourself so well!”

I speak these truths and other, because I believe children need help to discover their talents and abilities and to experience the spirit of God.  I believe we don’t naturally know.  My place in God’s world, made in his image, is something that I never discovered in that shrouded, hidden place that I disappeared in to for so many years as a child and young adult.

THE CHURCH didn’t tell me …

Secondly the Church sent subliminal, and sometimes outright sexist messages to girls  where I was growing up in the south.  I “heard” that I am a second class person; less valued by God because I (somehow) need men to support me, protect me, and teach me, especially about the Bible.  I was to subordinate myself to men.

Though I heard those things, in my gut I knew it was wrong.  I have always believed that if you believe in the world of Gen 1 & 2, and in the hope of lasting and true restoration by Jesus on the Cross, then you cannot accept the cultural Church practices spoken of in the NT.

MARRIAGE

By the grace of God I married beautiful, ennobling, questioning complex thinking person of faith.  He lives with me in the land of questions and he does not attempt to tell me what the answers are.  Together we began the journey and partnership of marriage in June of 1993.  What he spoke into my life was hope, and goodness, and empowerment. He listened for my voice and I began to heal. 

I was a fanatically hard-working ministry leader when he met me.  I worked for my father (ironically) so at the end of the day, I finally had my father telling me what I was good at by giving me promotions.  The more I accomplished the more responsibility I was given.  I discovered I had many talents, I was a hell of a hard worker and I had a need to constantly be proving myself and my worth.  At the end of the day, week, month, there was always more to be done.  More to prove.  More to do to validate myself as a daughter, as a woman, as a leader, as a human being.

I still didn’t believe I was BELOVED.   Skip forward from my mid thirties to today.

TODAY I am …

44.  I have been out of the workplace for ten years.  I “used” my children as an excuse to leave an acrimonious place where (I felt) I had hit the glass ceiling. I was burned out trying to prove myself.  I didn’t know the grace of God in my life.  I didn’t really believe.

Over the last decade I have walked a painful path but I have discovered that I am beloved.  Oh yes, those difficult lessons (my experience with clinical depression, my alcoholism, losing my parents) were so vital to my becoming human again and the reason that I am alive today.  I got sober, which took courage in the Christian community.  Actually I didn’t get any help from Christians but by God’s grace, my life is living through and beyond being an alcoholic or being depressed.

Today my life is so incredibly rich and full.  And now as a woman, a burgeoning feminist, a feeble follower of Jesus, a sometimes photographer, a frequent writer, hungry student of the Bible, I am asking for others to speak truth into my life now about my unique contribution to be made.

If I let myself, I quickly become focused on what I am, who I am, why I am … and the fact that I am so afraid.  (I think) I want to study and learn and be able to articulate Truth by going back to school. When I look around my community there are needs everywhere.  I see them.  I feel them.  My heart breaks for it.  As a white person with affluence I believe I have a unique responsibility and a unique place of financial privilege.  As a woman, and a feminist and a follower of Jesus I believe my voice is unique.

The Jesus that washes our feet wasn’t a macho oriented, “women should be in the home cooking, cleaning, having babies and bringing me my dinner” kind of man who has been written and preached about in the Church.  He preached that we are to live in peace, he offers us a life full of victory (over our sin), and he makes us generous and loving. We are to speak against injustice. That’s the Jesus I know.   That’s my kind of faith.

But I am afraid and I can no longer blame my upbringing.  I can no longer blame the Church.  I can no longer blame my father.  With no one left to blame, I am here with my convictions and beliefs, greatly needing shape and formation.  It is time to act; to step out in faith that God is with me each step of the way and that there is a reason for each experience I have had.  In some ways I “woke up” just a few years ago.  A late bloomer doesn’t do it justice, but you are never too old to do something.

At fifty, my mother began a process of waking up.  She is now in her seventies and to her credit is a person continuously searching for truth.  I greatly admire that about her.

Andy Crouch, on his blog Culture Making, says disciplines are the key to excellence. Ten thousand hours is a good benchmark—that’s one hour a day, five days a week, for forty years (with two weeks of vacation each year!). If every Christian decided to spend 10,000 hours developing their capacity in a single cultural domain (painting, stress fracture analysis, genomic sequencing, you name it) and also 10,000 hours on the spiritual disciplines that embody dependence on God (solitude, silence, fasting, study, prayer), in forty years we’d have a completely different world. How are you spending your 10,000 hours?

I am a white woman of privilege, blessed by living a beautiful life, a feminist and Jesus follower, who finally knows she is BELOVED and is finding her voice and asking:  How should I spend my next 10,000 hours?

Being Broken by Addiction

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July 15, 2011
Alcoholism & Addiction, My Story
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My dog Comet is being groomed for the first time today and as I was dropping him off I glanced over at the magazines. I was drawn like a bee to pollen by the cover of  Brava Magazine.  It had an article about the secret addictions of women in Wisconsin, aptly titled The Silent Treatment.

While I am not quiet about my alcoholism here on my blog and person to person I will freely tell you my story, I have never talked about it publicly — as I think that I am ashamed. 

No-one talks about addiction in my circles. And here is what I imagine others are thinking.  Perhaps they perceive that addiction is simply a weakness or a character flaw.  And in some Christian circles a place where you haven’t allowed God victory or healing or aren’t trusting.   How in the world did she “allow herself” to get addicted?  What a mess she must be.  Addicts are just bad people trying to be good.

That’s all bullshit. (Forgive me, but it is.)

And in my clearer moments I remind myself that I am broken like every other person in the world.  We all have some “thing” or more than one, that we have trouble overcoming. Most people’s “thing” can be a secret–food addiction, money problems, compulsive shopping, secret cutting, or pornography.   I won’t pretend to know what your “thing” is.

This article talked about how so many women in Wisconsin have a problem with alcohol addiction.   More importantly, that addiction to alcohol is in some part NOT a “thing” to struggle with, but an illness to work against.  I can tell you gratefully that I am “in remission.”

“[There is a] stigma that surrounds substance abuse in a culture that loves the sound of clinking glasses.” (Brava)

One of my favorite people is Henri Nouwen. 

I would have loved to have known him and even been his friend, as we share a common lifelong struggle with melancholy and depression and need for affirmation and community.  He wrote this:

Jesus was broken on the cross.  He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace.   We too are broken.  We live with  broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits.  We suffer from broken relationships.  How can we live our brokenness?  Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission.  He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God’s blessing for our purification and sanctification.  Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.

Few understand that addiction is an illness like cancer.

There is a perception that somehow addicts cause their illness.  It is both an illness and an opportunity for self-control and inner strengthening.  As we grow in our understanding of our broken hearts and lives, we can become stronger.  How can we embrace our brokenness of addiction when the Church and (some) Christians make one feel as if you are cursed with a mental illness or lack self-control.

Yes, my alcoholism reminds me (almost daily) that I am a broken person.  The days and weeks when I try to avoid thinking about it, and (almost) pretend that I’ve got it all together, those are the times when I feel the farthest away from who I really am. I become lost in the idea of wellness that denies that I am and will be until the day I die an alcoholic in remission.

For whatever reason, I am an addict.

My deeply thoughtful thirteen year old daughter asked me recently why I can’t just drink socially?  We had been to party where there was a lot of drinking and I was having a hard time having fun.  I have been completely honest with her about my addiction and so I value her questions.  I believe she needs to understand my alcoholism, because it is a family illness and because one in four children of alcoholics become one themselves.

So why can’t I now drink socially?  “There is something in my brain that switches off after the first drink,” I told her.  “After that point, I have no ability to stop.”  I learned from my D&A counselor that every time I drank, my brain sends the signal to have more.  The well-worn pathway in my brain needed more, each time, to have the same impact as the last time I drank. I’m three years sober July 17th, 2011 and if I had a drink to celebrate I would need the same amount of alcohol as my last drink — about two bottles of wine, if I remember correctly — to feel any high.

As a Christ follower, it is even more complicated.

Or perhaps more simple depending on how you look at it. My addiction humbles me daily.  Drives me to my knees.  I go to church in a bar and I laugh, joyfully with the irony!  I don’t mind the reminders of my addiction because then I am drawn to the truth that my life is so improved — clearer, better, more meaningful sober. 

But three years of sobriety brings me to a place of acknowledging that I am still full of pride.  I have not been willing to help others who struggle with this addiction.  I have not been willing to speak out locally.  I have hidden my secrets and tried to live in a drinking world as a secret alcoholic.

The article in Brava was a challenge to me.

No, I am not at risk to drink, because I have created enough awareness of those around me of my illness, that the accountability keeps me sober.

But why am I so silent, so secretly ashamed? More importantly what can I do to give back?  I want others to know that this is not a shameful secret in my life, it is a disease of addiction that has harmful effects on people, families and communities and that recovery is possible with support.  It is not only possible but it is transformational!

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Sunday Morning [a poem]

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May 17, 2011
Alcoholism & Addiction, My Story, Poems
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Sunday morning was
the ticking of the clock, each second in my head.
Time stretched beyond eternity, hung over.
Awash with a thousand regrets swallowed the night before.
I thought I knew in my anxious thoughts
what I needed. My thirst was constant.

Fully knowing, the need for living water was
stronger than the thirst that sits
on me,

in me,

around me

smothering hope all morning long.

Sunday morning is
time stretched out, relishing the moments.
Slow and graceful, time is on my side.
Grace is found in Sunday mornings where not only do I wake to the sunshine, but
hope and glory meet me as I slowly come awake to realize the gift
of lingering with my creator.
Sunday morning is undeserved for surely I have toiled at foolish things.
I have wondered what you have already answered, what your word proclaims.
If only I would stop and be here more often, I would find the answers.
I would see that I get to start again when I wake up Sunday mornings.

You Are Not Alone – Thoughts on Sobriety.

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Alcoholism & Addiction, My Story
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A glass of red wine. Photo taken in Montreal C...

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At times I detest that I am an alcoholic. It’s damn inconvenient.  Those are the days that it seems the whole world drinks – except me and perhaps James Frey.

I dreamt of drinking last night. That scares me a little, because in my dreams I seem to “forget” that I can’t drink.  Now that’s a nightmare – an alcoholic that draws a blank on their past.  Even if it is only in their dreams.  I recall now that I just wanted a small glass of red wine. No we don’t need to order the bottle. A red, to accompany whatever I was eating.  Harmless.

I have never actually taken a sip in my dreams, thus far.  The dreams come unbidden, which may make you think that drinking is on my mind a lot.  Most of the time, these days, I never think about being an alcoholic. But when I do, sometimes I resent that I cannot drink.

Lest you begin to feel sorry for me and think that I am an innocent former drinker, I must set you straight. In the end I was a falling-down drunk. I had to quit. I would have lost my life eventually. I never hit “the bottom” which some say you need to do to recover. But I got close enough that my conscience, and my husband, and God finally said enough is enough. Some people will need to hit the bottom to change. But most of us feel it building in our lives for a long time and finally one day we know.  We are ready.

For more than five years I had wrestled with the knowledge that I might be addicted. I didn’t know enough about the disease to make a good call on it.  But in my experience your gut is usually right. If you are wondering whether you just might be addicted to alcohol, listen to your soul. Hear the voices that talk to you late at night after drinking too much. Or the ones that pop up with the morning hangover.

Recognizing that we have a problem is a drawn-out and bit-by-bit process, at least it was for me. No one wants to think of themselves as an addict or alcoholic. Unfortunately our culture says getting addicted to it makes you weak. It is shameful and definitely not for Christ-followers! Christians do not become alcoholics, because they “trust in God.” Ironically, addiction is no respecter of race or religion or status. And all that stuff about just trust in God is bullshit.

Once I finally quit, July 17th, 2008, I have never relapsed.  I’m fairly certain that is because I have a family. They are my accountability. My kids are my Program. I am intentional about talking to them about my addiction to drinking and I think it is important that they know and understand the nature of the illness is hereditary.  And I am not shy about reminding them of the ugly side of drinking.  When I passed out in front of them. Or threw up all over myself in the car. Those memories return for a reason and that is to help them see the unglamorous side of addiction. And remembering keeps me sober.

Seeing others who clearly struggle with drinking is a good reminder for me, but it is not a reason to stay sober. I feel pity and empathy and hope they’ll figure it out soon. Because life is beautiful sober – in full color in a way that being a drunk is living in sepia tones compared to full color, 3D. It is loneliness vs. living in community. It’s living in starvation when you can live with a full stomach. You get the idea. Living in your addiction is like living in an ugly broken-down smog filled factory.   Sobriety is living in the glorious Grand Canyon!

But people do relapse and I hope you know this too is a part of the journey. A few years before I quit for good, I decided to go to counseling to “learn about addiction.” (That’s what I told myself.) I settled into about seven or eight months of not drinking, because that is what they require of you to receive alcohol counseling.  I learned all I could about the issue.

Near the end of my time I asked my counselor if she thought I could be a social drinker.  You know, if I wasn’t “up for” quitting.  I could still not imagine my life without alcohol.  I loved alcohol.  I didn’t go through a day without thinking about it or craving it. I wasn’t giving in to it right then, but after seven months of sobriety I thought I was “strong” and got the notion in my head that I would simply be “a social drinker.” I would just stick with one or two drinks in any given setting and definitely not drink at home.  I would be okay.  My counselor answered the question like this: “If you continue to drink socially, I predict I’ll see you back here in three or four years.” Yeah right, I was thinking, not me.  She does not know me.

She may not have known me, but she knew an addict when she saw one.  It took about one year – Yes, that was all it took for me to fall on my face literally and figuratively. I remember walking out of there, thinking “At least I’ll enjoy the next three years.”  That was how seductive alcohol was for me at the time. I did not believe AT ALL that I could be happy or have joy without alcohol in my life.

I walked out of that building full of the idea that I hadn’t been drunk for a good long time, so it would be easy to limit. Or at least it would take a while for the problem to present itself.  Honestly, I didn’t really care either way.  I was just glad that I could still drink.

Oh, it presented itself alright! More strongly than ever. With a vengeance.

I do wish that I could drink.  It still lures me. It teases and ultimately lies to me that it is a simple thing to drink. But those lies I can overcome and made my peace with in time. I stop them as soon as they pop in my head.  And remind myself that I and my life are worthy of my sobriety.

Sober people are some of the most brave people I know.  And that includes me.

If you or someone you love ever wants to talk confidentially with me about this, I am glad to do it.  I can only share my experience.  The answer is different for each person.  But knowing that you are not alone is important.

MHH

Here’s something I wrote two years ago about being an addict.

Miscellany that Bewilder Me

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March 31, 2011
Alcoholism & Addiction, Faith & (Dis)Belief, My Story, Poems
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Midnight.

Last night, my ten year old son said he wanted to stay up until midnight — insisting that he had to do it. — But why? I asked slightly bewildered.

“If I do, I will have not cracked my knuckles for a whole day!” he told me in all seriousness.  He has a nervous habit.  It makes him self-conscious but I had no idea how much.  He came up with this promise to himself.  I reassured him that he could “not crack his knuckles in his sleep and that would still count.”

But it strikes me and stays with me today.  That little self-improvement goal seemed so simple to me and yet it was such a challenge for him as he made a promise to himself and kept it.  It made me wonder how many times I promise God something and don’t do it.  Does he, like a mother feel admiration for me that I even try?  Or is he disappointed when I fail?

Blessings & Curses.

I wonder.  Does God withhold blessings from us if there was something that God has wanted us to learn and we knew it full well but resisted.  Or ignored God?  Pretend we don’t hear, like child who acts like they can’t hear their mother calling from the next room.

Sermons are like that sometimes.  Most of the time not offending seems to be the order of the day and sermons become nothing more than a gentle reminder.  Not exactly optional, but full of choices and options … How many of those softball sermons have I ignored or just not allowed them to change me?  Or when they challenge do I consider it “optional?”

Yes I do that.  I ignore God regularly.  Stubbornly.  Foolishly, knowing fully that God has my best interest in mind and yet I can’t gather up the willpower to obey.  To stop cracking my (spiritual) knuckles.

What?  You don’t?  I don’t believe you.

And do we miss out on blessings, on a level of happiness or contentment because certain challenges from God seem too hard? Not that serious.  Life goes on.

Of that we can be sure.

Floodgate of Social Media.

I cannot seem to deal lately with the torrent of information coming into my life through the media.  A friend, who is a Scientist at the university, said he thought perhaps evolutionarily (is that the right way to say that? what is the word I’m searching for?) we are not capable of taking it all in.  Our minds and hearts just can’t absorb it.

Some days I feel my heart cracking open reading about suffering in Japan and Christ Church,NZ, ongoing efforts in Haiti and areas of Africa, our nearly decade long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cholera outbreak in Ghana, ethnic minority Christians facing religious persecution in Vietnam, unrest in Yemen promoting Somali refugees to flee there, political unrest in Nigeria, drought in Niger, measles epidemic in Kenya, even AIDS being still the number one killer was brought up on the Colbert Report last night.  Can’t even escape the pain in humor.

We cannot get away from it.  How would God have us respond?  It’s too much.  I cannot bear it.  I need to know what God would have us do to respond.

Justice.

My understanding of the gospel is becoming enriched by the truth of a recent sermon series at Blackhawk on Justice.  And reading Timothy Keller’s book, Generous Justice.  God’s justice is not a distraction from the gospel but a centering on its fullness.  Whenever anyone argued with Amy Carmichael that the gospel was only a proclamation and didn’t include acts of mercy and social justice, she emphatically said to her critics:  “God didn’t make you all mouth.”   Ha.  I love that.

And Bishop J.C. Boyle, a nineteenth-century British evangelical, said:  “Let the diligence of Christ be an example to all Christians… Like Him, let us labor to do good in our day and generation, and to leave the world a better world than we found it….Let us awake to a sense of our individual responsibility.”

My Church & Women: The ongoing Crusade.

I’ve decided to acknowledge to myself that I am on a crusade.  It may be small.  It may be ineffective.  But I am.  In my reading this week I read that if you truly disagree with the premises of your church on women in ministry or ordination of women you will eventually leave that church.  People just do.  For the most part churches don’t change — especially those connected to a denomination.   People give up.  Lose hope.  And leave.

While that was devastating on one level, because I love my church dearly.  It also made me accept the truth that I am on a crusade to change it.

One can’t simply learn the truth and sit on it.

Truth not only changes how we see ourselves, it changes what we do and how we live.

– Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church.

What I know.  Jesus loved women.  He consistently reinforced human equity.  He mobilized and recruited and listened to and even hang out with those who were on the margins.  He valued women and they served with him and spoke for him, gave witness faithfully in the Bible, which seems to me to be a story of redemption for marginal people.   And there are leaders in my church who do too.  They believe, they agree, they are willing to concede.  But moving a church is as I’ve said like moving the Titanic.  It won’t happen any time soon.   I will be the quiet, prayerful voice of change.

More on this in the future, but for now…

Authorities at my church have decided to phase out the Bibles that are on hand every week, calling it a Bible Revolution. They want people to use their own personal Bible.  Yay.  The best thing that will come of this, besides the obvious, is that they won’t be tied to the New International Version any longer and can perhaps use an inclusive translation like the New Revised Standard Version that speaks to women as well as men.  That one uses language that is more welcoming to women.

Halle — fricken — lujah!

“Is the gospel truly good news for women who live in entrenched patriarchal cultures?” — Carolyn Custis James

The Titanic didn’t move this week, but the iceberg it is stuck in melted a little.  Viva La Revolution!

Winter seems to be lingering here in the Midwest.  I dug out an old poem from October, 2009.

WINTER COMES

Winter is uninvited, yet it always comes.

No matter how long  I postpone trying on last year’s coats, hats and gloves,

even still winter comes.  If I leave the hose out until it’s frozen stiff, snaking through the yard,

still winter comes.  The pots and the plants they crack and curl from the cold.  Winter, comes.

Winter comes in the cold,

dark mornings heralding sad thoughts and memories.

I lost my father to the winter.  I discovered, accepted and revealed a family’s ancient addiction.

I miscarried.  I fell down.  I fell apart.  Always winter comes.

Winter means waking early with darkness bringing in the day.

Though I try to overcome, the anxious thoughts settle in.

Remember the cold. Remember, remember.  I am always falling, in winter.

Good things are lost, so do not hold too tight

to what you desire most.  You will lose them to winter.

Love hurts more in winter, dries up and becomes need.

Love becomes memory. I am falling.  In winter.

And at the moment when the winter once again threatens to overcome, I end my slumber.

On that icy morning I wake early. Snuggle in.

Sipping coffee, by the fire.   And I think of Spring.

As you, I am thinking of spring!

Feeling grateful during the season of Lent, as I process how much God has done to redeem me from the pit where my life was.  I must never forget.  Ever.  I cannot.  Reading Henri Nouwen and he speaks to this:

“In our lives there are moments when we realize that, even if we may have done everything to destroy ourselves, we have never lost our true identity as beloved daughters or sons. That identity is never taken away. And that moment of realization is a very, very important moment.

“But take care what you do and be on your guard. Do not forget the things your eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your heart all the days of your life…” (Deut. 4)

MH

————————————————————–

Comments on Luke 8:1-3, from J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. Luke (1860)

From Wikipedia:

Amy Wilson Carmichael was a Protestant Christian missionary in India, who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur. She served in India for 55 years without furlough and wrote many books about the missionary work there.  While serving in India, Amy received a letter from a young lady who was considering life as a missionary. She asked Amy, “What is missionary life like?” Amy wrote back saying simply, “Missionary life is simply a chance to die.”
Carmichael’s work also extended to the printed page. She was a prolific writer, producing thirty-five published books including Things as They Are: Mission Work in Southern India (1903), His Thoughts Said . . . His Father Said (1951), If (1953), Edges of His Ways (1955) and God’s Missionary (1957).  In 1931, Carmichael was badly injured in a fall, which left her bedridden much of the time until her death. She died in India in 1951 at the age of 83. She asked that no stone be put over her grave; instead, the children she had cared for put a bird bath over it with the single inscription “Amma”, which means mother in the Tamil.  Her biography quotes her as saying: “One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving.”

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