Category: Faith
{a house comes tumbling down}
Strange how life works, I didn’t sleep – and because of it I am in a bleak, dark place. I’ve had two nights in the last few weeks where I quite literally lay awake all night long – not awake enough to do anything productive, but not resting deeply either. The result is I’m sick at heart and physically shaky; short-tempered, and irritated by everyone.
Old and ugly insecurities are having their way, messing with me. This makes me sad, so very sad.
I ran this morning out of pure conviction, blaming and shaming myself the entire way. You should be running longer, you should be faster by now, how silly to be your little 2.5 miles, why do you bother? What’s 27 pounds, when people will always be younger and fitter than you!? To them, you are fat.
I can tally my mistakes so quickly when I am tired. I am full of self-doubt, as a writer certainly and especially. I wish for a career again. Or even simply an office to go to or perhaps a paycheck to make me feel I’m making a contribution to something tangible on the planet earth I wonder why I cannot ever feel resolute and worthwhile in my role as a mother, caretaker, home maker?
My chest is heavy with fear and doubt about my path.
My chest is also heavy too for my children. I want so much for them, but I am learning that they must be “allowed” to question, make their choices, voice their doubts, express their ideas, have problems that I do not solve for them. I cannot always defend them to other or be defensive about their choices. I have to let my children become. I have to let them fail, perhaps. Bailing children out isn’t the answer. Pushing is okay, at times. Encourage and buoy up, even reward and bribe, a carrot, for a future which is full of possibilities they cannot yet imagine.
I am learning about boundaries, mostly that I am terrible with them. I do for others until I resent the doing ending up with no time to write or think or pray or sit with the Holy One.
I resent those that have been to seminary and are clear in their understanding of theology and can write out of those assurances. I resent those who knew early on who and what they were. I resent that I lived in a gray, lost fog for much of my life, and then that I became a drunk, and then … just managed to survive. Yes, I am a survivor but what else am I good for?
Yes, most days I just persist on, hoping that the future is better than the past. Today I’m having a hard time believing in anything.
I feel empty and invisible in a world where stature, and statuses, and lists and mentions matter. And then I feel utterly ridiculous for looking, for caring about those things at all, for being the sort of person that needs assurance of others, the esteem of men in authority, the likes and tweets of writers whom I admire. Perhaps if I get another degree I will finally feel okay.
I sit in church and I am filled with doubt; traversing into the land of agnosticism, as my husband likes to say – he takes day trips, I am living there today. I feel angry, skeptical, pessimistic, fearful and tired.
No, I cannot prove there is a God to satisfy my children.
No, I do not know why some people are so happy, successful and life seems to be so easy, for some.
No, we do not live in the perfect house like so and so, nor am I the perfect homemaker, like so and so’s mom. Nor am I handy, to create the perfect anything.
I need sleep and some days that’s all that it takes to push me over the edge into an ugly place of fear and skepticism.
I read this morning in the book of Psalms, David asked for a sign of God’s favor to help against his enemies.
Who are my enemies? Today they are self-doubt and lack of surety about the purpose of my life. My faith is weak but does this mean God has failed me? My children doubt, push on my beliefs, even fail to thrive, does this mean we are failing them? I look at newborn babies and I am filled with dread. For we all grow up and live lives full of disappointment.
It is amazing how sleep holds one together or lack of it brings a house tumbling down.
{on feeling the crazies and hoping, still}
some days just are.
crazy that is,
when you wonder how to catch your breath. and realize
in a shocking moment that you may not be taking in h20. and yet miraculously you’re still
alive.
panic, dread and fear threaten to consume. some internal, perfectionist voice screaming: this can’t be right?
how can parenting
be so hard?
early, before the dawn you rose up out of bed. in the dark, sipping
hot coffee, you read about being called. and you prayed to be wise. knowing.
a steward of the precious lives, entrusted.
my head says, poor me. life is so difficult. wisdom scarce. challenges too many,
i want to flee.
bail. feeling hopeless, helpless but God promises
to be a SHIELD.
you read: “He lifts my head.”
i am shocked, perplexed by these words, from Henri JM Nouwen who said he was “impressed by the enormous abyss between my insights and my life.”
some days
are about longing for wisdom, dreaming and hopeful, still
in the midst of the crazy years.
{reflecting on the past year and turning 46}
I have come far. I have run hard. I feel strong.
I am proud of my learning to harness perseverance and need. Twenty seven pounds ago, I hated myself and today I feel lithe and strong. All this, accomplished with an iron will, though a little obsessively neurotic at times. I know, I am strong. And this is good, this self-love, for one who loathed herself for most of her life.
But I know there is more — to know, to learn, more to my life. I am always pressing life for more and this dissatisfaction, while frustrating at times, is also who I am. I accept it.
I have been running, strong. But perhaps away from or around, not through Jesus and the community of believers I am a part of these days. Even as I join — leaning into community, giving myself away, so that I see pieces and part of me all over the place. In words and images, in relationships — all good things, still I have held something important back.
“I am not in love with the church” she said. And as I read this offering, words from a deeply thoughtful writer whom I read trembling with her conviction, every time. Her words, like good writers do, carve into my heart. I was undone by them, slayed. Broken by her words, I had to acknowledge its truth.
In me.
For I have tried so hard to love, prayed for it even. Known how right it is to love the bride of Christ, the church.
But I avoid her, even as I am the butt of pastors jokes about introverts on a Sunday morning. Oh how I hate the “greet perfect strangers” time of the church week. Yes, I resent it, but really deep down this isn’t about being shy. I don’t love the Bride of Christ.
I look down, avoid eye contact, trying not to see her.
I am shaken by my stone cold heart.
He said, love others as you love yourself. And these words fell on a heart that was running, afraid to love.
I’ve come far, run hard and strong toward God– I love Him and He fills me. He gathers up all my fear, the anxious heart that grips me strong, that is not allowing change to come into me.
I am strong but I am weak. He longs for me to step closer, sit longer, open up, be. Allow the eucharist to transform me in the quiet of space that I
don’t fill, don’t control, where I don’t speak.
Let God transform.
“You’re running on your own strength,” the Holy One whispered to me, over and over this week. And I know that I am. Admitting it is a small, sweet release of pressure that has built up as I got strong. I was even frightened by my strength.
“Lay down ego and pride and the feelings of being not good enough.
Lay down your mind that swirls, a windstorm of thoughts that never stop, making you feel slightly crazy all the time.
Lay down the hopes, the dreams, the plans.
Lay down control, learn from me.
Lay down desire for powerful influence.
Lay down comparison that kills joy and everything good, that makes your mouth taste bitter.
Lay down fear that frequently cripples.
Lay down the need to be seen as smart.
Lay down,
kneel
acknowledge the ugliness inside you.”
Hear me: YOU ARE PERFECT.
Stop
running on your own strength.
Let me be your refuge and strength.
Surrender to the Cross
ever and always being in a state of
becoming.”
And so, I am learning this. I’ll admit the thought of letting go frightens me but I long to truly love God, myself and my neighbor, as we’re commanded, so much so that this becomes a sweet surrender.
And it is to be daily.
{I Believe}
I believe in God.
I believe in God, and what Jesus did, being human.
Living fully, dying to atone for my messes,
of which there are many. That Jesus
lives and now is with God the Father. It is at times confusing and
other days
simple. Just believe.
Or choose not to, that is your right.
I believe God speaks — within time, even to me
as God has spoke to many throughout the ages.
I want my life, the writings and images that I capture in time
to be
worship.
Revealing both the goodness and the devastation of this one life I have. Because
that–is–real.
I hope in God. I hope in God to reveal
him or herself to me. And then
what I share might help others as much as it has
utterly transformed me.
{faith is waiting, leaning in. a lump in the throat}
It is the prolific writer and theologian, Frederick Buechner, who said:
“Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises…. Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting.”
A poem that came to me this morning.
MORNING FAITH
a mother wakes in the darkness.
shivers, the room is cold. there is a sacrifice, rising
before them all. it is also her survival.
the sky inky blue black, she stumbles down the stairs.
these moment, early
are thick
with her worries, cloying. she sits
physically surrendering to the Holy One’s presence.
Let me be your life.
Let me fill the crevices of your heart where you still fret and worry. Trust in me and surrender your doubts about ephemeral things like destiny, talents and purpose.
Your fears about the children, and their walk in faith.
Your anxious heart can be full today if you open your sweaty grasping hands.
Surrender Child. Trust me.
Why is it so daily, this laying down of self? Letting go of control? This giving in, this
believing
again, today.
MELODY
“That we may come to be one spirit with God and be found under grace, may God help us all! Amen.” — Meister Eckhart, a modern translation.
{Fly Away From Me: On Children}
I woke up this morning, the sun creeping in earlier than I wanted. Coming out of my dreams, I felt grief wash over my body, sore from running daily; I felt the years wash over me physically. And fear.
I am afraid for all the time—lost. Gone.
My children are almost grownup into people, yet not ready to face the challenges of being adult. But more and more they are absent from me and I feel their absence, the loss, physically — These babies I fed from my breast, nurtured if feebly the best I knew how. Babies I brought in to the world through the tearing of my flesh and blood. They are young adults and the time is gone.
I’m running out of time and as I woke I felt the years,
Weighty, heavy, lost.
Lost to the days of over working; long workaholic driven years of loving work more than I loved being at home. I have forgotten those toddler years, unable to recall the first word, first steps, first book, I simply cannot remember. Write everything down they said, but I thought I’d remember.
I was wrong.
Lost, because of so many days of a drunken cloud, a constant buzz from self-medicating.
I was trying to forget the sadness, the feelings of inadequacy. Feeling doubt in a world of devoted, sure people. Feeling the loss of losing the faith of my parents and not being courageous enough (yet) to find my own.
I lost many years of my children’s lives to being a drunk.
I woke this morning feeling the weight of it, a grief that is carved deeply within. It is a heart ache, and with a cry I wanted to start fresh. A second chance; to rewind back fifteen years to hearing that I was pregnant for the first time. I was surprised that my body, which I had loathed all my life, was capable of giving life. And then I felt annoyed at the interruption to my career. And then it came eventually; the felt joy and disbelief.
Now that baby girl, my little bird, is a young woman. She is gone more than she is here and each interaction feels like our last. I know we have just a few more years. I think: hang on to love and do what you can to keep things open and safe. I want to have a home, a heart that welcomes; A home of second chances, and third and fourth. Arms open wide.
The days are slipping away, the chances are running out.
Even as I know this I know that I cannot clutch at her. I must open my hands, joyfully and watch her fly. I will pray that she will want to return.
As I get up and face another day, it is to keep the nest warm and welcoming. Yes, I woke up this morning already grieving. I knew.
My little bird is practicing her flight away from me.
Longing for Miracles
I had a moment today.
I whispered it out loud.
“I wish I could turn off my brain.”
It races you see. It pushes and collides, a pinball machine. It drives me. It’s in frequent turmoil, or is that my heart vibrating? I think so much, I think so hard
about things that my head hurts, building into aggravation and strain.
Becoming anxiety
inside me. And I hate anxiety! Trapped inside a sticky web of lies, that swirl all around.
To me it means I’m not trusting. That this faith thing that I purport to live by, just maybe it isn’t real.
I had a moment today,
when I longed for a miracle—A book of
Acts, Upper Room, Pentecostal filled with the spirit, holy ghost kind of Miracle.
Yes please, just one.
Then I got to thinking.
Faith is
believing without seeing.
I had a moment today.
{How I Wish I Were Different: After Four Years of Sobriety}
I go to the garden. My reasons are messy and fluid, resembling the task.
The 95 degree temperature hits me in the face as I sluggishly climb out of my car. Searching the field, I identify three backs bent. I see them from afar. Why am I here? There is no turning back as the heat punches then catches in my throat.
There are things growing. I am amazed my first night by the thought of food coming from somewhere. I pull up dirt covered onions, cutting of roots and tops. I learn quickly and try to be efficient. Drop them in the bin, but not too rough. Not enough to bruise. My hands reek of onion and I wipe the moist liquid from the onions on my perspiring arms. I’m hoping this keeps the mosquitoes at bay as twilight approaches. I did not spray myself before coming, though in a type A moment I had come prepared. I didn’t want to come off as a novice stinking of bug spray. That night was my first in the garden.
I am nervous, as I am doing anything new. Intensely shy, I do not like meeting people. I can carry a conversation fine but more often than I like to admit, I’m just too lazy. Self-centered even, I suppose. Showing an interest in someone, even when I care about them, even when they interest me, even when I know someone already takes so much out of me. There is a price.
This is a quality I hate about myself. How I wish I were different.
I wonder, after getting gussied up for a wedding yesterday, why being with people so hard for me? I was drained and tired afterward. Some people relish parties! Though happy for the bride and groom, all I could think about was being exhausted.
Partly this was for the fact that there was an open bar. That brought up all sorts of unexpected feelings. Damn it, I think to myself, I still resent that I cannot drink. Being a drunk (former drunk, of course) this is more than a little ironic to me.
It’s just not fair kept echoing through me, whiny and complaining. Deep and pulsing, a humming in my soul. Not fair, not fair, not fair!!! I was feeling deeply sorry for myself. And this is how I know, how I knew, even then that I cannot drink ever again. I know even now that I am a drunk that doesn’t drink.
I wish I were different.
Four years ago this week I quit drinking – it was for good this time.
I should go to an AA meeting and get a four year chip. But I don’t do AA. Not absolutely sure why.
I guess, I like to act like I’m not really an alcoholic. I just “don’t drink” and when I’m not around it I’m “fine.” But I don’t think I’m happy not drinking and this scares me more than you could know.
I am finding joy and peace, learning to feel the abundance of my life. But I need to find out why other sober people are happy even at an open bar. But not me.
I realized last night, sitting across from a young gal from my church who was kind of sloppy from drinking three giant glasses of wine, that I am not a happy sober person. I watched her enviously as she made at least three trips to the bar and brought each one back to our table. And I knew. There are some things that I need to sort out.
I wish I were different but maybe that’s the thing. I am me. I was a crazy falling down drunk, once upon a time. It was no fairy tale. And I am no princess. I am a drunk, I may be sober, straight and clean, but I couldn’t have a good time last night mostly because I forgot who I was. And I felt deprived.
I wish I were different. But I am me.
Trudging through the cauliflower and tomatoes and watermelon plants today, lugging loads of weeds, carrying hefty loads of hay I worked hard. I worked to help. I worked for penance. I worked to forget. Who knows? Perhaps all that and more.
I know this – I am grateful to sweat, for my health, to be here, to be alive. Yes, even to be sober.
I may wish I were different but I can only be me.
I can only live this one life. Oh I have regrets. Watching others last night brought up plenty of regrets, touched a well of sorrow, a deep recess carved in my soul, but in the end as I embraced the truth of Christ’s grace this morning at church, singing gratefully, I was more thirsty for more of Jesus,
You see, I know I’m a sinner.
I know I’m forgiven.
I need to forgive myself. And perhaps, even give something back. Four years sober I don’t know much. I have no great wisdom about how and why. There is more I don’t know than what I do. But this is me. This is who I am.
I have to stop wishing otherwise.
{Enough, Continued …}
Part One of processing the book Enough is here.
I read the book “Enough” by Will Davis Jr and wrote my review. I kinda thought that would be the end of it. Lesson learned – my More Than Enough, my Plenty, my Abundance can be or IS someone else’s Enough. Such a neat idea in theory, but what that means in a daily way didn’t fully sink in – not at all.
That book is messing with me!
I read in “Enough” that we are to be giving our ten percent to the church, but in reality for us we’re giving about five percent to our church and about one percent to other organizations.
I cannot stop thinking about that principle that is all over scripture. What will it mean this month to give ten percent off the top, at the beginning before we pay our bills, and sort out how to live afterwards? These are things that we don’t really want to think about or do.
I woke up this morning thinking about this again, that we’re instructed in scripture to give ten percent and we’re to trust God to provide for our daily manna.
That means honestly taking a look at how we spend our money, where does it all go in a month? Many times for us it is frittered away on more video games, and frozen yoghurt, and iced coffees for the kids; on the conveniences of modern life, like dry cleaning and lawn care and mobile phones and eating out a few times. For me, on buying books and not requesting them from the library.
What does it mean to take a cold hard look at our monthly spending and at the beginning give to God off of the top and then sort out the rest?
The first thing I remember from the book is that Davis suggested we look about our home for all the things we haven’t used or worn in the last year. That job, to clear our home of these things so that they might possible become someone else’s Enough, is the task for this week. (Even though, I REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO IT! I’m so lazy.) We’re going to photograph all the things we don’t need and use, things that are just taking up space in our basement and garage, and give them away. The task just as it stands is a daunting one and today with the sun shining and a long empty day looming ahead, what I really want to do is hang out by the lake or something, anything but go through our stuff. But I think this act of obedience is the thing that needs to be accomplished, today.
Davis spoke of slowing down, listening and being open to God speaking.
Yesterday, I found out someone I know is sending their kid to a Shakespeare away camp. (It feels like everyone sends their kids to summer camp away, except us.) And another person is sending their kids to Grandma and Grandpa for the duration of the summer. When I heard that I felt envy and anger that we haven’t take our kids on a vacation in several years; although it is out of an act of obedience, where we decided we would never again live on credit. That was a baby step of financially growing up, that we took a few years ago. This means we don’t travel if we don’t have the cash the bank. Yes, I wish to be able to take the kids to visit Grandma and Grandpa, that but for now this is not possible. We have a child in college and we have many other obligations.
As I woke this morning I was angry and to be honest kind of thought I was mad at God. Then I realized that we’re just being smart. We save for retirement, we live within our means, we give (like I said not ten percent yet) and we try to respond to needs as they come before us. Right now there is no margin for vacations.
It’s not God that is to blame for an unsustainable American Dream.
And if I feel angry that we don’t have Enough to go on a vacation with our kids this summer, I should focus that emotion toward clearing out of the house our More Than Enough so that others can be blessed.
MELODY
A part of the Patheos Book Club on the book “ENOUGH: Finding More By Living with Less” by Will Davis Jr.
{I am a Hoarder: A Confession}
I clutch at my stuff, even my money, as if it were mine. I live as if I cannot imagine losing it and yet fearful that I will.
For many years I have wrestled with God’s promises about money, wishing to be more faithful but living as if I must take care of myself. I realized these things reading the book “Enough” by Will Davis Jr. over the fourth of July week. And that I have an easy life, even what some would call a life of abundance not because I am overly spiritual, devoted or even worthy of this wealth, rather that I was born into a white, middle class family, in the United States of America. (I wrote about that in A 4th of July Ode to Power & Privilege.)
This begs the question of what I do with all that I have? And pushing that self-knowledge further, how do I trust God to provide if I think that all that I have has been acquired by my privilege and is preserved by my hoarding? And most importantly, can I continue to live in this way?
I suppose a part of accepting the idea of ENOUGH is acknowledging that I am a spiritual hoarder. It’s an attitude, a heart issue, and a matter of trusting God (or not.)
The American Dream is the antitheses of ENOUGH.
The idea of having enough is unsatisfactory, perceived as weak and yet that is the challenge of this simple little book. It asks, as followers of Christ how do we live counter to the American dream of providing “the very best of everything” for our children — home, education, trips, clothes, electronics, all this is striving after something empty. And if we do continue to live in this way aren’t we living just like everyone else? What is distinctive about being a follower of Christ, what should be, when it comes to our possessions and money?
Jesus promises that if we live to bless others we will find joy and hope. Davis suggests that our money isn’t ours, we’re entrusted to manage it, and if we look at our abundance as enough then we can be generous with our excess. Jesus taught, as does all of scripture, that we are to help the poor, widows and orphans. Why do my eyes glaze over when I read these words found hundreds of times in scripture? I live like I believe that I don’t have enough to be more generous than I already am.
Reality check.
It seems to me, no matter how much money we make, we never have enough by the end of the month. The more we make the more we spend. The more we spend the less we have. We’re caught in this trap of the deceitfulness of wealth, the idea that we always need more and the lie that we’d give more away if we only made more! Although we pay our debts and other obligations, we save for retirement, we provide for our children, we give to the church and to missions, at the end of the month I am always left worrying about the next month’s debts, obligations, and needs, … it is an endless cycle of stress and lack of trusting God.
I wonder why Jesus prayed “give us this day our daily bread?” And why the Israelites only received Manna for the day with no left overs, no saving, no hoarding, why? And John said in 1 John 2:15-17 that “you cannot love the world and God at the same time.”
This book, Enough, poked holes in any fragile peace I have made with our money. It shone the light of Jesus’ words through all my fragile lies, saying what you have is actually enough. And if you trust God for today, you will find you have excess.
Your excess is a possible solution to someone else problem.
My more than enough just might be someone else’s enough?!
And living with more than enough, makes me believe that somehow that I acquired it, that I’m entitled to it, gives me a false sense of security in it, it distracts me, makes me hungry for more (Ecclesiastes 5:10), and makes me unappreciative of what I already have. Somehow I did something to get all this.
Davis challenges us to see that if we see that we have enough, even more than enough, then we can ask how we can bless others. This requires acknowledgment first, then slowing down, listening to God, asking what to do with all this abundance, praying for courage and wisdom and trusting that God is good. God will always give us enough.
Jesus talked about the perils of wealth, not that it is wicked to be wealthy but that it is dangerous and difficult to sustain our faith and devotion. Davis argues that we develop a false sense of security and entitlement, a stinginess, even a busyness with maintaining our stuff, which is alluring but dangerous.
As I read the words of scripture with new eyes, asking “what is enough?” I realized that not only do I have more than enough, but I am a hoarder in my heart of hearts.
This hit home the other day in a simple way. I saw our neighbor’s daughter out on my trampoline, on the 107 degree day, with a friend. They had dragged a sprinkler over and were enjoying jumping in the cool air and water and I was angry. I wanted her off my trampoline! As I examined my silly response, with this new lens of enough, I realized with a start that I was hoarding. I cannot express exactly why it bothered me so much, because we’ve told her she’s welcome to use it. I had this visceral MINE response and I realized in that moment that this is how I look at all my stuff. Protect at all costs as if it belongs to me.
- A person that knows she has more than enough of everything would have been delighted that her trampoline was being enjoyed and her lawn watered at the same time.
- A person that knows she has enough doesn’t need to buy things for entertainment or security or out of boredom.
- A person that knows she has enough gives ten percent to the church at the beginning of the month and trusts, then lives carefully, even frugally knowing that all she has isn’t hers at all.
- She looks for ways to be generous with her things, time and energy.
- A person that knows she has more than enough trusts that is she has enough for today, to eat and wear, and that God will give for tomorrow.
This he has promised. This is the life of one who has enough, even more than enough, and knows it!
I challenge you to read this book with open hands and heart. Be ready for many simple, practical ideas and scriptural proofs that all of us have more than enough. The question is how will we respond? Do we trust God to give us enough? Do we hoard our things and our money as if we have to take care of ourselves? Or can we accept that we have MORE THAN ENOUGH for the very reason that we might be someone else’s ENOUGH?
This little book is a fast read but if you take it in, if you scour scripture for the truth it contains, you will find that your heart is struck with its conviction. I pray it is so.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’
For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
A part of the Patheos Book Club on the book “ENOUGH: Finding More By Living with Less” by Will Davis Jr.
It doesn’t end there. Enough, Continued.
{What it means to FEAR HIM}
Fear has always chased me and won. It clamors at me through perfectionism and anxiety to the point that my reflex response to life is to fear it. I’m certain it is the crux of my depression. Even so, it was some kind of miraculous act of God that brought me Tom to share my life. For in my human response I would never, not in a million years, have been bold enough to commit to my frail heart to love or marriage. God intended this and somehow intervened in my heart. If it were up to me I would still, today be very alone.
Each intake of breath and out is accompanied by anxious thoughts. I have to daily surrender it to God. Even today, it chases me as I run for exercise trying to get this sorry 45 year old body in shape. Each step chased my anxiety.
I am one who craves routine — what can be expected, anticipated and known. I find spontaneity amusing, but not quite enjoyable. My father went on uncontrollable, inexplicable rages. It had no logical connection to our day-to-day life as far as I could ascertain. He was often exploding or riding one until she gave up on whatever it was that she wanted.
The result is that she lets go of her own passions, and purpose and understanding of the world and her life.—her own call and purpose, her own dreams,—
That was my mother I watched as her imaginings were crushed. Her life turned into a frightening nightmare. And in small ways that story became my own legacy.
I felt crushed like a bug, only to come back to life over and over again in the same home, with the same father. Stuck in a hell of his making, afraid of living, afraid of people, afraid of risk, afraid of my own thoughts and ideas. Afraid to make a life of my own.
“The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.” — Psalm 34:7
The command to FEAR HIM strikes something deep in me, the humming chord that is more than a little bit beautiful, and yet there is a lot that I don’t understand about it. This kind of fear is confusing to me. Knowing that God deserves my fear, but it is not because he intends
to crush me
or to humiliate me
or destroy my soul.
He intends me to fear him in order to be set free! {This requires trust.}
I once told an erratic and fickle boyfriend “Treat me well, or treat me poorly I don’t care. Just be steady! My father is never consistent or predictable.” I just couldn’t stand the bitter torture of his inconsistency.
And so, I am setting out on a journey to understand my own fears and more importantly to discover THIS GOD WHO PROMISES so much to those who “fear him.”
If there is anything that you know, that you have learned ,of this HOLY FEAR, I would love to hear from you—books, Bible study resources, scriptures, poetry, preacher’s sermons or personal experience.
What does it mean to FEAR God?
MELODY
I am honored to have some of my poems included with a collection of essays in the book Not Afraid which is scheduled to come out in August, 2012.
Logic & Imagination 