Confession: I've Stopped Doing All My Chores

In the past month I've had one of those in general just solid life shake-ups. Maybe everyone doesn't know what I'm talking about. I seem to have them fairly regularly - maybe once a year or so. Maybe twice a year. Where it feels like someone took my life jar and just shook the crap out of it, and I no longer am completely certain which direction is up, though I have an inclination that I'm fairly certain which way is up. But I wouldn't bet more than a few dollars on it. I guess some people call it having your rug jerked out from underneath you. I suppose it's rather like that.

I've run the gamete of emotions. Felt like my life was a whirlwind of a roller coaster, and the only way I could start to find peace was just to stop. Not everything, but I stopped a lot of things. I stopped teaching AWANA. I stopped going to Bible study. I stopped running. I stopped packing every crevice of every day with something. I stopped playing guitar and drinking beer months ago. I stopped preparing meals. I stopped eating a ton of protein. I stopped reading the Bible every day. I stopped signing up for races. I just stopped a lot of stuff. And I've met some judgment over my stoppings, but it hasn't swayed me much.

I often think of the scene in Forrest Gump where he runs across the US over and over and has all these followers, and then one day he just decided he was done. He stopped, and he went home. Everyone who was following him was baffled. It makes me laugh. That's exactly how I feel, and I have no better explanation than he did. "I think I'm done running now. I want to go home."

There are things I've kept doing. I keep taking care of the two children who live in my home. I keep snuggling.I keep working. I keep consuming alcohol (just not beer) and protein shakes in the morning with a raw egg. I keep cleaning the house and doing laundry and selling Girl Scout cookies. I keep taking the kids to their activities. I keep going to church. I keep playing Words with Friends. And scrapbooking. I still call my parents almost every day.

And there are some new things I've done, as well. I led those AWANA kids through a super cool service project. I've been talking to a man that I like many hours of almost every day. And I've rested - I've sat in my backyard and just sat and looked at the garden, and swung on the swing. I actually worked in my garden, more than once. I took anxiety medication for a week. And I started serving my daughter ice cream with both strawberry and chocolate syrup almost every day. I got back into a size 4 jean (something I thought would never happen again). I held my devil cat tonight and played with her belly and watched her stalk a mosquito eater. I noticed Orion.

I feel peaceful today. We started at my parents' house this morning. I let the teenager drive us home. We visited a friend who is ill and we prayed for her. Twice. We did a roof bid for an old acquaintance. We went to the pine derby race, and then came home. I let her eat Chef Boyardee for the 8th time this week and fed her ice cream with both syrups. We snuggled and watched Sofia the First. Then I sorted out 400 pictures and scrapbooked Alaska, while I continued to allow her to veg out on television. I finally put Edith to bed, way past her bed time - we brushed teeth, read devotion while cuddling a cat, sang songs, prayed, and covered her up again. Then she says, "Mom, can you play the guitar?" See, I used to play the guitar every night after I put her to bed, and that's how she fell asleep. But I've stopped.

I stopped because it started to feel like a chore, when it was supposed to bring joy.

So I picked up the guitar and I played it. I played "The Streets of London." I played "Ring of Fire." I played "Warrior is a Child." Then "How Great Thou Art." And I just kept going and going and going, wrapping it all up with "Victory in Jesus." My fingers hurt, but my heart soared full of joy.

Child of The One True King

I’ve always tried to start at the beginning. And then I never get very far. And it ends up shoved in the back of a filing cabinet somewhere. Or crumpled into the trash can. Pain stops me. Protection for others stops me. Not having all the answers stops me. Not being able to tell the whole story stops me. Always something stops me. It’s my story, but I feel like it isn’t my story to tell. Sometimes that feels like insult added to injury, right there.

So on what may be failed attempt 16,849, I’m just going to start in the middle, or the end, or midway through the mid to the end. I’m just going to start right where I am, right now. But part of that is telling a little bit of how I got to where I am – but not the whole enchilada.

I had a bad episode about a year ago. I could say it was exactly a year ago – only because it lasted for at least three months, and I’m within that three month span. Chronologically speaking. In my desperate attempt to get out of it, I contacted a gal who was quite a bit younger than me, who had walked through a similar situation, but seemed a whole lot more adept at handling the situation than I was. And I mean a whole lot – she would just throw it out there, off the cuff, to pretty much strangers without even flinching her face in a hold back a single tear grimace. Which is how I knew we had a similar history. We had coffee. I asked her how she came to such a peace with her story, and she told me she read this book called A Wounded Heart. I thought about it for a couple of weeks, and then I ordered it on Amazon. I remember looking at it like hot coals when it arrived. I didn’t open it right away.

At first reading it was amazingly eye-opening. I could not put it down.  I saw my story splashed all over the pages. Not every page, not every paragraph, but thoughts and events and ideas that I had never seen written on paper. At least not paper that I didn’t bury in a filing cabinet or crumple and throw in the trash. I read it slowly. It was exceedingly thought provoking and even painful, but the validation was worth the effort. I read about a chapter a month maybe. Maybe sometimes two chapters. Maybe sometimes a chapter in six weeks.

In April I went on a women’s retreat with my church and I read a chapter near the middle of the book that sent me into a tail spin. I don’t want to talk about the tailspin right now. It’s 8 months later, and in this past week I finally read the next chapter after the tailspin chapter. After rereading the tailspin chapter last week. I may have reread it twice since April. I’m like a moth to a flame. A very slow moth to the flame.

Hopefully that’s just enough information to bring you at least somewhat with me into my present. If not, tough boogers. That’s all you’re going to get right now.

To me what this new chapter was about was contempt, but that’s not what it was about per se. If you know me, the suitably-dressed-to-go-outside-and-play-with-others me, you would never guess that I am overflowing with self-contempt. What I present is a woman who is self-confident and has her shit together. I almost always have a huge smile on my face. And that isn’t fake! I don’t want to say I’m presenting a false me or anything, I generally do live in an aura of joy, and even when the waters are murky, I find humor somewhere, under some rock. But when you peel back the onion and you get down to the core, behind closed doors, alone and in the darkness, there’s a deep, perhaps bottomless, pool of self-contempt. I’m not saying this so that anyone can fix it for me. Or assuage me. Or God forbid feel sorry for me (that’s horrific to me). I’m just stating a fact: it’s there. And it’s something I wrestle with, some days more than others. It’s something I’m trying to call by name.

I even have my own Psalm David wrote me, just for that. But I digress.

Anyway, this chapter started out by saying that….. You know what? I have a hard time even saying “victims of abuse” because I feel like I’m pulling a sympathy card that may or may not be true and slamming it out on the table so that everyone feels sorry for me. I feel like that describes someone else, not me. And by even insinuating that it might be me, I’m a drama queen. Which is also something I try to work through. My logic proves (or at least Ellen’s logic proves) I am not a drama queen. But I still have this harness that holds me back. Let’s try this paragraph again….

Anyway, this chapter started out by saying that Victims of Abuse behave in relationship one of three general ways (or really some mix of all three). The first is the Good Girl who is full of self-contempt. I instantly identified with being full of self-contempt, but not with being the Good Girl. I used to be. I am again. But in between where I used to be and where I am is a Whole Other World. And playing The Good Girl card kind of makes me snort laughter out of my nostrils to the point my nose hairs burn. Literally.

Yet the other two options get into contempt of others, and I knew straight off that didn’t apply to me. I almost didn’t even read it at all because it went on and on for paragraphs and pages and I knew it didn’t apply. I love people – I love everyone. I even love people who are mean to me. I am far more forgiving and accepting of others, with all their flaws and inconsistencies, than I ever am for myself. I am kind and loving, I collect people in my life, for goodness sake! I forgive people, I extend grace, I help people…. I ran through my head listing off hundreds of people, and I came back with a 0% register of contempt directed at anyone on the planet. Not even my brother, for crying out loud.

But I read it anyway, in case it would put me asleep. Because it was certainly bedtime by this point. And then something started happening - images started creeping into my brain. The boyfriend I broke up with and every time I looked at him I wanted to choke him and I couldn’t hardly even bear to look at him at all anymore and so I made fun of him to my friends about how is head bobbed and his teeth bucked whenever he told a story, like a bobble head you mount on your dashboard. The boyfriend I broke up with but he was my roommate and every morning I had to sit there and watch him self-righteously cross-legged in his Capri pajama pants eating his breakfast cereal and I wanted to pick up his cereal bowl and smash it and break it in his smug face. I couldn’t even look at him eat and had to leave the house. I told one of my other roommates how I felt, and of what I remember his reaction was, “Wow, Ami. {giggling an uncomfortable, rather horrified giggle, incredulous at my level of vindication}. He’s just eating cereal. A boy’s gotta eat.” The boyfriend I couldn’t even meet or text or talk to on the phone or email or look in the eye…… Well, there was a big panic attack around that one….. So maybe it isn’t 100% across the board. Maybe it’s not a one size fits all sort of thing. But it’s there.

Now I don’t sound like such a nice, friendly, outgoing, kind Christian girl, do I? I sound…. Hateful.

So anyway, to avoid my self-contempt road, I don’t know where it comes from, but I do have contempt for others. Not just any Joe or Josie walking down the street, not strangers or politicians, but for certain men in my life, it’s there. And I see that that can’t be super beneficial if a girl ever really wanted to have a relationship. I don’t know how you solve that, but I’ve identified it, anyway.

I wonder if I did that with my husbands? I don’t know the answer to that one yet. So I’m going to 

stop here. Without a proper conclusion or answer or reflection or even Bible verse.

{TIME LAPSE INVOLVING SWEET SLEEP}

After I wrote this I sent my rough draft to a dear friend of mine, and then went to read my daily Bible reading. I didn’t really want to, but I was already two days behind, and with the Christmas holiday looming, I know it’s only going to get more difficult to stay caught up.

Can you imagine what popped up in my daily reading? My Psalm. Psalm 139. I smiled a big old smile and sat back in the couch and just felt so personally cared for by the God of the Entire Universe and All Time and Space. Earlier today my friend asked me, after I commented that I used to think doing something I don’t do anymore was just part of who I was, “And now what do you think about who you are?” And I replied, making a joke (kind of) with song lyrics, “I’m the child of the One True King.” I didn’t know how to answer the question. But you know what? I *am* the child of the One True King. And who can do any better than that?

He wrote the conclusion to this for me. 

My Wish List for You

Lights are twinkling on all of the houses

Carols swirl throughout the air

Everyone is rushing, getting ready

Laughing and twirling without a care.

Yet my heart aches for you -

You who have a loved one who isn’t there.

All around you the world still bustles

Getting ready for the big Christmas Day

The world doesn’t miss a breath or a heartbeat,

It continues on in its very same state.

People hurrying to get more perfect gifts,

Seemingly not seeing you along their perfect way.

Your mailbox fills with Christmas greetings

Smiling faces so full of cheer

Form letters telling of all their successes,

Little mention (if any) of your loss or of your crappy year.

Maybe the letters are all piling up still unopened -

And you silently decorate the mountain with tears.

They don’t see your world is painfully idle

Or in quiet motion, moving at sickening slow pace

They don’t see you trying to survive only this day or this hour –

That what you could use right now is just one ounce of mercy or grace.

Sitting there, yearning for things to be different

Wishing you could defy the stupid physical laws of time and space.

You may see something in a shop window

That your loved one would have loved to have.

Maybe you completely lack the will power

To look in the boxes of decorations in the attic rack.

Maybe you do it, but just for the children,

And doing so rips your heart clean in half.

You wonder how Christmas can come -

How can Christmas still BE?

For you it’s all just full of bittersweet, painful memories.

I imagine maybe you feel unnoticed,

Invisible, overlooked, and perhaps out of place.

With emotions cascading, maybe tears flowing

Down a silent, empty, Christmasless face.

I just wanted to reach out my hand to you

Even hold your heart in a sweet embrace.

I wanted to tell you that you are not forgotten –

You’re loved, and prayed for, right where you are.

You’re surrounded in love, even though you can’t see it,

The love that’s around you extends from afar.

I envision your loved one at the feet of the angels

Worshiping our Lord in the most glorious song.

They are experiencing Jesus in every blessed breath now.

What Christmas is – they have and they know.

My prayer for *you* is that He can also touch your heart -

To heal it, and hold it, and even help it to grow.

That right there is my Wish List for you:

That you will let Him love you all the way through. 

Drug Deal with God

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but when I rededicated my life to the Lord – not by getting rebaptized or the laying on of hands or confetti even – not anything anything grandeur like that – just driving down the road and crying and listening to Tenth Avenue North and quietly giving up with My Way…. Well, I guess I did it in order to gain blessing. That sounds like a drug deal, but it wasn’t, to be fair to myself. I just came to realize that My Way was not working – and I agreed to do things His Way.

I haven’t been an amazing Rock Star of Christian perfection by any means – I have made mistakes. I have still made some poor choices. I mean, really poor choices. But when push comes to shove, I’ve been seeking God and seeking Jesus Christs more fervently than I ever have. More honestly than I ever have.

I suppose in my mind I thought if I did things His Way…. well, I had a plan. My plan was that I would do things His Way, and then He would bring me a wonderful Christian man and a family a little bit bigger than just Edith and me. I included a baby too – the true desire of my heart. This all started when I was 36 years old. I gave myself a timeline that I had until I was 40. That’s plenty of time, right? Plenty of time!

But this year I turned 40. I watch families all around me – people meet and fall in love every day. I watch friends of mine fall in love. I watch Tom create his own little family that he never seemed to have wanted with me. I watch my high school friends who are also 40 post about being pregnant with babies. Trying to get pregnant. Deciding not to get pregnant. Making choices I don’t have. And it’s hard. It’s really hard.

I suppose I’ve gotten angry with God. No, I don’t suppose. I have. For the first time ever, I think. And resentful - I feel like He isn’t holding up His part of the bargain. I guess maybe I DID think it was a drug deal. I second guess myself. I wonder if I’m just plain crazy. Or if God is angry with me or if I’m being punished. Seconds of my life are ticking away that I can’t get back.

Like sand through the hour glass, these are the days of my life. [insert comic relief]

I’ve considered sharply this year if I want to keep doing this, pursuing this God thing. If it’s real. If it works. If it matters. I know I posted a lot of awesome cruise pictures of me and my friends having the time of our lives, in the sand and sun and sea, laughing and joking. But honestly, I also spent a lot of hours on that trip alone, staring at the ocean and at the stars, and searching my soul, asking a God questions who I don’t feel answers them. Just the swish of the sea slapping against a big boat full of 3800 distant passengers. Very, very alone.

It occurred to me today that there a probably a lot of people who think I have everything. I vacation, vacation, vacation. I have an amazing, beautiful daughter. I own part of a business, and I have a job I generally love. I’m athletic and generally fit for my age, anyway. I own my own house, I don’t have debt, and I don’t have anyone telling me what to do. I have a ton of friends and a wonderful church and a great family. The relationship I have with Tom and his wife is virtually unparalleled in goodness in the divorce world. But what they don’t see is a little girl with her face pressed against the glass, looking into a dream world that somehow passed her by. Looking at anniversary dinners and porch swings and family devotions and sonograms with a hunger that burns her alive.

I think I know exactly how Sarah felt. Except she had a husband, and I have a child. But I mean, other than that. Work with me here.

Once I got home from the cruise, I told someone I felt like I was just turning in little tiny circles. I heard a song, shortly after that, on about my favorite CD, Tenth Avenue North, which really spoke to me. I’ll paste the YouTube link in when I blog this [http://youtu.be/OazUWut9xew]. I listened over and over. Funny, I’ve done that with about 4 of the songs on this CD, each at different points in this journey – I never hear them until I’m meant to hear them, I suppose.

I’ve started to see that I put God on an agenda - My Agenda. I gave God the plan – My Plan. I gave Him my dreams, I gave him My Requests. I also worked hard to give Him my obedience – but it was a transaction. He failed to deliver what I had decided He was going to deliver by the time I decided He was going to deliver it, after I delivered as best I could what I was going to deliver (admittedly, my presentation was pretty messy). Now what?

I can get angry and yell at Him and storm off. That’s what I want to do, but I can’t. I’m too invested. I don’t want that cheap crap I used to have. I don’t want empty relationships. I have a God addiction. Which, by the way, I also resent Him for.

What choice do I have?

My desires are not bad. What I want is not evil. There is nothing wrong with what I want – but I’m not allowing for the possibility that it might not be what He wants or has planned or knows is best for me. Or it may not be the right time yet. And I have to tell you, it honestly chaps my ass to say that. It is not easy to say that. I do not want to say that. I’m not ready to say that. But I’m getting closer.

The choice I have that I can see is to lay My Agenda and My Plan at His feet. I picture in my mind taking scissors and cutting out the perfect family from a Disney vacation brochure and a sonogram from that Facebook post I saw and the LIFE car with 6 holes filled with pink and blue pegs and then little stick bodies lying sideways between them because there are not enough seat belts - and laying all that at His feet. That’s hard. It seems like more than I can do. But it’s also more than I can carry.

In Sunday school this morning we talked about the parable of the seeds. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I apologize in advance. I had tons of thoughts ricocheting in my brain (right now all over again). But she was talking about the seed that fell on dry ground an never rooted, the seed that fell in rocky soil and sprouted but never grew, the seed that fell and grew but got choked out by thorns, and the seed that fell in good soil and blossomed. I can see that I have been all those seeds at different places in my life. I asked myself, what seed am I now?

What I see is my roots are too strong to get me out of the ground. I feel like one of my ugly rose bushes that has yellow spot all over it and produces some blooms but they are not super pretty, but when I try to just dig the bush out, it will not come – in fact, I get bloody scratches from it in my trying to do so.

I asked my yard guy what do with the rose bushes – I actually asked him to pull them out – and he suggested cutting them all the way back down to the ground and seeing what happened next year.

Damn it.

All Things Work Together For Our Good

It’s been a rough few months. I don’t quite know where to begin, but I want to start sorting it out some.

About four years ago I made the commitment to God to do things His way. I know I’ve mentioned this before. It was an extremely slow and painful decision for me to submit to Him, so I don’t want to sugar coat it. What I turned over to Him was premarital sex. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but it became something I had to do. I made a commitment to quit doing it. Which was huge for me. Hard for me. Nothing to be trivialized. 

But I’m not sure it got to the heart of the issue. If was more of an “Okay, fine” moment. I drew a line in the sand and I didn’t cross it. But I walked right up to it and walked along it. The last post I wrote was about “Freaking Manna and Meat.” I came smack hard against the fact that there’s a lot more to it than just the physical act of intercourse. I finally got to the heart of the issue, instead of just toeing the line. I realized that if I was truly to follow God’s will, plan, design, I had to back the line way, way, way further back than where I had it.

And I think that’s precisely the point where I fell headlong into an extremely deep depression. I realized what I was after likely doesn’t exist in America in 2015. In 40+ year old men. So this dream, this aspiration I’ve had….. likely might lead to nothing at all. Probably very well won’t lead to anything at all. I have felt completely and totally knocked on my ass, and lacking the will to stand back up.

I sat and listened to Tom today berate someone for depression. He said, you just have to stand up. The alarm goes off and you jump out of bed and you just stand up whether you feel like it or not. And I told him, sometimes I think you just can’t stand up. I didn’t tell him I am suffering with the same issue. But I have been in a place where …. Maybe I COULD stand up. But I didn’t want to stand up. I didn’t see any point in standing up. The hope got knocked out from underneath me, and hope is what makes you get up. 

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

The silence of my house, the silence of my life, the hopelessness of the realization that this likely will never change, was swallowing me alive.

And then when I was at the bottom of the pit of this hopelessness, my church started cracking apart. My church was my foundation. When the foundation starts cracking, you’ve got real problems. And I don’t want to get into all of that right now, but it’s been a dark place I’ve been in. Dark enough that FB friends who were in person friends 20 years ago are calling and asking, “Are you okay?” Dark enough that I literally went seeking something happy to post on FB so that everyone would know I was okay. And it took me half a day to find something, because I really wasn’t.

Anyway, this post isn’t meant to be all dark and dreary, I’m just trying to give you some background. There’s a phrase I knock around in my brain a lot – “All things work together for our good.” In this darkness I’ve been in, in this pit, that seems like a mockery. How is this working together for God’s good? How is my aloneless, my fallenness, my brokenness, my misery, working together for God’s good? Is this a cruel joke?

Today we did Sunday school at the old church and then booked across church to another church for the service. I know, weird. We can talk about that later. But on the way there, I got the Edith Grill. She wanted to know how old she was when Tom and I broke up. She wanted to know if we fought before she was born. She told me she wished that we were still married. Oh, it was a hard 15 minute conversation. I tried to reassure, to offer information, to be open. I told her I understood that she wished we were still together, that it’s a natural desire to want to have your parents together. But Tom is remarried now, and where would that leave that part of her family? I told her that it was extremely unlikely that we would ever be back together, but that both he and I were committed to her, and that we had decided a few years back to be friends and amicable and even a weird sort of family, to give Edith the best family experience we possibly could, even though we are divorced.

She then asked me why I didn’t get remarried. I told her that it was not that easy. I told her, I have a desire to be remarried. But “just anyone” won’t do. I told her that 99% of the men out there were not qualified for me. I said I had a very important qualification – and she said, yes, that they love you. And I said no. Not that they love me. They need to love God and love Jesus. Because if they love God and Jesus, and obey him because they love Him, God tells them they are to love me. He takes care of all of that. I told her, Edith, I have asked God to bring me a man that loves Him first and me second. And I know He has heard me. And I just have to wait and trust Him. She asked me if I wanted another baby. I told her I would dearly love to have another baby, but I’m getting older, and again, it’s in God’s hands.

I told her how in the Disney fairy tales, a princess always has to marry a prince, right? I said, do you know you are a princess? You are the daughter of a King. And “just anyone” isn’t going to cut it. You have to wait for the prince of the King.

It was a hard conversation. But I saw – I really saw – how all things can work together for God’s good. Out of my pit of misery and depression, my daughter is seeing me live out what is not lived out in our society. First hand, I am showing her faith and trust and obedience. I don’t like it. And I’m not tooting my own horn. But I saw some purpose in my misery.

On a sidebar, I don’t know if you’ve read all of our trials and tribulations back when Edith was biting. But as I was talking to Tom today, he said, when our relationship really turned around – when we decided to quit fighting ourselves and fight for Edith, was when we were dealing with the biting. We had to come together for her sake, quit fighting, and be parents. WOW. This blew me away. I saw no purpose at all to all of that, and now four years later, in hind sight, he is completely correct. What a beautiful thing bloomed in that wreckage! Because we are excellent parents to Edith. Excellent. Our marital status is not stopping that.

Today Tom, Edith and I drove two hours in his jeep with the top down after church to deliver her to Girl Scout Camp. I kept looking back at her in the back seat, as the wind was swirling her hair around her precious face that held the biggest, happiest smile. My brain took a picture. I felt like I knew what she was so happy about – she was on her way to a real overnight camp, and her mom and her dad were taking her there, together. We were all together. While on one hand it breaks my heart for her that this is not her every day, I also rejoiced with her that this was her *this* day. And that she could recognize it, enjoy it, and let her heart sing.

I’m humbled today by God’s power. All things do work together for our good. It’s just really, really hard to see sometimes.

Freaking Manna and Meat - And The Next 40 Years

I think I’ve mentioned before that I get frustrated because I feel like I ask God questions, and I feel like I’m listening and waiting, and I’m greeted with a big resounding silence. I feel if He would speak up from time to time, when I ask, He might save me, and subsequently others, a lot of pain. Do I expect the clouds to part and a big booming voice out of the sky? Not exactly, but that would be nice. I do feel like I’m trying to listen. I know in the past I’ve been guilty of not hearing what I don’t want to hear, but I really don’t feel like that’s in the space I’m in now. I really do want to know. And the more I don’t know, the more willing I am to tell God I’ll accept whatever the answer is, but the more I don’t hear.

How does God talk to us? I think He can talk to us through others. I’ve had him talk to me a few awesome cool times in a dream like crossed with a blatant reality state (see my post on Restoration). That would be superb - for that to happen again! {In fact, honestly, every time I doubt myself about my belief, I remember that moment suspended in time when He plainly spoke to me, and I KNOW. You might think I just made a rhyme, but that for real totally happened.} I also feel He talks to us by bringing things repeatedly to our attention – in the past year by bringing random scriptures to my attention multiple times in a week or in a day.

So today at lunch somehow my brother and I end up talking about the Jews, and how they were God’s Chosen people, but how many of them do not accept Christ and thus while chosen, the won’t be with God. Scott was saying some people think they’ll be with God no matter what they do because He chose them, and how others (including me) do not, unless they put their faith in Jesus. Anyway, I was saying how even before Christ, the Chosen Jews were never happy or satisfied or trusting in God. I threw out there as an example that God gave them manna when they were starving, but they whined about that even, saying they wanted meat. Then He gave them meat, and they were still whining. Why would he CHOOSE people like THAT?

On the drive home I texted my youth pastor, because I had a bit of free time, and I wanted to talk to him about some heavy concerns I have about non-related items, and he says cool, come on. So then, (I know, I’m driving, but I was out of the No Phone Zone) I think I better open up the lesson for tonight so I know what we are talking about when I get to youth group. I read the question and see the Bible reference is Exodus 16. I really step out of my regular realm and actually look up the verses in advance instead of while we are in the lesson like I usually do. Do you know what Exodus 16 is about? FREAKING MEAT AND MANNA.

I got angry. I literally yelled out loud – I’m sure the neighboring cars were delighted. I think my exact words were something like this: “Really, God? REALLY? I’m asking you to talk to me and that’s what you’ve got? Manna and meat? You have got to be freaking kidding me!” And the more I think about it, the madder I get. Why does God have to be cryptic? Yes, I yell that out too. Yes, I’m crazy. Why does everything, everything, have to be a riddle? I am asking directly. Why isn’t He telling me directly? What’s with the parables? I get angrier and angrier.

I try to take a calm step back (still wearing my boxing gloves). I try to apply it to my current quandary. Okay, so obviously, I’m not satisfied with what He’s given me. What’s that mean? That the man I’m seeing He has given me and I just can’t accept it and be satisfied and I have to go nosing around for a different one? Or the fact that I’m seeking a man at all, when He’s already given me a great job, and awesome daughter, a beautiful home, incredible friends, good health – the bills are paid and we are blessed beyond measure? Which one? How am I supposed to know? He answers a question with a question? I tell Him, if you never want me to have a man, if that is not your plan, THEN JUST TELL ME. I’ll accept it. JUST TELL ME. Open up the bloody sky and shout it down upon me. I'm ready. And it’s taken me a long time to come around to telling Him I’ll accept it. But I will. Because I’m so tired of this merry-go-round. If it’s not in His Plan, then it’s not in His Plan. Just tell me what the plan is. All I’m asking – I’ll accept it.

I’ll accept it. But I’m angry.

By the time I get to Reverend RSTLNE’s office (he recently tried out for Wheel of Fortune and he needs a New Name), what I wanted to talk about in the first place was long lost. I was angry to the point of wanting to scream, and since that’s socially unacceptable, here come the tears. I couldn’t stop them. And he’s the one that wrote the stupid lesson in the first place, so he deserves this. Over quite a few tears I spilled it out. Patting my face with a McDonald’s napkin (only pastor ever lacking in Kleenex apparently). All of it – well, a lot of it. Enough of it. The anger paint got splattered on the Reverend's wall and ran down it.

And Mr. RSTLNE thinks I already know the application. Sigh. Why is it so easy for others to see and not for me to see? It comes down to this though, skipping a few measures now….. I don’t think that what God is telling me to wait for even exists. I don’t think He can do it. Or more likely He could do it, He just won’t do it. To punish me. Because I screwed it all up. Because I disobeyed. Because I made poor choices. Because I didn’t listen. And so here’s my due desserts.

Later I talked to the guy I’ve been seeing and told him I couldn’t do this – this relationship. He was going to get hurt and I was going to get hurt, and I didn’t want to put either of us through that. I used cliché lines, like “it isn’t you, it’s me” and “I really still want to be friends.” I felt I owed him an explanation – because he is HOT and sweet and kind and patient and fun and a good dancer. I told him that quite a few years back I was living life my way, dating or whatever I was doing my way, and I kept falling flatter and flatter on my own face. Over quite a few face splatters (not just one or two), God and I had a slow talk. The end result was that I realized my way was obviously not working at all, and I’d never really even tried it His way. I committed to doing it His way – thinking in 12 months I’d have my just reward for my sacrifice. That was 3.5 years ago. In 2015, at 40 years old, the way I’m doing things is pretty weird. But I’m still trying to walk that. It’s hard. I believe the man is supposed to be the spiritual leader in a home – I want someone who will lead, who I can submit to. But if I date someone who is not committed to the same agenda, to obedience to the same God, then I am leading, and I’m the only one drawing a line in the sand, and I will fail. So I want a man who will lead – who will draw lines in the sand – and drink beer.

100 years ago what I was seeking was completely normal and expected. But now, I’m a religious zealot. I mean, that’s completely cray-cray in the USA in 2015 when you’re 40.

So there you have it. The Israelites wandered for 40 years and then 40 years again.

So now I’m on the next 40 years.

I am *so* encouraged by that. I should be a petrified raisin by then. Without getting too graphic.

Roller Coasters and Bananas

***Disclaimer: I am making a sincere effort to curse less. But sorry if there are still a few slipups.

Church has a way of getting my brain going. I’m not even sure if it really directly correlates even to what is being sung or discussed or preached. But man, can it get my grey matter cells firing red. And I’m thinking about men, and pardon me, but I’m not going to hold back. So reader beware. Once again.

I felt like with the last man I dated that I had asked God for a yes or no and all I got was a bunch of silence. And if He had just said “No” when I asked one of the thousand times I asked Him, it sure would have saved me a lot of pain. The two months after that relationship ended were some of the darkest two months I’ve ever known. And I’ve known some dark times. Probably darker, really. Maybe I shouldn’t try to one up myself. But those months – I felt completely devoid of any hope. I felt like an utter and obvious failure. I felt, literally, that the rug had been jerked out from under my feet. Again. That I was a silly girl chasing a silly dream, and got knocked on my duff, for all to see. My very soul bled. And my dreams and my hopes. Yes, I was crushed by something that seemed far bigger than me.

And now, in this moment, I don’t feel like that. It’s a roller coaster ride, my life is. And as time goes by, I think everyone’s must be. At least to some extent. And I have a new hill I could ride – or actually, am already riding. I met a man who I find extremely physically attractive. And he’s fun to hang out with and talk to. It’s fun. It makes me smile. 

I found myself last week on a chairlift, surrounded and awed by God’s magnificent creation, again beseeching Him to just tell me yes or no. And laughing a bit inwardly in a sarcastic manner because I feel He won’t answer me. I’m honest about that with Him, even though I know I’m in the wrong. He didn’t catapult me out of the chair lift or anything.

So in Sunday school I find myself trying to summarize the major reasons for failure in that last relationship – because we can only not repeat history by reviewing it, right? And in a complete honest assessment I came up with three major reasons, not really in any particular order. 

1) Physically we went too far, and not just because God shakes His finger and says “No, no, no! No touchy! Put the Bible between you and have 6” on each side of it!” But also because there is wisdom in God’s denying us this short term pleasure. We were not at a level of emotional intimacy. Why do I say that? I mean, I told him I loved him (the dude, not God. Although I do love God. Not saying I don’t.)Without delving into another huge major subject, let’s just say that I had not shared intimately with this man some of my own emotional and physical and mental and sexual scars. And since we were not at that level of intimacy, the – see, I would not even call it physical INTIMACY – I would just call it….. I’m making a face here you wish you could see….. I would just call it physical NESS. So since we were not at that level of intimacy, the whole thing back fired and then blew up, flinging blood and caca everywhere. That’s the best descriptor I’ve got. And boy, was it everywhere. I’m still cleaning up the pieces.

2) I’ve written on this enough so I am not going to expound much, but he was not a spiritual leader. Not only was he not a spiritual leader, but we were not even on the same page. So even though he was a Christian, we still were not equally yoked. I thought equally yoked just meant believers, and that’s it, but I think it goes beyond that. And I don’t mean to come across as some spiritual super star – because I’m obviously and most certainly not. At all. But I’m seeking God – I’m seeking Christ – and fervently. And I think that’s different than just stating you are a believer who doesn’t go to church because... whatever the reason may be. And maybe I’m a self-righteous jack ass too, but I don’t think so.

3) He was still married. Technically. And that, folks, isadultery. And adultery is a sin. I don’t think that one needs anymore explanation.

Okay, so here I am. At the start of another roller coaster ride. I’m already on the ride. We’re taxiing up that first big hill – you know, where you are going super slow, and the anticipation is building, and you wonder if you should just put both hands straight up in the air or clamp down on the bar or wonder how you ever even got on this ride in the first place what was I thinking? In fact, we might be in that split second moment when you finally crest that hill and your heart leaps up in your chest and what the heck, you throw both your arms up and suck in your breath and your heart jumps and FREEZE! I’m frozen in time in that exact moment. Right there. Complete freeze frame. 

Frozen.

[“Let it go! Let it go! Don’t hold it back anymore!” Sorry. Edith is 7 and it’s 2015, after all; I can’t help it. I need a little picture of Olaf.]

Is this the ride I want to be on? Is this a repeat of the last ride? And honestly, not yet, it isn’t. I could break the safety bar and eject myself. My thoughts circle back to the three reasons for previous failure. Physical intimacy is still safe. That’s not an issue. But I have to be honest with myself – is that only a function of time? Of where, on this particular ride, I am? Has anything changed, really? In me? Is anything different? Am I willing to put on my brakes with my hands, like I do when I’m sliding down a roof, at the expense of my own skin? They say to know thyself. I know myself. So while it seems like this one is in the bag, at this exact moment, I know darn tootin’ well it isn’t.

And at this point, I don’t even really have to review number two and three. But three is easy – he is not married. No issue there. My learning curve is not *completely* inversed, after all. But number two isn’t there, either. And the big thought that occurs to me today while I’m sitting in church is How Will I Know? How will I know that I’ve met someone with whom I am equally yoked? It seems to me I’ve put myself in the self-righteous judging chair – a Pharisee saying You-Are-Not-In-Your-Walk-Where-I-Am-Because-I-Am-Awesome-And-Holy-And-You-Are-A-Degenerate. I mean, who am I? Who do I think I am? Me, of all people, to sit in a seat of judgment? To just say, not this one, not that one, and toss them to the wind? Reminds me of a phrase I love – Who died and made you God? But now I’m saying it to myself. So is that voice right or wrong? Who is speaking that to me?

And thus I waffle. Switch from the roller coaster analogy to Mario Cart. The Will of God is the right hand wall on the race course. And The Will of Ami is on the left side of the race course. We haven’t really talked about the Will of Ami in this discourse, but I have to admit something to you. I’m human. I really am. My skin craves touch. I feel starved of touch. Oh, I get my snuggles from Edith. And sometimes, if I offer her cheese, she’ll even rub my back for 23 seconds. But that doesn’t even usually work. (I’m making myself laugh so I don’t cry). I look around, and I’m insanely jealous of women who have men to talk to at the end of the day. Men to giggle with under the covers. Men to even take out the trash. Simple things - start the car when it’s cold. Paint the front door. Mow the yard. Fix the broken door knob. And beyond that, because I can do most of that, or have friends (great friends) who can help me. And I can hire a massage therapist and a yard man. But I also yearn for companionship. Male companionship. True intimacy. I want someone to swing on a porch swing with in my old age and hold my hand. My very soul yearns to be treasured in the most intimate of ways.

And when someone caresses me, pays attention to me, desires me - I have a strong tendency to not just slightly turn the wheel, but to go crashing into the side wall and slip on a banana and completely wipe out. I guess as I learn to steer better, instead of completely wiping out, I just bounce off of that wall and then bounce off of the other wall, and thus go bouncing down the race course like a drunk, slipping on bananas. And if you’ve ever played Mario Cart before, you know that isn’t how you win the race.

At least my precipice has walls now.

And so that’s where I am. I feel I should reach some great theatrical conclusion. Yet that’s all I have right now. 

But I am thinking God isn’t as silent as He lets on.