Last Thoughts on Shame

Shame and all its accouterments will circle wagons around us if we don’t break the negative cycle. Remember, it is one of the enemy’s favorite tools to keep us from walking in our designed call.

I want to encourage you, loved one, wrestling with these negative cycles does not mean you are not an overcomer! Jacob wrestled with God, David wrestled with his flesh, and the Apostle Paul repeatedly implored the Lord to deliver him from a recurring struggle. We are in good company!

The Lord is calling us to wake up and shed all that entangles and entraps us. The things we overcome will be the foundation and launching pad for our destiny. What you accept, you will learn to adapt, then you will eventually conform to it until you are willing to confront it.”

Your giant will take you if you don’t take them. Life is defined by what you conquer, or by what you DON’T conquer.

“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing (including shame), shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-38

Adrift in an Empty Nest

My mother always told me, “I raised you to be independent and have your own life.” I loved that about her! I left the nest relatively confident – and thankful that she was only a phone call away when I realized how painful “adulting” was.

I raised my children the same way – then was mortified when they actually moved out! The first crypt in the Meh Cavern the Holy Spirit addressed was losing my children to adulthood. Ever since I held my favorite baby doll in my arms at age seven, I pictured my life with babies and imagined we would all live within close to one another. Sunday dinners, spontaneous shopping trips with my daughter, etc. filled my childhood fantasies.

I thought I was handling it well until my daughter moved to another state and got married. Suddenly, I was adrift in an empty nest. To avoid the pain, I became distracted navigating my own “adulting”, at least until the grave cloths started to stink. I never thought I needed to grieve their adulthood. I mean, the fact they were still alive and thriving is quite the accomplishment as a parent! But the deep loneliness that filtered up from my soul could not be quenched. I suddenly felt like my anchor for this world was gone and my feet were trying to touch bottom so I could catch my breath.

The grief worked its way up one Friday morning, and I had flashbacks to being a 7-year-old holding her favorite baby doll. Mom and Dad were fighting downstairs. This was a bad one with ultimatums, yelling, and the hint of some kind of betrayal. I remember whispering to my baby doll, “Shhhh, shhh, it will be ok. I won’t leave you.” I felt paralyzed and afraid to leave my room.

I never knew where this memory came from – out of some deep, dark cavity, but the Holy Spirit knew. He knew my fear of abandonment - created in the moment of hearing that fight - connected me in some way to want to hold my children near and never be away from them.

This grieving went all the way back to a little girl holding her baby doll and fearing abandonment. While in therapy, I learned a technique of addressing the wounded child within. It was time to comfort that 7-year-old and tell her that Jesus was her ever present anchor. She never need fear being abandoned for He will never leave me nor forsake me.

I think I got through to her cause that deep, dark cavernous hole is filled with light.

And this was only the beginning…

Psalms 21:7

“For the King (or 7-year-old little girl) trusts in the Lord,

And through the mercy of the Most High,

he (or she) shall not be moved (be anchored).”

The Gift of Pain, Part I

To everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven…Ecclesiastes 3:1

Christmas is coming. Have you noticed it arrives quicker every year? I remember as a kid the anxious anticipation of gazing at my packages under the tree and keeping my hands in my robe pockets for fear they would find their way to the ribbon before breakfast. That was a hard and fast rule in our house. Absolutely NO opening packages until we’d had breakfast.

Before I was able to figure out a gift by its shape and the way it rattled, I would tear into each one thinking “this is the gift I asked for,” or “I bet this is the toy I wanted.” Then with great disappointment, I found socks - or my personal favorite - underwear. I didn’t care that it was practical. I didn’t care that I needed it. It wasn’t what I’d wanted or hoped for.

Pain is a lot like that. It isn’t what we want. It isn’t what we’d hoped for. But it is sometimes necessary.

And it is a gift.

I had a teacher in middle school I never liked, Mr. Fowler. He was old, grumpy, he never smiled, and he wore a bow tie. Yes…a bow tie. Every day. He was my math teacher so it was a subject I already hated, so Mr. Fowler made it more…hateful. But he was a patient, long-suffering instructor. He would work with me until I understood. He wanted me to untangle a problem, understand, and learn. Mr. Fowler was a gift to a little girl that didn’t understand math.

Pain is like that. We hate it. We don’t want it. We try to run from it. But pain, like Mr. Fowler, is a perfect instructor. There are many examples in the Word of our Father using pain to instruct His children and not because He is mean or grumpy. Sometimes our own disobedience or a bad choice brings it on, or even situations we have no part in, like the death of a loved one or a job lay-off.

Whatever the circumstance, pain is an unwelcome friend and an effective instructor enclosed in a package we must unwrap sometimes. Why? 

Because it brings correction when needed, direction when sought, focus and clarity when pressed into; It gets our attention, and that is just the beginning.

Wanderlust, or Just Wandering, Part I

And then many would be offended… Matthew 24:10

I have had many opportunities to be offended in my 51 years: husband, friends, co-workers, bosses, even my parents! Throughout all, I’ve been able to work through my offense – some easier than others – and get back on the road of life merrily on my way.

Yet, unknowing, I have spent the last eighteen years wandering in an erred spiritual desert. Eighteen long years of shuffling my spiritual, dusty feet looking for my lost destiny. Those who know me well, know I have lost many ministry dreams due to another’s decisions.

My heart bled with each loss and I had to work through the pain of my partner’s betrayals, loss of friendships, and loss of dreams. Each time I had to walk the well-traveled path of forgiveness for the offenses, then wait and pray for another dream, another opportunity to serve.

I learned and grew so much during these refining times - until “that day.” I don’t even know what day it was; but something deep died one day and it’s been dead ever since.

On the outside all looked healed, but in my spirit something – a ubiquitous dark place – took up shop unnoticed.

Offense.

Not with a friend, partner, ministry or church, not with family or a co-worker.

I was offended with Jesus.

To the broken heart of a little girl, my Savior, Healer, Father, and Protector did not pick up a sword and fight for my destiny. In this little girl’s heart, she was left bleeding and bruised on the side of the road blaming everyone involved – yet nursing the smallest seed of thought, “Where was my Jesus when I lost my dream? Where was Jesus when I lost my friends? Where was Jesus when His church ignored me because of their offense with my partner’s sin?”

He was standing next to me weeping.

Yet I couldn't feel or see it through my slow-growing, permeating cancerous cell of offense. It took Him eighteen years to open my eyes and heart to the truth. The church, ministry, ex-husband, or Jesus was not responsible for my eighteen-year desert wandering.

I was.

The "C" Word

My new friend, the childlike part of me, had a serious jolt today by that dreaded word “Cancer” invading my safe place. The mother that brought me forth, gave me life, nurtured, cuddled, and kissed away ouchies has bladder cancer. What a horrible word. It is treatable, thank the Lord, but it is scary nonetheless and makes me realize how fragile these gifts, parents, are to us.

The newly-found child within me wanted to run from these new shadows imprinted on my walls. Not now, Lord. Not now when I so desperately need her nurturing, cuddles, and to kiss away my new ouchies.

As I helped her with her catheters and showering I was seized by shifting circumstances. Just 40+ years ago she was doing much the same for me (minus the catheter). Being this intimate with my mother brings such a vulnerability to our relationship. There is a sweet sadness to it, if that makes sense.

I am catapulted back to my insecurities as a little one in this house. Fear of abandonment was a big thing with me. Don’t know why, really. My mom was a stay-at-home mom while dad was a hero fighting fires. I remember having nightmares of my mom leaving me in a car in a parking lot and having large statues (one looked remarkably like the Statue of Liberty) fall on the car. It was a recurring dream and I’ve never discovered its significance. I always attributed it to the usual childhood fears.

That same fear whispered in my ear today - abandonment. Just when I need my mom most. Am I really this narcissistic? My mother is battling cancer and I’m worried about being abandoned. The adult in me knows that she has a 70% chance of beating this…a good odd in today’s cancer percentages. But the child in me sees her locking me in the car, walking away, and statues falling in slow motion.

I was hoping to connect with the Dana-child that danced endlessly and sang at the top of her voice putting on shows for anyone willing to sit in the same room. Not this Dana-child. I wanted to find the Dana-child that was completely soaked in her emotions, giving in to them at will. Not the teen-adult Dana that was told her feelings and perceptions about abuse were wrong and sick.

In Brennan Manning’s book, Abba’s Child (is anyone tired of me quoting this new favorite toy?) said, “To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. The Son of Man did not scorn or reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive emotional antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.”

What a concept!! To actually stop an abuser in their assault before any damage is done. To tell a husband early on that stealing is wrong and lying is an abomination to a marriage. To stomp one’s adult-foot and say “Get out” if sin is a continual threat to the family.

If I had grasped this 35+ years ago until now I wonder how different I’d be.

I wonder where I’d be.

I read somewhere that if a brook did not have rocks in it the water would lose its song.

I guess that just means that this child within and the adult without have a lot of singing to do!