A Walk with God

This morning it occurred to me that for the past 9 years I have been constantly bombarded by the negativity of teenage daughters. And it has taken its toll on me. This realization came in the midst of one daughter’s particularly negative phase, after listening for days to complaints of her miserable life. This is a regular part of my life and I hate it with a passion. It has only served to feed the discouragement and sense of failure that has plagued me. I know that it doesn’t matter what I say in response; it will be wrong, and they are sure that I have no idea what it is like to suffer the way they do. Somehow, whatever the problem, I am at least partly to blame and I am supposed to fix it. And I have tried. For too many years, I have attempted to spare my children pain; tried to accomplish their happiness. But I never could; I never can. And actually, it’s not my job.

As in so many aspects of mothering, I recognize the parallel between my grief for my children and God’s grief for His. How much of my relationship with Him is centered on listening to me complain and gripe about my misery! I know just how He feels. And, though He is not powerless as I am, if He has truly given me a free will, He must allow me to make my choices, good or bad, and live with the consequences, not only of my own choices, but those of others as well. I’m beginning to understand how hard that must be. And there is much to be learned from His style of parenting. I turn to Him in my despair over my own children and He reminds me that they are His children first. I recognize that their wellbeing in life is a load that I cannot handle and I understand that it is not too big for Him. It is His to carry and He doesn’t expect me to try. Once again, I see the need to trust Him; that, as great as my love is for my children, His love is far beyond what I have to offer them. I’ll probably take it back a thousand times, but for now I give my burden to Him. I know that’s where it belongs. That doesn’t make it any easier. They are part of me and they always will be. But I guess He knows that.

In the book I’m reading, “The Shack”, I recently read this conversation between the main character and “Jesus” that spoke to me in a powerful way and I recognized myself in his description.

My feelings sometimes tell me I can’t trust God, He doesn’t love me, He isn’t good. But I know it isn’t true and, whatever my lying heart may tell me at times, I can’t agree with those lies anymore. God is slowly whittling away at my doubts in Him. And that is the only way my fearful heart will ever find rest.

Almost a year ago, I wrote about a couple with 9 kids that we met. Phil knows the husband Paul from work and, finding they had much in common, they have talked frequently about their similar views on Christianity and the church. Last March, they invited us to a home group they were attending and we spent a Sunday afternoon getting to know each other. We followed up later with an invitation to our home, and they never responded. I decided, if it was meant to be, God would work it out and I put them out of my mind. Just recently, Paul has been telling Phil they want to get together with us again, and the two husbands made plans. So Paul and his wife Kristin came to our house yesterday afternoon and we spent a few hours talking.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression of Paul and Kristin. They are a lovely couple and there are many things we have in common. I think I would enjoy spending time with them and we could encourage one another in our faith. However, as much as I would love to have the fellowship of like-minded believers locally, I don’t want to run after this. I also don’t want to fight it. I guess I just need to trust that if this is God’s will, He will accomplish it and He will work out the details. I only need to continue to take one day at a time and let Him worry about tomorrow.

For the past 5 months or so, I just haven’t been able to write in my blog. Part of it was writer’s block and the other part is my desire to protect my family’s privacy. It has been a very lonely, discouraging time for me and I know that keeping a memory of the hard times is just as important as remembering the good. But since I didn’t, I decided to go back through my emails with my friends and put parts of them in a blog to fill in some of the blanks. While I have been given so much wise advice from my friends, I’ll have to save that for another blog and just include what I have written to them. I also didn’t bother including who I was writing to because I didn’t really think that mattered. I can freely share my heart with all my wonderful friends as I am doing right here.

7/25/07 “I’ve been just feeling totally BLAH. I’m not really spiraling emotionally but seem to be spiraling physically; I’m just tired, tired, tired…It has been very discouraging to me because I have spent so many years trying so hard to take good care of my body and it is just a mess. Lately it feels like someone has drained out half my blood and everything is SO much effort. I’m trying to just accept what my life brings me but I have had some days of depression over this.”

7/31/07 “I’m still really exhausted. But I’m always exhausted lately…I realized that I have probably been under spiritual attack again because I stopped “fighting” it. I felt better on Sat and Sun after I did. But I am under physical attack too and my body feels like it is wasting away and I don’t know how to fight that one. I’m doing everything I know to do but nothing is helping so far.”

9/2/07 “My week has been anything but quiet. Since I have been home, the stress level in my life has been thru the roof. God is certainly giving me opportunity to see how much I need Him every minute. I won’t get into details but there’s just been so much traumatic stuff going on in my family - with my kids, my Dad and sister having a huge blowout with me in the middle, my marriage. My head is pounding, I’m worn out from tension and I want to run away from home. But this too will pass. Unfortunately, all this falls the week my period is due and it should start any minute so everything is harder to deal with but I’m trying to keep things in perspective.”

9/4/07 “I did read the first two chapters of the book (He Loves Me by Wayne Jacobsen) but have been so distracted that I had a hard time focusing on them. I was happy that after reading the first chapter I realized that I really don’t doubt God’s love the way I used to. He has really changed my heart and given me a new trust in Him. Even when my circumstances are difficult, as they have been lately, I don’t find myself questioning where He is or if He cares. I know that chapter describes me for most of my life but it encouraged me to see that it doesn’t anymore. I guess everyone doesn’t have such a strong yearning as we do for a relationship with God but I’m so glad to have someone who understands that. And I can’t believe God would put that in us if He did not mean to fulfill it. I guess we still have so many misconceptions for Him to deal with yet that get in the way.”

9/7/07 “The tension in my life lately has even been too big for chocolate unfortunately. There has been a lot of stress with my family. But even harder to deal with has been this huge blowout between my Dad and my sister. My Dad is doing just what he did for 25 years after my mom and he split - putting me in the middle, badmouthing my sister, wanting me to pick sides. It has been a tremendous stress for me and I realized that partly that is because it is bringing up all the trauma of my childhood. Also there has been a lot of stress between Phil and me, mostly about my health and his lack of support and understanding. I’m doing a little better now and I am really working on learning to relax because I am seeing very clearly how I internalize and carry stress and how very much it affects me physically. I found out my chiropractor also does acupuncture and I have started a treatment series with her - it’s cool. She has a test that tells where your meridians are imbalanced and the worst one on me was my lung meridians which relates to lungs of course but also to grief, she said. I knew immediately why - I have never gotten over losing my mom and having no one left to take care of me. I couldn’t believe that was so strong after 8 years. I’ve been praying a lot lately and God has been working in my heart to convince me of His love. I have finally started writing in my blog again and plan on writing a number of entries in the next couple of weeks.”

9/11/07 “Here’s my thoughts on Ch 2 of the book: It was a very interesting concept that we have misunderstood God and that Jesus came as a human so we would not be too intimidated to have a relationship with him and could see God as a friend. I have always had such a hard time differentiating between the wrathful God of the OT and the loving God of the NT. The OT God as I understood Him was more like my Dad so it was easy for me to see Him that way. The relationship he describes on page 21, “Tender Images”, is what I have always longed for but, while I have seen glimpses of this kind of relationship with God, mostly it has illuded me and sometimes I think it is just too much to hope for. He says, “Don’t relegate this invitation to an abstract spiritual plane” and yet, as much as I long for something more real, I don’t find it. I have often said to God that one thing that is hard for me is that I need real contact, to be held, hugged, spoken to and that I do not experience any of that with Him but just have to have faith that He is there loving me in silence. So how can it be anything more than “an abstract spiritual plane”? I know that I am not satisfied with that but is there really more? He also says on page 22 that “To experience it, however, we need to appreciate just how much we are loved.” Maybe this is the key. I am only beginning to even honestly believe God loves me. Can I hope that as this trust grows, so will my experience of knowing Him? I don’t think I have really ever been one of those people who “believes” out of fear of hell but I have been one who has feared His disapproval in my life and always worked to try to achieve it while, deep down, never really believing it is possible. Of course, never having the approval of my earthly dad has just affirmed that feeling. At the end of the chapter, he says, “Is He more real than your closest friend…?” I thought how much I long for Him to be but the reality is no. I understand how you feel when you said today that you just want to stop thinking about God and your expectations of Him for a week. I’d like to do the same. And yet this longing in me is so strong, growing stronger all the time, for intimacy with God that I don’t think I could shut it off, even though I feel there is nothing I can do to accomplish it. I feel I could deal with the loneliness and the disappointments in my marriage if God would just meet that need in my heart. Though I worry He never will and I am feeling discouraged lately about it, I have to hold onto this hope because it is my lifeline and gives me reason to keep going.”

9/11/07 “All these things we desire can only be accomplished by Him, even enabling us to trust in His love. Satan is so sneaky that it is really easy to be off our guard from his attacks and blame them on God. Seems like I would know better by now but I still do it all the time. I need for God to free me from the trap of basing my relationship with Him on my feelings and circumstances too - and that would truly be a miracle! I do think God has been showing us His real love in spite of the misleading of others - look how He brought us out of the “church” and all the deception there to show us what true Christianity is. I thought his point (in He Loves Me) about Jesus’ friends not knowing he was God was interesting too and I had never thought of it that way either but of course we would all treat him differently if we knew.”

9/13/07 “I wanted to give you my thoughts on Ch 3 of the book: While I don’t think I consciously am motivated by the “threat of hell”, it probably subconsciously affects how I feel about God. Just that there is a hell and why would a loving God need to do that to anyone is difficult for me to understand. He does do a great job of explaining what a misconception we have when we are motivated to follow God out of fear and how this keeps us from accepting or understanding His love. His example on pg 26-27 of a friendship under the threat of “…if you don’t, I will hunt you down and torture you for the rest of your life” is such a great illustration of how God is viewed by the church. I could relate to the vicious cycle of “I can’t please him until I’m certain of his love for me, but he will not love me if I cannot please him.” (pg 28). I lived that for years. I thought his comment on pg 28, “did (God) get saved?” was hilarious. Finally someone is brave enough to voice this confusion. It’s so hard to reconcile the view we have of the OT God and the NT God/Jesus and I thought his explanation of our misconception of the OT God was very good. So His wrath is not towards us but towards sin which He so passionately wants to free us from, so he allows us to suffer from it’s consequences to see its devastating effects. It’s still kind of hard to grasp and accept, but again, that never seemed to be the fatherly motivation in my life. In fact, my dad seemed to enjoy punishing us very much. When you look around at people, it is obvious to see how this view, perpetuated largely by the “church”, has not inspired a desire for closeness to God but rather just obligatory obedience. I hunger for a relationship with God but I guess I have sometimes been guilty to some degree of just wanting “His goodies” (His blessings - p 30). When I read that, it made me think of my kids and realize that is just how they are with me. They don’t care about a relationship with me as much as what I can give them/do for them. Thinking about how much that hurts me helped me to see how we must hurt God. I know what rejection by my kids feels like and I can’t imagine all the rejection God faces from His children.”

10/1/07 “I’m going for a full physical and blood work. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of this but sometimes I think God just wants me to be this way and won’t let anything I do to feel better work. Who knows? But then, as far as my relationship with God goes, I don’t even like to think about it, because it is just discouraging to me these days. I almost feel like I am back where I started 8 months ago. It frustrates me that I am not able to accomplish closeness to Him, I can’t see evidence that He is accomplishing it for me and He seems so far away again. I can tell myself that I shouldn’t live by (or trust) my feelings, but that is the only way I know how to live. My experience last spring was so wonderful but I almost could wish I hadn’t had it only to know what I am missing.”

11/12/07 “I am getting ready this week for my college girls to come home for Thanksgiving as well as my Dad coming to visit. I am very disappointed about having him invade our family time that we were all looking forward to but it has been a long time since he has been here and I know that he was overdue to visit. My girls are unhappy about it and they will probably spend most of the week avoiding him which means I won’t see as much of them and I’ll be alone stuck with my Dad a lot except when Phil is home. I’m feeling pretty down about the whole thing. I’m also worried that my Dad will try to talk about my sister with me and we will end up getting in a fight over it. But who knows, maybe my Dad will even be pleasant!”

12/1/07 “My Thanksgiving was difficult and stressful. My dad was here and my college girls (who don’t like him) behaved horrible. I had bad PMS the whole time and Phil just kept himself removed. I was relieved when everyone left and it has taken me a week of crying to get over it. The whole experience has led to opening some deep, long time wounds between Phil and I but the beginning of a true healing too, I hope.
I have wanted so much to talk to you about God too. I feel as though I am back where I was…and I don’t understand why God even gave me the wonderful experience of last spring. All it has done is make me realize what I am missing. But between the struggle with this and my family, I just haven’t been able to reach out to anyone. I withdraw from people when I am down because I am so afraid of people seeing me like my Dad - always negative, unhappy and complaining.”

12/1/07 “I’ve been going thru a rough time with my marriage and I have been too upset to reach out to anyone lately. Thanksgiving was a disaster at our house - I had horrible PMS which didn’t help me cope very well. Anyway, it’s a long story and I don’t want to whine about it. I realized that these difficult times between Phil and me are necessary to bring deeper healing in our relationship and open our eyes to the true issues underneath the issues (if that makes any sense) and we are working thru one right now and though it has been hard, it is good.”

12/1/07 “I’d like to just skip Christmas - after our Thanksgiving, I am just dreading it. But I am hoping that my time with you will give me the strength to love my family thru it. Of course, my period is due right then, as usual.”

2/2/08 “I wanted to say about my blog that you are right, I know I should still write, even thru the hard times which I should remember as well, but I just can’t write. Sometimes I even have a blog in my head and want to write it but can’t bring myself to get it down in print. I can barely write emails. I can’t write and I can’t read - started reading “He Loves Me” and I got about halfway thru and couldn’t make myself read it anymore. I just have been on a negative spiral since last fall that I can’t seem to stop and I’m so weighted down by discouragement and fatigue that I am not functioning that well. I want to write again and I hope I will someday but the joy is definitely not in the journey for me right now. When I recently was saying to a friend that I didn’t understand why God would give me what I have dreamed of all my life (peace, joy, intimacy and trust in my relationship with Him - truly feeling loved by Him for the first time in my life) and then take it away and she said maybe it isn’t meant to be for all the time (you know, the valleys and mtn tops). I don’t understand how that could be. Why not? I’m not talking about living in perfect circumstances - I know life always has problems (and that didn’t change last spring) - but I don’t know why God would not want to always give me His peace and joy thru them. Doesn’t He always want me to know He loves me? But in fact, I feel so much less loved by Him because He let me know that peace and then took it away. And if it is up to me, then it could never happen and it never would have happened. But it did - and it wasn’t what I did or didn’t do.”

This is a quote from the “Little Miss Sunshine” movie that I thought was worth remembering. This is how I feel some days (like Dwayne)! But if Frank is right, aren’t I blessed? Then again, sometimes when I am whining to God, I realize how good my life is compared to so many and feel guilty to complain. Anyway, this is sure looking at the positive side of suffering:

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.

Frank: You know Marcel Proust?

Dwayne: He’s the guy you teach.

Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he’s also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh… he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, ’cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn’t learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you’re 18… Ah, think of the suffering you’re gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don’t get better suffering than that.