Category Archives: Pain

When Knowing The Story Just Isn’t Enough

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I am a writer.

Not because I am published or known by readers everywhere.

No, I am a writer simply because that is who I am.

I take what I feel & see and I translate it into words…and when I do this, somehow even in the midst of all I don’t understand, I find that I can be at peace with life.  I have done this since I was a teenager, in various forms of journals, letters and blogs over the years.  Poetry, songs, stories and confessions…the balance within my heart has always revolved around the words that poured out from my hands…whether it was read by an online group or just me & God, clarity was found when I stopped “doing” and just focused.

So you can imagine the damage done when I decided, not too long ago, to put away my pens and paper and stop translating life as I knew it.

I would love to say it was because it was just too hard.  It was, but that wasn’t what did it.

I wish I could just push the blame off on someone or something…anything to make it seem like it was a direct result of some horrible injustice done to me.  It was, but that wasn’t what did it.

I stopped writing because to write was to feel…and I didn’t want to feel because it hurt.

So I spent a very long time in silent mode.  I sat and watched the dust gather on my journal…and with every layer, I felt myself fade just a little more.  No longer taking in oxygen, I was trying to survive on gas fumes and was somehow convinced that I could do it.  I mean, I guess I didn’t totally realize that I was suffocating…at least, not in a sense that I could see that I was doing just as much damage to myself as life was trying to.  I knew that it hurt…no matter how I tried to pretend that I was still in control, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. pulsed with an ache that screamed to be acknowledged…and instead of taking the time to deal with it, I turned my back to look for a different path to take.

No. That’s wrong. I didn’t look…I demanded one that didn’t require me to be accountable for my responses…one that didn’t require me to speak to God, who I was blaming for the intensity of it all anyway (yeah…different post, different day)…one that didn’t make me get up and out of the comfort zone I had created from within the chaos.

I stopped writitng…and I was dying as a result.

With every passing day, my connection built with God over the years and experiences lived became nothing more than pretty memories, like favorite novels on a shelf.  Before long, I had an amazing library, filled with amazing books…but the moment came when I realized that I wasn’t content to own a magnificent collection of stories.  It wasn’t enough to know the stories or to remember who I was…oh no! I wanted needed to BE her again.  I wanted it so badly that I would sit and cry, rocking back and forth with longing to just feel like I belonged in my own skin again.  That girl in those books…oh, she had it together.  I mean, she wasn’t perfect by long shot…haha, hardly…but loving God was easy for her simply because she did it by being who He made her to be.

A writer.journal3

Two weeks ago, I picked my journal back up.

I cracked the pages and started simply…song lyrics and doodles, mostly.  But I did it – allowing my hands to play with the pen on the paper, knowing that eventually that girl would make her way down from the bookshelves.  I knew that while I hadn’t given God much of who I was lately, He never forgot who He created…and I guess I began to believe in me again simply because I knew, somehow, that He still did.

He always does…and as angry as I had been, how is it possible to stay that way in the face of pure grace??  Mmmm…I suppose I made it longer than I should have, but no longer than He knew that I would…and at that sweet fact, I am blown away by love, perfected.

I don’t have it all together yet.  In fact, I am still a little shaky on this whole “transparency” thing right now, finding it intensely scary to live in the light when I have chosen to make due in the shadows for so long now.

But I get up and dust myself off because I am not content with just being a reader of great novels in the library of my heart.

How can I be when I am not a reader?  No, I am a writer.

…because that is who He made me to be and right now, that knowledge is enough to fill my soul with a gentle peace that promises that everything will be ok as long as I walk with the One who knows me best…and loves me most.

This song…an offering of my heart from where I am tonight.  This post…just another step in getting up again.

Looking up, again…as always,

Bina

winter’s chill

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When winter breaks onto the scene, the chill freezes bone-deep in an instant, shocking the system into a full retreat.

The sesnes, scared into self-protection mode, override all wisdom and begin to pull deeply inward, unsure of anything that isn’t already bundled deep within itself.

When winter hits, the memory of warmth is as fleeting as a fragile leaf caught on a bitter wind…and the heart forces a full lock-down in an effort to keep from suffering in the chill.

~*~

Depression is a constant companion on my path in life.

Not exactly the one I would have chosen to journey next to, believe me…but it is there none the less.

For better or worse, always within earshot of my circumstances, it stands ready to jump up to take over whenever the waves seem to start churning around me.  Totally aware of its desire to get me to flee at the slightest hint of emotional response, I usually fight back against it as it reaches for my hand while walking.

…oh but sometimes…

…sometimes I am just undone at the offer of a corner to sink into…

…sometimes I am totally seduced by the promise of a bed with covers to pull back over my head…

…and when I am knocked to my knees by the overwhelming demands on my heart and mind, I drop my defenses against the tidal wave of the desire to “just sit here for a little while“.

Of course I know that nothing is actually fixed by bending beneath the pressure but I think that is the unnerving quality of depression that makes it so hard to resist: in the moments when I surrender to it, I am hurting more than I care about what does or doesn’t get done.

Everything is overwhelming.

Everything is attacking.

Everthing just is…and, while I know it isn’t the best thing to do, I am being given a “chance” to NOT be for just a little while and I just can’t say no…for, you see, depression is my Winter.

…but the great thing about seasons is that each one has its time and, for me, winter is beginning to thaw.

The simply, sweet seduction of Spring’s warm desire for life whispers over the chill in the wind…and for the first time in a long time, I find myself unlocking the doors and windows so I can take it all in again.

“My beloved speaks and says to me:

‘Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away,

for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come…’ “

Song of Songs 2:10-12a

Looking up, as always…

Bina

When Words Won’t Come

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I have really been battling the fact that I feel like a dry river bed when it comes to writing lately.

I’ve been reading the posts of friends and strangers…and even tho my spirit is greatly encouraged by their passion and creativity, a small part of me withers away a little more with each one because I can barely even write thoughtful words inside a greeting card, much less think of anything meaningful to write about.

“Where did my words go?”

I thought it was because I wasn’t as close to God as I had been.

Getting out of the daily routine of time spent with Him, I knew that I wasn’t doing myself any good…and knowing that I wasn’t doing myself any good, I pulled back from my deeper talks with Him.  The sight of my Bible, computer or journal was a scrape at the scab that had formed over the truth of a friend, avoided…and the more I tried to pretend my own turmoil didn’t exist, the more the numbness took over.

“Why can’t I say what I am thinking?”

Well, if that was the issue, I finally decided to solve it.

I prayed instead of staying quiet…I picked up my Bible and read chapter after chapter…Psalm after Psalm.  And after diving into His Word with the desire to float on the current of Truth, I found myself even more discouraged to find that the words. still. didn’t. come.  Holding a pen over a fresh journal page…staring at a white screen with a pesky, flashing cursor…and nothing…except that same numbing feeling of failure.

“What am I doing wrong?”

Last night, before shutting off the light for the night, I had the burning desire to read from the Bible.

Reaching over to take one I haven’t used in years off the shelf nearest the bed, I let it fall open to a space held by an old book marker…and my eyes were drawn to my own handwriting and then to the words they highlighted.

…and suddenly the need to write melted away under the realization that it hasn’t ever been about the writing.

It hasn’t ever been about me being able to express myself to anyone other than Him, the One who is the giver of my words…the One who is the only reason I can write at all.

The truth is that He really doesn’t care if my expressions come on a screen, or in a journal, or in the margins of my Bible…He only cares that they come.

In a quiet rush, realization hit me: The prayers that I have whispered and cried and lifted as song in the past week have been heard.  The feelings of worthlessness that have cut me down to size have been noticed.  The frustrations over not being able to do what I think I should be able to have been seen.  And in one moment, as my eyes took in the words that were both typed and written, I felt cradled by the Love I have so desperately wanted to feel connected to.

I realize now that I had simply misplaced the ability to write on the shelf labeled “worship” and, in doing so, I had let the enemy stir up the pot of “emotion” in my heart.  And as I finish up this post, my smile is so big it hurts…but as much as I wish I could put into words how amazing it feels to be able to express myself in words again, I just can’t…

…and that is totally ok with me.

Looking up, as always…

Bina

Here’s Your Sign

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She stood on the corner as I sat at a red light on my way to lunch one afternoon.

In cute jeans and a t-shirt, her left arm cradled a small dog and as I watched, she leaned over to put herself face to face with the little furry one. The pup craned his neck upwards and he sweetly covered her chin in small kisses which made her smile.

I lost myself in their obvious love relationship for a moment as I re-checked the status of the light. When I looked back over, she had turned a bit more my direction and that was when I noticed what was in her cradled softly within her right hand:

I looked up from the words on the sign and took more of her in…and it was then that I noticed small details I missed before.

The jeans were dirty and the shirt tattered on the ends.  A large, dirty backpack sat at her feet next to a dirty water bottle and a small dish for the puppy.  Just behind her sat a smallish pet carrier that shook ever so slightly, evidence of the missing furry one mentioned on her sign.

As the light changed, I lifted my foot off the brake and my eyes back up to her face one last time…and as she rubbed her cheek against the soft head of her tiny companion, I drove away…and have thought of her every day since.

 

I have heard the many arguments against giving money to the homeless who stand by on and off ramps of nearly every California freeway.  And while there have been times I have given…and others when I haven’t…I get it.  But the thing that hit me like a slap on the face with that girl and her little friends is this:

Why is it that the homeless will be honest with their needs,

but “we” work as hard as we can to make everything look ok?

Is it because they have “hit bottom” and we are still focused on climbing up the ladder?  Is it simply because they want a dollar to eat and we have a car full of groceries that our hips don’t need us to eat?  Or is it simply that they know that they have left nothing left to prove to the world and we are still convinced that we do?

I can honestly say that while I was in the midst of my spiritual low over the past few months…the only one that really knew what was going on in me was God.  I put on the mask, went to church, told people I would pray for them and nodded along with a smile on my face as people shared about the joys of their own spiritual journeys.  I put on my mask…and I lied.

I have a number of people in my life that, had they had even the smallest of inklings about where I was inside, would have knocked down my front door to get to me.  They would have prayed…encouraged…reached out…sat with me in my small corner, whispering the words of Truth I no longer had the strength to remember.  I was alone because I wanted to be alone…because I refused to drop my everything-is-peachy-keen-pride and ask for help.

 

Sure, I can argue that the signs were there to the ones with a trained eye: I hadn’t blogged, journaled, been seen with a Christian book, found listening to Christian music or heard actually praying out loud.  My daily attitude was rocky at best and my outlook had turned into the worst-is-most-possible…I was always tired and hardly ever washed my hair.

But is it anyone else’s fault for not seeing what I was desperately trying to hide?  No…the blame was with me…because I can fake it with the best of them and, in doing so, isolate myself to the point of despair.

I am not beating myself up with this - although I am highly upset at myself because I know better – but I am bringing out the two points that slapped me as I drove away from the girl with her puppy and unseen kitty:

…if you are hiding, know that it is ok to drop the act and ask for help, even if you can only whisper it…we are made to need the fellowship of each other and there is someone you can reach out to…and if you have no one else, my email is binaspad at yahoo dot com.

and

…if you are doing ok, take a look around your church and workplace. Look for the little signs that someone is hurting…and take the chance to reach out to them.  They may say they are fine and knock away your hand as you reach out…but if and when they are ready to get up, they will remember that you care…and even their declaration of “I’m fine” can’t stop your prayers that they find their footing again.

PS…if I don’t blog for longer than a week, you have my permission to flood that email address with emails asking me if I am ok and, if you think I am faking it, call me on it and send me a copy of a link to this blog post ;o)

Looking up, as always…

Bina

>The Eye Of The Storm

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~*~
You are the eye of the storm.
The storm wouldn’t be there if you didn’t exist.
~*~

They were words on a blog screen…written by a faithful hand, surely not aware of the impact they had on my heart.  They were nothing more than a thought laid out…written from a place in the heart of a wonderfully expressive blogger buddie…Alisa …and I have carried them in the back of my mind every day since.

I’m not new to the walk of a Christian…nor am I naive to the lack of “ease” that comes in following the path God has laid in front of me. 

I have had my world explode more than once, leaving me standing in the center of mortar shells and dead bodies, wondering who shot first and numb to the fact that I may have been hit in the battle.  I have held my heart in my hands, watching it sputter and gasp for air as each tender beat rips my chest anew. 

I have had the wind knocked from my lungs, both literally and figuratively, and have known the desperation that comes in the desire for just a simple breath.  I have laid more than one Isaac down, poising the knife in the air as every fiber in my body pulsed with the hope that He would call out and say “Don’t do anything because now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me this thing.” 

All this…and yet it never fails that just around the corner can come a sucker punch so powerful that I will fall to my knees, broken in a way that makes me forget every time before.

All this…and yet it never ceases to amaze me how vulnerability leaves me open to pain in a way that I cannot comprehend until the sword is thrust in from behind, leaving me as shocked as I am hurting.

All this…and yet when I find the storm raging afresh…the tornado raging, circling all around…the enemy’s battle cry raising against my own screams, drowning out my heart and my tears…

it.

just.

hurts.

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Today, I sat on my childrens’ swing…numbly moving myself back and forth, in and out…toes in the dirt, vacant in action as I poured out my soul in broken tears.  The questions poured out of my heart, lifted up in sobs from a voice lost to the pain:

Does she know what she’s done?
Does this need to happen?
Does this pain in my heart result in Your glory?
Does she even care?

Do You have any idea how badly this hurts?
Do You even remember me?
Do You know how this is killing me?
Do You see me now?
Will You use this?
Will You heal her?
Will You heal me?
Will You hold me, O God, please, will You hold me?!?

But in the midst of the chaos and the sobs, I hear it play again:

~*~
You are the eye of the storm.
The storm wouldn’t be there if you didn’t exist.
~*~

…only this time it is followed up with the words of His own heart, as He prepared to feel the stabbing pain of betrayal yet to come… as He was about to be knocked to His knees in pain so deep that His forehead would break out with sweat made of His own blood…  as He would lay on the ground, pleading with His own heart to find another path, another way, another plan…and as He would still, in the face of it all, accept the blow for the glory of His Father:

Now…my heart is troubled within Me.
So.
What shall I say?
“Father, save me from this hour”????
NO!
For it was for this very reason that I came!
No…
“Father…glorify Your name!”

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Hours have passed since the swing.

My eyes aren’t swollen anymore and the wound, while still tender and fresh, is mending…wrapped in the loving hands of an expert Physician.  Forgiveness has already been given…and love already does its work as I seek to find His hand, even in the carnage left on the field around me.

Why?

Because I know that if I wasn’t His, this storm would have no point.

Because I know that if I wasn’t His, this wouldn’t hurt like it does.

Because I know that if I wasn’t His, the pain wouldn’t have the same impact or purpose.

Because I know…that this moment, as many others, was meant for me…made for me…allowed for me…granted onto me…entrusted to me…established for me…this moment is mine, to do with as I will because He trusts me to turn and bow to His will, despite the impact of the searing pain.

And so I lay it down, without getting it or understanding the reasons why, and I know that my strength will come with the light of a new morning…and in the chance to draw ever closer to the One who knows all that I don’t.

What are your storms?
Where can you apply the truth that whatever rages around you, you are not outside the control and hand of the Lord?
How, dear friends, can I pray for you?

Listening to Take No Glory’s “This Christmas Time” while looking up as always…