I am pretty sure that my blogging skills were left in June, when the kids were still in school and quiet was a reality eight hours a day.
With them all home for the summer months, I was shuffling kids to summer sports, church events, friends houses and the library…and after a few attempts that led to massive frustration on my end, I gave up on trying to get in touch with the part of my brain that writes anything deep…anything that didn’t come immediately to my mind, fully formed and already structured.
Instead, I gave into the part of me that spent time with my kids in front of the TV, in the pool, in the backyard and in the car, filled with their friends…
…and I am so glad I did.
Discovering new life in the cool shade of my favorite tree
sister swim time
Our son is #1 at Summer Basketball…literally
Wednesday Night…teenaged boy/after church chaos
With a soft smile on my face, I realize that I will really miss this summer, as it was one of the best I have had…but am kinda excited to be back here too.
It is the one feeling that can keep us tied to the past…to horrible habits…chained down to a master who is wholly satisfied with our inability to see hope from the bottom of the hole that we have settled into. We all have things in our lives that we think back on that cause our faces to flush instantly.
I know there are quite a few “rabbits” that I have been chasing around in my mind only to wind up smack in the middle of my past self’s realities…. Suddenly, my heart is racing, my face is hot and I am literally looking around to ensure that the other people nearby weren’t able to watch the movie that just played out in my mind…that no one else knows what it was that I did before I became the me they now know. Then the voices come in – I can hear their heels in the halls of my heart as they make their way to parts of my mind that are vulnerable…to the sections of me that will believe the lies they bring when they scream them out at me.
“Stop trying to fight it. You know that you are still that person. Just give in and go back.”
“If people knew what you did, they would never like you.”
“If your friends had any clue how messed up you were before the you they know now…you would be all alone.”
“It’s your body. Do with it what you want to.”
“You deserve the right to be who you want to be. Why spend so much time fighting what feels natural to you?“
“There is no way that God can love you with all that in your past.”
The reality of it all? I am an addict. I lived as one, locked in the closet of denial and shame for many, many years. Then one day, God gave me a choice: out myself and my lies to everyone around me…or He would. I chose to do it myself because, well, I suffer from control addiction above all else!! From the moment that He allowed His holiness to hover in front of me while asking me to walk a blameless path, I began to struggle with those voices in ways that words can barely describe…but shame was the thing that kept its hands on my throat and its heart beating for mine.
It took me 2 years to actually get clean…but praise to the Lord, He saved me from that pitfall and I have many years behind me without the use of chemicals to get me thru. I stopped counting time awhile ago as I found that THAT was an entry way to my enemy’s tactics…trying to trip me up with how long I have been on the straight & narrow…and just how quickly he could help take it all away from me. I had a wise woman listen to my story and tell me “Stop saying you will never do it again. THAT is what is tripping you up – as soon as you give satan a timeline, you give him the win. Just take each moment for what it is…a moment.”
So why have I shared all this? I promise, I have a point. Yesterday I had the chance to hang out with some great friends…and last night, after everyone was gone, I remembered their smiles, their laughter and the truth behind their eyes…and I was overcome with the reality that I could have missed out on any of them simply because of a path called “Addiction”.
The one driving emotion that keeps addiction rolling is shame…and shame keeps you locked in a cycle because it reminds you how horrible you are…and how little you can do about it. It can shatter your life into pieces. It takes the fragile, glass bottle that is your life and starts to invade it. Soon small spider cracks can be found and then, in one swift move, it can knock your life to the ground, breaking it into thousands of jagged shards. I know…I have been there.
But from one cry sent upwards, those pieces can be used by the One who created them…by the One who loves your soul and cares about your life.
Aaron Shust has an amazing voice…and an amazing truth comes from his heart:
To God alone be the glory and praise!
I pray you will give God the chance to show you a glimpse of the artwork He can make from your life…your ups and your downs. I can say that because as I sit here, I know the depths of my lows and the places I was headed before He reached out for MY hand. I was at death’s door, happy to let it ALL go for the thing that allowed my mind and heart to go numb from the pain of my life…barely able to think, much less able to believe that one day I could be living life, sober…and FREE. Ernest Hemingway has a quote that really grabs my attention because of the Truth that lives within the simple words: “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
Although I will always be an addict when it comes to certain aspects of my life, I can be fully strong where I once was weak because He can use it. You can be strong where you are broken too. Really.
Feel free to let me know if you need help finding help off the road you are on…or if you just want prayer.
It seems that everyone must take up a side on new stories about people’s horrible choices… or their lifestyles… or their donation habits. The depth of emotions flowing from those sides of the “news” pour out in palpable waves, striking the reader in a myriad of ways…hardly any of them positive.
I have my own views on what is going on in the world…and there are moments when I feel it is time for me to pull out my soapbox and megaphone to announce them. I write my blog post or update my status…and then I take a deep breath and click “send”.
Those moments do happen…but there are oh. so. many. others subjects that leave me at a total loss for words. My own anger and frustration meets with heartbreak and sorrow as I scroll thru the chaos that we now consider news and the backlash that strikes out at anyone willing to stand up and take the “other” viewpoint.
It is those moments when I just don’t know what to say…
…when my heart fills up with emotions I don’t even know how to name…
…when my mind floods with all the words I want to say but won’t…
…when I start to add my two cents only to realize that I won’t do more than stir a pot already boiling over.
It was one of those moments for me tonight.
Emotionally charged over a news story, I sat in my computer chair, praying about whether or not to dust off my trusty soapbox…and then I clicked on a blog post entitled “why we need to be careful what we read (and post) online” and I took a deep breath, knowing I had found my answer.
Duane Scott has such a way with words and today he showed me that while there are times to stand up for what I believe…I shouldn’t do it when I am still in the trenches, battling the emotions that make me want to scream out my opinions. While I just might be right in what I think, I have to remember that I am called to be slow to speak and slow to anger because MY negative emotions do nothing to produce the righteousness of the God I claim to love (James 1:19-20).
I hope you will pop over to read the words of a very wise man…you can do so by clicking HERE.
{the thing I have always loved about poetry is that it gives my heart a language to speak with. the rules are there are no rules…and expression is completely loosed. no one else really knows for sure what is being said, even when the words seem totally clear, and so it gives the ability to hide while standing right in front of you. i love poetry…and i hope you don’t mind that I let my heart do the talking from time to time.}
