Disclaimer: I do not understand why, but the formatting for this post has proven to be most irritating, and no matter how I save it, it will not publish the same way. I apologize for giant paragraphs that run together, but I give up. I have redone and respaced over and over for two days and I can't take anymore. Here you go.
Right off I must apologize. Some of you may have wondered where I went, or that I let you down, even that I fulfilled your prophecy of, "She won't keep this up for-ev-errr!"
Truth of the matter is I delight in this blog. I delight in the story the Lord has given me to tell, as I figure out how to do that. All of a sudden, I am writing, and the feedback is that although long, it reads well, and that I have an apparent 'talent' for writing. To have a blog was never in my mind - one that people actually read - or even to write at all, but then again, that is God.
Just before I came to know the Lord, I had an idea to write a historical novel. I mean, I love 15-16thcentury anything, I love history, right? Since Phillipa Gregory has Tudor based historical fiction covered, I thought I would go the Italian route in attempt to use my time and talent well. A perfect figure came to mind that you have seen painted many times. Her life would make an excellent novel. My then boyfriend was an English professor and was sick of my 'meta talk,' but I couldn't write. It is daunting to stare at a blank screen to simply come up with something. That urge, that unexplainable desire, was the one of the ways of God teaching me to listen -- when I wanted nothing to do with him at all.
But then one day, in the midst of trying to save our relationship, I tried something new. And all of a sudden, it's like I can't stop the words. If I could write everyday like I was, I would. Totally. Some folks have even suggested that each entry is like a chapter in a book. In the process of learning how to write by simply writing, I began to wonder if this is in itself a ministry, with the traffic this blog sees. In shock and awe, I'd check the heartbeat of the stats, and I began to watch this blog a little too closely. In Jeff's response to his viral You Tube video I was convicted. It was becoming more to me than it should be, right.off.the.bat-- even before he prayed-- I was convicted. The heart that began it was for Jesus, but it sneakily began to flutter in response to this blogs 'success.'
Whatsmore, this video is at the very core of why I hated God, what these "christians" were to me, so it immediately had my attention. This video got to the very heart of my experience. So how then could I allow the 'success' of showing others what the Lord has done for me supplant the importance of my own child? That is what I began to do - Amelie would entertain herself while I just 'fixed' something, you know. Even though I spent the day writing while she was at school, I'd need to fix something that would easily turn in to thirty minutes - hence not making time for her. I had to take some time to check my heart and step away. Otherwise, I would be handing my child the same sentiment I carried, in that I was abandoned for God.
A hard heart was formed in me because it was religion that ruled in my childhood home, and it fueled self righteous pride that left me to say my entire life that religion was used as a weapon. But I am learning, that isn't even the root of my disgust, there is more that I do not yet know but am gently being shown. I have nothing concrete except a very real and weighty knowing that was revealed the morning I shot my testimony at Prestonwood. Puzzle pieces that have been missing in my life are beginning to fit. Rather, the shapes of the missing pieces now make sense and the belief in the promise that 'He will restore the years the locusts have eaten,' is huge. Those pieces will reveal themselves in their right time.
Much has happened in my absence from the blogoshpere. Attending the Association of Biblical Counselor's conference on my birthday weekend, I was given more than I ever expected to receive. As I walked past a vendor table on my way to somewhere, I saw out of the corner of my eye a little black book simply entitled Cutting. It piqued my interest being a gal that used to cut herself, and so I picked it up out of sheer, simple curiosity. I opened to page five, flipped to page six, got about halfway through, and my breath began to get short. Thinking this was ridiculous, I pushed through to page seven and then dropped the book in an absolutely crushing panic and found a room that felt safe enough for every single tear that could, wrenched itself from my body and fell like boulders crashing to the ground. I learned on April 26, 2012, the day before my thirty-third birthday, that I misunderstood the why behind my cutting. All I remember is how much better cutting made me feel, and so I thought that was the why. That is the day I came to know I have misunderstood my own coping mechanism.
Would you believe on the last day of the conference, the author, Jeremy Lelek was speaking on this book, and it took everything I had to stay in that room. By a strength that did not belong to me, I made it through most of it, but left fifteen minutes from it's end. I knew it was good for me to hear and to simply know, but I just couldn't take anymore.
What's awesome about this? At the close of the conference, they gave away some things,which was a total and complete surprise. By God's grace, I won the 'grand prize' - and I never win anything. I won the entire Equipped to Counsel DVD set that is used for certification in Biblical Counseling via ABC. I also had the pleasure to share my story with Jeremy and chat with him a bit.
There was so much more that happened in this conference. First of all, it centered around Colossians, the very book that contains my life verse. Before I had even met Jeremy, I was feeling called to ministry, and wondered what, where, how? What is my place in this thing that is so...big? I had asked the Lord to show me. When I met Jeremy, it was answered. In congratulating me on winning the curriculum, he asked if I also received the book that goes with it. I hadn't, though I had already eyed them. There were three options: Student, Pastoral, and Leader. He handed me the one for those in Leadership. There you go. Something to do with leadership. Much to my surprise, I just had to chuckle.
After leaving the conference, on our Wonderful Counselor, I took my daughter, Amelie, swimming at the public pool. There was no where to sit, so I sat on the ground. A few minutes after my arrival, an older gentleman by the name of Cecil decided he would sit down next to me. He's a grandpa who brought his two grandbabies to the pool. One of his upper front teeth was missing. He had deep wrinkles and rough hands. He told me he was a Vietnam Vet, and so, I thought I'd express my concern for my next door neighbor who is also a veteran of Vietnam that has become quite the recluse. This got us chatting on the subject of memory.
It allowed me to see inside his heart that also hurts. He continued to tell me how he essentially justifies his existence on earth by being a 'good person.' He described his memory like a file cabinet. As he described this cabinet, you could see that battles are still waging, still screaming their muffled battle cries, stuffed into the confines of dusty and dimly lit pockets of memory that are anything but manilla with a weighty label called guilt. "The file is always there," he said, "You just gotta find it. You can bury it... but it never goes away, and sometimes it just shows up." Just in hearing his heart, I told him my story, and how I just became aware of the fact the Lord took my memory for a reason, and will restore it as I can handle it, because above all, Jesus is a gentleman, who can relate to anything we have ever been through.
So here we were. Two complete and total strangers, with a good thirty years between us, on a wet, concrete floor at the public pool, where the air is humid and your eyes burn from chlorine fumes, and we sat together. While chatting, I felt the nudge that said I should share my story with him. I pulled out my earbuds, asked him if I could show him something and we each took one earbud and watched my video testimony. This opened up conversation about Christians and how awful they are. Oh boy! I understood what he was saying alright and so that led me so show him Chandler's video about The Explicit Gospel. He was a little taken aback by this, shocked almost and he was precious, I'll tell you! He began to talk about how that big monstrosity up there on the other side of Plano, you know-- that BIG church -- Jesus wasn't in that place. All they wanted was your money.
I told him then that the little voice he'd mentioned that told him to sit down next to me? There was a little more to that voice he might like to know, and I thanked him for listening to it, because that was Jesus. When I told him that video was shot at that church, the Prestonwood I too disliked and judged ages ago, you should've seen that man's jaw drop to the floor.
It was awesome to talk to this man. I will never forget it. It truly was a defining moment for me. I would ask you to pray for this man named Cecil. We sat together in the public pool talking about Jesus. After seeing this video and talking some more with me, he looked straight into my eyes, complete with a little bit of a twinkle, and said, "You know, you should look into being a counselor." That's when I had the absolute pleasure to explain to this simple man named Cecil with a missing front tooth what a Godwink is. I just left a three day conference on Biblical counseling not four hours before this very conversation. That is just how creative our God is, how he's in everything we have ever done, will ever do, or ever become, just because he made it all. Even our meeting.
On my way to work the night I met Cecil, this is the view I had, and all I could do was sing the song below. What a promise that I am on the right path! To know that I am supposed to share my story, that he will redeem the darkness, and that although painful, like childbirth itself, it is worth it. It's strange. You know something isn't right. You have an idea, yet you are terrified to name it. This is primarily, Dear Reader, why I have been silent. The Lord is showing up in a mighty way, and everything in me wants to tell about it, the ins and outs of these small glimpses into an unknown past, but I am not yet ready to admit them even to myself. But God is working it out. Through the moment I had with that book, and both of these videos, I have come to understand there is more to me than I ever suspected.
A wise woman once told me, "Without your past, you have no future." The best part about that is the fact I have the last year behind me to remember how faithful the Lord is, and an exciting future ahead of me as I learn how to embrace the call that has been placed on my life, and for that I am so incredibly grateful. I had no idea what was coming my way, but all I can tell you is-- she's right.
Right off I must apologize. Some of you may have wondered where I went, or that I let you down, even that I fulfilled your prophecy of, "She won't keep this up for-ev-errr!"
Truth of the matter is I delight in this blog. I delight in the story the Lord has given me to tell, as I figure out how to do that. All of a sudden, I am writing, and the feedback is that although long, it reads well, and that I have an apparent 'talent' for writing. To have a blog was never in my mind - one that people actually read - or even to write at all, but then again, that is God.
Just before I came to know the Lord, I had an idea to write a historical novel. I mean, I love 15-16thcentury anything, I love history, right? Since Phillipa Gregory has Tudor based historical fiction covered, I thought I would go the Italian route in attempt to use my time and talent well. A perfect figure came to mind that you have seen painted many times. Her life would make an excellent novel. My then boyfriend was an English professor and was sick of my 'meta talk,' but I couldn't write. It is daunting to stare at a blank screen to simply come up with something. That urge, that unexplainable desire, was the one of the ways of God teaching me to listen -- when I wanted nothing to do with him at all. But then one day, in the midst of trying to save our relationship, I tried something new. And all of a sudden, it's like I can't stop the words. If I could write everyday like I was, I would. Totally. Some folks have even suggested that each entry is like a chapter in a book. In the process of learning how to write by simply writing, I began to wonder if this is in itself a ministry, with the traffic this blog sees. In shock and awe, I'd check the heartbeat of the stats, and I began to watch this blog a little too closely. In Jeff's response to his viral You Tube video I was convicted. It was becoming more to me than it should be, right.off.the.bat-- even before he prayed-- I was convicted. The heart that began it was for Jesus, but it sneakily began to flutter in response to this blogs 'success.'
Whatsmore, this video is at the very core of why I hated God, what these "christians" were to me, so it immediately had my attention. This video got to the very heart of my experience. So how then could I allow the 'success' of showing others what the Lord has done for me supplant the importance of my own child? That is what I began to do - Amelie would entertain herself while I just 'fixed' something, you know. Even though I spent the day writing while she was at school, I'd need to fix something that would easily turn in to thirty minutes - hence not making time for her. I had to take some time to check my heart and step away. Otherwise, I would be handing my child the same sentiment I carried, in that I was abandoned for God.
A hard heart was formed in me because it was religion that ruled in my childhood home, and it fueled self righteous pride that left me to say my entire life that religion was used as a weapon. But I am learning, that isn't even the root of my disgust, there is more that I do not yet know but am gently being shown. I have nothing concrete except a very real and weighty knowing that was revealed the morning I shot my testimony at Prestonwood. Puzzle pieces that have been missing in my life are beginning to fit. Rather, the shapes of the missing pieces now make sense and the belief in the promise that 'He will restore the years the locusts have eaten,' is huge. Those pieces will reveal themselves in their right time.
What's awesome about this? At the close of the conference, they gave away some things,which was a total and complete surprise. By God's grace, I won the 'grand prize' - and I never win anything. I won the entire Equipped to Counsel DVD set that is used for certification in Biblical Counseling via ABC. I also had the pleasure to share my story with Jeremy and chat with him a bit.
There was so much more that happened in this conference. First of all, it centered around Colossians, the very book that contains my life verse. Before I had even met Jeremy, I was feeling called to ministry, and wondered what, where, how? What is my place in this thing that is so...big? I had asked the Lord to show me. When I met Jeremy, it was answered. In congratulating me on winning the curriculum, he asked if I also received the book that goes with it. I hadn't, though I had already eyed them. There were three options: Student, Pastoral, and Leader. He handed me the one for those in Leadership. There you go. Something to do with leadership. Much to my surprise, I just had to chuckle.
After leaving the conference, on our Wonderful Counselor, I took my daughter, Amelie, swimming at the public pool. There was no where to sit, so I sat on the ground. A few minutes after my arrival, an older gentleman by the name of Cecil decided he would sit down next to me. He's a grandpa who brought his two grandbabies to the pool. One of his upper front teeth was missing. He had deep wrinkles and rough hands. He told me he was a Vietnam Vet, and so, I thought I'd express my concern for my next door neighbor who is also a veteran of Vietnam that has become quite the recluse. This got us chatting on the subject of memory.
It allowed me to see inside his heart that also hurts. He continued to tell me how he essentially justifies his existence on earth by being a 'good person.' He described his memory like a file cabinet. As he described this cabinet, you could see that battles are still waging, still screaming their muffled battle cries, stuffed into the confines of dusty and dimly lit pockets of memory that are anything but manilla with a weighty label called guilt. "The file is always there," he said, "You just gotta find it. You can bury it... but it never goes away, and sometimes it just shows up." Just in hearing his heart, I told him my story, and how I just became aware of the fact the Lord took my memory for a reason, and will restore it as I can handle it, because above all, Jesus is a gentleman, who can relate to anything we have ever been through.
So here we were. Two complete and total strangers, with a good thirty years between us, on a wet, concrete floor at the public pool, where the air is humid and your eyes burn from chlorine fumes, and we sat together. While chatting, I felt the nudge that said I should share my story with him. I pulled out my earbuds, asked him if I could show him something and we each took one earbud and watched my video testimony. This opened up conversation about Christians and how awful they are. Oh boy! I understood what he was saying alright and so that led me so show him Chandler's video about The Explicit Gospel. He was a little taken aback by this, shocked almost and he was precious, I'll tell you! He began to talk about how that big monstrosity up there on the other side of Plano, you know-- that BIG church -- Jesus wasn't in that place. All they wanted was your money.
I told him then that the little voice he'd mentioned that told him to sit down next to me? There was a little more to that voice he might like to know, and I thanked him for listening to it, because that was Jesus. When I told him that video was shot at that church, the Prestonwood I too disliked and judged ages ago, you should've seen that man's jaw drop to the floor.
It was awesome to talk to this man. I will never forget it. It truly was a defining moment for me. I would ask you to pray for this man named Cecil. We sat together in the public pool talking about Jesus. After seeing this video and talking some more with me, he looked straight into my eyes, complete with a little bit of a twinkle, and said, "You know, you should look into being a counselor." That's when I had the absolute pleasure to explain to this simple man named Cecil with a missing front tooth what a Godwink is. I just left a three day conference on Biblical counseling not four hours before this very conversation. That is just how creative our God is, how he's in everything we have ever done, will ever do, or ever become, just because he made it all. Even our meeting.
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