From an old Journal Entry

Not better ~ Not worse ~ DIFFERENT…hard realization for me in fact I can still fall into looking for those better or worse than me rather than realizing how different we all are.

I had a normal 50-60’s childhood
Catholic large enough family
Married young to the ‘perfect’ husband producing the ‘perfect’ family (w/dogs even)

IF everything was so perfect, why was I so scared to death my kids were going to end up just like me??

Because IF I stopped long enough to ‘think’ about it, ‘it’ wasn’t so much perfect as something was missing ~ so it was easier to not think about it. After all I could always find those worse off than me.
Having your children close to leaving makes you think. There had been brief moments before where perhaps a mild panic attack would set in but there were many things I could do to stop ‘thinking’
*Have another child
*Get another dog
*Join something
*Volunteer somewhere
*Party with friends

But with a Senior in HS the inevitability of her leaving was undeniable…”God... I had to find God for her before she left, they left.”

Around this time there was a funeral for a friend of my daughters, a suicide, a dad killing himself his daughters SR year…??It was a Catholic service and I hadn’t been to church in a LONNNNG time, expected to feel guilty and hear …
you know I don’t know what I ‘thought’ I would hear but I didn’t. It was Roy and what he said was ‘different’ from anything I had ever heard at a Catholic funeral, let alone a suicide. He made me think~ To ‘think’ differently meant thinking period and I pretty much led a ‘reactive’ life, avoiding too much thinking. Any questions I had scared me and so don’t think just:
*Have another child ~ but oops we were too old
*Get another dog ~ but by then we had found out we weren’t DOG PEOPLE
*Join something ~ the kids were too old for PTA so I started different things
*Volunteer somewhere

I was thinking, but for me it is more ‘obsessing’ and in the obsessing... panic was setting in. So we went to this church at the Community Center and THIS was a big deal because we were cradle Catholics and were a bit scared of anything outside the norm and for us NORMAL was Mass, no matter if it was unsatisfactory or not THAT was our normal. But we went and
*It was entertaining
*They talked about God wayyy different that I had ever heard
*They talked about a ‘hole’
*They encouraged us to ASK questions, I had grown up being told OBEDIENCE
was what was important…
*They talked about the Bible and it’s place in their lives

This was very different and somewhat scary and yet very intriguing.
In being intrigued I wanted to join a Small Group and this is when it got very interesting. Before, friends were about talking about or complaining about life, having fun and drinking and escape or at least it felt like being with them was an escape, for me anyway. We talked about ‘stuff’, except for what was going on inside of us..... I wouldn’t /couldn’t talk about what I was thinking without obsessing so just IGNORE and push it down.

In Small Group this guy would talk about himself and what God was showing him ~ about how he was this miserable sinner?? Every week Dan and I would walk out shaking and scratching our heads thinking….what the hell is he talking about??
And yet we were intrigued.
They encouraged questions and never made us feel bad about what we were asking or what we didn’t know
They talked about REAL stuff
They asked us questions and listened and made us feel heard
They challenged us and encouraged us and made us THINK
They talked about Jesus like they KNEW Him and that made me WANT to know Him too.

It took a depth of thought for me that I had always been scared of and then I recognized or God showed me that depth of thought did not have to lead to obsessing.
I read a quote that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results and that in my obsessing I was THAT definition and I discovered that depth of thought was leading me to change and as scary as that was, I wanted to change.
We were reading all sorts of books and experiences from those books and discussions were huge for me.
IN reading Abbas Child, hearing that ‘God was fond of me’
In reading Return of the Prodigal- seeing myself as the prodigal son~ well first I had to see myself as the elder brother but seeing him as AWAY from the Father.

WE got baptized, not sure even then I KNEW what I was doing but I KNEW I wanted to spend the rest of my life figuring it out……

We got in to Small Group Leadership and that brought lots of challenges. Seeing myself as filled with judgement and expectations (real Elder Brother stuff ). So seeing myself for who I really was, a snake in a basket is the picture I got. A pretty enough, functional enough basket unless you didn’t appreciate my look and function and ‘started beating on the basket asking me questions' and then I would strike.
I discovered that how I did and do things to make myself look and feel better.
Being a people person that hurt because I thought’ I did things FOR others but in reality everything I did and do without Christ is about getting you to like me, to approve of me, to affirm me. I am addicted to, driven by a need for others approval.
So when Roy said to BE SG leaders we HAD to read the Bible and journal our thoughts. I did it.
THAT changed me, is changing me. It is making me think differently and in that depth of thought I got/get scared and confused. And in that fear and confusion I found something bigger than me.
And I am so grateful for that because during this time my middle daughter was depressed ~ depressed to the point of almost needing hospitalization. And I remember asking Roy “how can we FIX her” ...Why couldn’t we give her this new religion we had found??

His answer totally pissed me off. He said, ‘You can’t give away what you don’t have’

That for me is when the rubber hit the road ~
This better be real because if it’s not then….
I cried out to God ~ prayed ~ wrestled with everything.
In that wrestling I always lost and yet in the losing God was getting bigger and bigger. The bible was becoming food for me. He was becoming my comforter ~ my provoker~my protector ~ my challenger.
IF He could love a snake in a basket and more and more I saw that THAT was what I was…Then THIS GOD ~ seeking Him ~ could ‘fix’ anything.

Fix is not about what I know .
Seeking Him~ wrestling with Him ~ losing to Him
IT IS in the losing that I have experienced GRACE….
I TRUSTED Him and His plan.
I don’t know it
I don’t maybe always LIKE it
But I can trust it and stop managing …fixing everything and TRUST His mystery…His goodness convinces me.

So in ‘depth of thought’ (in thinking still) I saw /see who I was, where I was and instead of running away ~ ignoring it….All that other people had told me about why Jesus died became personal.

Again I didn’t LIKE it but I’m not sure we ever LIKE the TRUTH.
And the truth is Jesus lived , was born to save us from ourselves. He died to make us right with God. And I will be on the journey the rest of my life to accept the magnitude of that truth. So I love that it is a journey and I believe and trust the mystery of God.

Addendum: 04/27/10
The truth, been engaging friends and fellow sojourners about where TRUTH comes from. The responses are fun and yet not as prolific and conversational as I wanted......

I think David and Peter were drama queens....
I mean look at David, always giving all credit to God and the Psalms...good lord, lamenting loudly to You. And Peter, well look at him on the boat all his buddies are sleeping and awed by Jesus walking on the water and Peter's like....'look look look at me...can I come and walk with you?'...
and I think I may be one too....feeling emotions powerfully and realizing I don't, people don't like drama queens so I try to push down that part of me....and if the truth is I am a drama queen how do I live in this world in love with, wrestling with, seeking You and Your heart in a way that doesn't offend people?? Doesn't make me look weird?