dictation from my closet

When I got up this morning and I knew I was already struggling with feelings of shame and self-loathing. I tried to reset myself with a worship song, tried to focus and pray. But it wasn't going well. I woke my kids up right before I left for the grocery store, so they would be ready for homeschool when I got back. But even while I was there ... the battle raged and I was losing. Its just I didn't really get that. When I arrived home one of my daughters - the one who pushes my buttons the most was still in her pajamas - it's been an hour - but she's basically accomplished nothing aside from feeding the cat. Now I'm super frustrated and I begin to lose it. I started yelling, just yelling at her, and yelling and yelling at everyone and then the scream that had been building was unleashed. I was totally unhinged.

The screaming didn't stop until my other daughter got in my face with tears in her eyes and yelled back at me. We all dispersed and went to our rooms, closed the doors and it was quiet. I sat in my room for what seemed like a long time and just wondered what the hell I was doing. What was that all about? 'Other' daughter went to my other two and prayed with them and got them started on schoolwork - because she's good like that - though she shouldn't have to be. I went to each of them and apologized for screaming at them. Later I apologized again and told them that this was definitely not about them - but was about me. I asked for their forgiveness. And again, back in my room, I shut the door and I realized that this scream was brewing for a long while. I had been needing to scream and just get stuff out. I even wrote about that recently. But I haven't been saying any of it out loud to my husband - to anyone. I just wish I hadn't spewed my shit all over my children. But that frustration was clearly the tipping point for me, the last straw on my interior haystack ... and the long brewing mess just blew up.

I've been ignoring?avoiding?unaware of the severity? of all that was brewing up underneath my surface. It's just really hard and I didn't know how to deal with it. No matter how many times I slap the truth over it - it doesn't seem to stick to me. And I FEEL like God has left me alone to deal with all this stuff on my own. He's not listening, is not present, he's not helping me. But I can not do this without Him. So here it was all out and about, and I didn't know what to do with it other than to confess my sin, and apologize to my kids -- but that simply is not going to cut it this time. I don't want THIS again. Whatever all of THIS was.

So as I thought back to the desperation and self-loathing that was brought out last week. Figuring that THIS had to be about them. What else would bring out so much horror? 

Last week I mostly thought about desperation and what that means. At first I wasn't sure if it was sinful. Heck, we sing songs about it -  I'm desperate for you - etc... and I didn't know if it was wrong or right, but I DID know is that it was pointed out to me for a reason. So I immediately confessed it. I talked it over with my friend one day at lunch trying to just understand it. I told her when I think of desperation I picture someone clawing his way through the desert looking for water. He can't stop or he will die of thirst. His longing will not let him stop. He is desperate. But I decided that this feels like striving. I'm still searching and trying to get it on my own. But we wondered how you keep the longing but get rid of the striving. What is the opposite of desperation? Because if I shut off my longing ... I literally have nothing left. That is all I have standing in for intimacy with The Lord right now - that longing ache is everything - which apparently falls under a bad 'desperate' column. 

That night as I fell asleep - I thought of it again - what IS the opposite of desperate? And then this image came to me ... instead of someone clawing through the desert looking for water ... what if they stopped, flipped themselves over on the sand, arms flung out, mouth open wide ... and they just waited. Waited for God to bring the water. This is the opposite of desperation: EXPECTANT. That's what this new picture is ... someone who is waiting on God to fill. And I realized I have shut that part of me off. As much as I have been waiting ... and have KNOWN no one else could fill me BUT God ... I stopped expecting Him to show up everyday. Because He hasn't shown up in any way that has felt like showing up. And in my exhaustion and delirium, I just kept clawing away on my own because I am so damn thirsty.

That's really what that Isaiah 41:17-20 passage is about. 

17 When the poor and needy seek water,

    and there is none,

    and their tongue is parched with thirst,

I the Lord will answer them;

    I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

18 I will open rivers on the bare heights,

    and fountains in the midst of the valleys.

I will make the wilderness a pool of water,

    and the dry land springs of water.

19 I will put in the wilderness the cedar,

    the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.

I will set in the desert the cypress,

    the plane and the pine together,

20 that they may see and know,

    may consider and understand together,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

    the Holy One of Israel has created it.

He is reminding me of what He has already said ... HE WILL FILL. HE WILL MAKE ME NEW. Terraforming is coming. I am in the chrysalis and change is happening. 

But - BUT my problem is - as I am sitting in my closet dictating these thoughts into my phone is that I doubt. Because it has been too long. And I am tired of feeling like I am doing all of this on my own. And no matter how many times I pray and ask for help - 'help' never seems to come. He hasn't filled, He hasn't rescued, He hasn't brought me water ... I get drips - damn drips - every other week -- just enough to keep me here but not enough to satisfy. And so I began my own clawing journey in hopes of finding something MORE. Herding from a distance is NOT the same. Knowing in my head you are here is NOT the same. The DRIPS don't SATISFY!

I don't know if I have stopped being desperate - though I have confessed it. Instead now I try and picture myself - laying out on the sand mouth wide open instead ... and waiting on God. But Lord, my lips are cracked and my throat burns and I am out of tears. 

Perhaps though my mouth/cup can not be filled because something - i.e.. self-loathing - is taking up too much space in me ... and based on that scream I know that must be true. How do I get rid of it? I don't think Im supposed to do this on my own? I don't want to scream at my kids again. I am tired and lonely, and my self-hatred seems to take up all of the air. Somewhere in here I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made - but my soul DOESN'T know it well. I feel like I have been praying that prayer for 20 years now - my heart still doesn't get it.

No matter how many times I reflect on scripture and try and see something about shame or self-loathing, or the image of God - it just doesn't strike me - it doesn't stick - it doesn't stay in - and I can't make it stay. I need revelation, and God has not seen fit to give it to me yet. So I don't how much longer I have to go on like this, You brought this to my attention. I have lived in it,  my kids and husband have experienced it - more than just today,  and now I don't know what to do to combat it. The enemy is just having a field day, and I'm letting him have a field day, and I hate that. How can I just throw scriptures out there in battle if I don't believe them? My heart can't receive the truth - but maybe that doesn't matter?

Because the truth is true in the end. Whether I believe it or not. So I want to declare truth to myself --I am fearfully and wonderfully made I want my soul to know it well. I want to know that I was created to be intimate with God and that He wants to be intimate with me. That He is calling me out of this into something better. And just because I don't know how to get there or what to do or what to read or what to focus on, and things just don't stick ... Lord, I just pray that you would show up, and that you would teach me something new, and that you bring revelation to my heart, and that you would change me. I'm tired of working, I'm tired of trying to figure it out, I'm tired of not hearing you in Scripture, I'm tired, and I don't I don't know how else to fight. I wish you would fight more for me, I wish it was easier to see that You're there,  I do know you're doing something, I just wish I knew what it was. I don't know what it's all for, I don't know when it will be over, and I want more breakthrough, I just don't know that I can go on like this.

Somehow I need to be thankful for the drips that come even though I want it to gush. You know I want water just to fall on me and take over,  that's just not what is happening. BUT I want to be thankful for the drips that you give me. Somehow they sustain something in me. I want to be thankful for the life that you've given me because it is good. Help me to remember that You're good, God, even when it's sucky and horrible, somehow your righteousness covers all the crap I do.

Jesus, forgive me for being such a mess. 

meeting place

I woke again this morning thinking about the condition of my heart ... the 2 things at the bottom of it... desperation and self loathing. How can it ever be quiet and be a meeting place with the Lord - if they are crowding it up? The answer is simple: it can't be ...

After the Potter's Inn retreat, I came home with so many things stirring ... even if I couldn't really get a grip on them... and so I began reading to try and keep things moving forward. So I read all the books I mentioned in an earlier post ... but the one I haven't mentioned was ' The Way of the Heart ' by Henri Nouwen. This one so far has me stopped in my tracks. It was an earth shattering read. He explains the Desert Fathers in a succinct and powerful way. He boils it down and helps apply it to our extremely loud culture. Because how can americans ever hope to emulate desert monks who viewed a solitary existence as essential to knowing Jesus? He offers three words to summarize - flee, be silent, pray - and then unpacks them to combat the 'comfortable self-centeredness' which so characterizes american culture.

I'm not going to get into all the particulars of the book in this moment ... I'll get to that in another post soon - but really I just want to get to the BIG takeaway for me... which is this: creating a solitary and quiet place to meet with God in your heart.

Hasn't this been my journey now for a while - to find and live in my union with Christ? And then I read about the desert fathers going and working it out in complete solitude - for decades at a time. BUT my problem is - I don't have that 'luxury' - I have a husband and 3 kids ... and as much as I would love to run away sometimes ... I'm pretty sure thats not what I am called to at all ... but man I still want to experience and live in my union with Christ.

Here are a few of the quotes that I'm chewing on from Nouwen:

' It is the heart that is the place of prayer. The prayer of the heart is a prayer that directs itself to God from the center of the person and thus affects the whole of our humanness. '

' Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at the point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God's Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, within us. '

' By its very nature such prayer transforms our whole being into Christ precisely because it opens the eyes of our soul to the truth of ourselves as well as the truth of God. '

So here's my take away from that ... That my oneness with Jesus already exists. I know this ... at least I know it in my head with a very limited experience of it. It exists in the place where the Holy Spirit dwells within me - because thats where our spirits touch -  and thus can become one. So to experience this oneness - to have an encounter with The Lord ... I need to descend into my heart to meet with Him face to face - my heart is the meeting place. Well what happens when my heart is covered up with all kinds of crap - things in the way obstacles? That's where this post comes full circle and I get back to looking at my desperation and self-loathing.

I wondered yesterday if desperation was bad ... we sing songs about it ... I'm desperate for you... like a beggar searching for food, or someone lost in the desert without water ... It feels like a search without end - it sounds like striving. Perhaps I don't need to be desperate at all especially if everything I need to be in union with Christ is already here. But I think the endless waiting is what has made me desperate. It's the dire 'please help' - I actually am starving - I actually am dying of thirst for Jesus ... how do I shut that off? It goes beyond just feeling that way ... its my whole mode of living. Its exhausting. Jesus said 'Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest...' I have come but He hasn't granted rest yet.

The self-loathing I recognize needs to go ... I get it again that 'self'-anything is a twisted up form of pride. What makes me keep swimming in it? What keeps it churning up? I think it's that unhealed place of shame - that 'I'm just not worth it' pile of garbage that still lives in the depths of my soul. It can't go away on its own - I can't wish it away - It  must be washed away through revelation and have it healed and replaced.

So what does this leave me with? Not much more than I started with ... I still have to wait - wait for Jesus to come and make more cracks in this chrysalis I am in.

tar and shame

I woke up this morning trying to connect to the ache in my soul. But it seems that even that connection to God was missing this morning. Usually, that's the only thing I feel - the ache of wanting to be near God ... now even that was silent this morning. In days past, I would wake up and let myself feel it, connect to it, let myself long for Jesus ... spend a couple minutes in prayer - or even just crying out in my heart - and then I would get up and start my day. And I would start my day then with very little expectation that the silence status quo would change. I would just move ahead with life ... knowing God is there but just feels so damn distant. Some days my faith feels stronger and I can accept what is ... and other days I just want to scream ... scream for all the things I want to change. I wrote a post about that yesterday but I haven't been brave enough to post it yet. Yesterday was a day I wanted to scream ... because even the ache is gone ... and I really don't want to go numb again ... I so don't want that...

As I sat on my couch this morning reading a novel ... I was struck with how quiet the house was. And I sat there for a minute longing to be outside - but it was too hot and sticky today. I tried to connect to my ache again there in the quiet ... but couldn't get there. I wondered what had frozen over in my soul ... like a puddle that melts in the days sunlight but freezes again at night. I thought about silence and solitude for a moment ... remembering what was spoken of on the retreat ... how silence is the gatekeeper to solitude ... and solitude is the meeting place of God. In that moment all I got was silence ... no meeting with God. But 2 things came into my mind as I asked my heart what was going on in there... desperation and self-loathing. 2 things that are at war within me - deep within.

My desperation was obvious to me ... that's the ache - my deep desire to be with Jesus - I couldn't feel it - but I could name its existence deep within. The self-loathing isn't really a surprise either ... I struggle to love myself - like myself - care about myself. I began thinking about how I look at myself in the mirror, I look with a lot of indifference lately. I just don't care about working at my appearance - or finding something pretty to wear - its all about comfort and convenience - and getting the job done. I am overweight and disgusted by it -- and when I catch a glimpse in a shop window or mirror on the go somewhere I hate what I see. I hate looking at myself in photos I hate even seeing my reflection in FaceTime. But its so much deeper than appearance, that's just an outer reflection of the inner reality. I just feel like I have a big tarpit of shame within and I am stuck in it ... not having any idea how to get out. I asked a short prayer - 'Lord, is self-loathing a sin?' I don't know and I didn't get an answer but I prayed and confessed it anyway. What can it hurt. I asked God to forgive me and teach me - to wash me.

Tar and shame are a messy business though ... I'm pretty sure it won't be that easy.

I read a quick article online about self hatred ... just to see what people say about it. It wasn't really helpful other than letting me know it is sinful. I guess I am supposed to know I am fearfully and wonderfully made - and the temple of the Holy Spirit - etc etc ... but it doesn't penetrate - just like everything else doesn't penetrate.

Then I remembered something from the retreat ... if we are describing ourselves like icebergs and only a fraction of who we are lives above the waterline ... then we need to get to know the stuff below  - ourselves below. But not just the good can be seen and blessed -- but we need to embrace the bad - the sinful - the ugly - and somehow learn to bless it. Walk with God into it and accept it as part of ourselves ... my problem I think is that I want to throw that stuff away and reject it. I want no part of it. In the article they talked a lot about perfection - trying to be perfect - and at first that didn't strike me - as me - I know I am a sinner ... I KNOW I need God - I am desperate for Him. But what if deep inside I'm still trying to do it all for myself - be perfect so I can be perfect so that deep within all will finally be quiet and settled - so I can be quiet for me.

I don't know ... just thoughts ... like I said tar and shame are a messy business. And I'm pretty sure I can't get out on my own.